User Reviews

I saw this film while in college back in the 1970's and was amazed and disturbed. I think it was banned or hard to find at that time. My professor was able to get a copy. It is difficult to describe this documentary. It was sad, harshly realistic and horrific. This was how inmates/patients were treated, but again, it was the 1960's. They were likely using the same treatment methods since the 1920's. One interesting note, I met one of the patients who was in the film. He had been released and apparently was doing well enough. I'll not identify him because he was well known in his community. He remembered the filming, but did not know that he was famous for it. He has since passed away, but many people remember him fondly. If there can be a bright side to this film, I guess that's it.

When someone asks me "What's the best documentary you've ever seen?" I find myself in a quandary. The best documentary I've ever seen is Titicut Follies, but for the life of me I couldn't recommend it. That's because this stark portrayal of the "treatment" of the insane at a Massachusetts state asylum is terrifyingly, horribly disturbing. The documentary reflects the horror of its subject matter. Once seen, it is unforgettable. I find it difficult to take responsibility for exposing another person to this film. And that is probably the highest compliment I can pay it.

Like Mr. Pierson, I find it strange to give this movie a "10" since it is not something to see for a good time.

When I saw this movie in 1972, I considered myself very lucky, since I was from Massachusetts, where it was banned, and saw it only because it was shown in my Psych class in college in New York State. We had a special showing for our class and (literally) were told not to eat before seeing the film.

There was quite a bit of controversy over it, and over Bridgewater in Massachusetts back then, somehow I just assumed that the film would be available and not banned by now. The ban only protected the state of Massachusetts, really, from being portrayed as a government that ran an prison for the criminally insane where people only went in, and never came out, where prisoners were mistreated, and where the craziest person in the place was the warden. Bridgewater was used as a threat to people at the Charles Street Jail to keep in line, it was considered like a death sentence. Massachusetts probably wasn't alone, I've heard that Napa was used as a threat to people in San Quentin back then as well.

How strange about it still being restricted, I hadn't thought of it in a long time and was actually researching hunger strikes when it crossed my mind. I wonder how Bridgewater in the '60s compares to anything now.

I've had the good fortune to see TITICUT FOLLIES, which for legal reasons has long been a difficult thing to do. It's an appalling, unnerving, and deeply important film. It has cut into my mind the way very few films, documentaries or otherwise, have succeeded in doing.

I urge people, documentary fans or no, to seek this out. It casts a terrible reflection on society's view of the mentally ill, and the treatment thereof. Perhaps the conditions at Titicut have improved, but I'm not sure society's attitudes have at all.

In 1967, documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman made his first and most controversial film that uncovered the truth of what goes on behind the close doors of a seemingly typical mental asylum. The film is called Titicut Follies, and has proved itself to be one of the most controversial and enigmatic films of all time. It focuses on one of the touchiest subjects, and makes it so you can't turn away even when you feel you should.

Titicut Follies documents life at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane. It shows graphic depictions, in black and white, of the horror and wretched tainting of humanity and the dehumanizing of innocent people that took place at the institution. The patients in the asylum are taunted by guards, forced to walk around in the nude because "it is cheaper," and are abused verbally and physically everywhere they turn.

The most chilling aspect is when one man, dubbed "the paranoid schizophrenic," claims that he feels worse now than when he checked into Bridgewater State. This leads to the shocking conclusion that maybe the asylum causes mental illness rather than prevents it. There is also a very haunting scene of force-feeding a reluctant patient whose food is then contaminated with cigarette ash from the person who is forcing the tube down his nose. The scene provided me with one of the most stunning and stiffening feelings I've ever seen in a film.

Shortly after it was completed, Wiseman was the target of the Massachusetts government who was threatening to ban the film completely from screenings and Television. The government stated that it was a violation of the patients' lives and profit or publicity shouldn't be made at their expense. Wiseman swears that the government was trying to protect a state run institution, and because of the graphic nature and honesty of the documentary the people simply didn't want to give one of their facilities a bad name. I truly believe him. It seems like the typical move for a state government. Hide the truth, protect the wealthy.

Being that the film is so rare, how did I stumble upon a copy? Titicut Follies had one and only Television run in 1992 on PBS. The film is available on DVD, but is so rare and expensive coming across a copy is harder than it may seem. My uncle of all people had a copy of the one time it was broadcast on TV. A title card with a strict and emotionless narration about the film's content and an introduction by Charlie Rose preceded the film itself. After the film, a tongue-in-cheek statement about the asylum changing its ways was shown immediately followed by a PBS representative asking the viewer to call the number on screen to donate ten dollars to help the network invest in more documentaries.

So what was the film doing for thirty-two years? Wiseman continued to direct many other documentaries after Titicut Follies, where he focused on a variety of subject matters, at the same time try and give his first effort the rightful release it deserved. Finally, in 1991, he did after a Supreme Court ruled it acceptable since many of the patients filmed were deceased, their legal guardians at the time of the film were notified and each one confirmed to the use of the patient in the documentary, and as long as a statement was made that the institution was gradually different.

But is it? Currently, what happens behind those Bridgewater doors stays behind those Bridgewater doors. It's an undiscovered mystery. I have a feeling it does possess some essence of normality in the present day. In the sixties, if you were criminally insane you were treated with carelessness. Over the years, I believe people have grew more accepting and tolerate of the unfortunate soles who are simply "not all there." I'm sure now in asylums people are much more patient and understanding with the conditions and trying to help.

That's not to say a sheet should be placed over past events. The treatment is nonetheless horrifying to this day, and Titicut Follies is for the people seeking the harsh truth. While it will be neglected by people that don't believe they can handle the subject matter, it truly should be viewed by everyone. It's already sad that the film has had such trouble getting some sort of broad release. This is the kind of film some people need to be forced to watch. Anyone in the medical field should be obligated, and any ordinary human should be aware at the very least.

Directed by: Frederick Wiseman.

Titicut Follies for me is an exploration of the human condition in general, an empathetic approach to both prisoners and staff in a hospital for the criminally insane (asyla have often been used as metaphors for society and it's power structures, since Poe's tale "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether"). It's also a reforming film, a quiet condemnation of the treatment of the prisoners in a systematic sense. The prisoners are kept naked seemingly for a lot of the time. It's not really clear why this is, and it's humiliating for them (they are covering up their modesty, and so they are aware of loss of dignity). On the other hand I'm sure that however inappropriate, it's done for (doubtlessly foolhardy) reasons of practicality (none of the guards want to look at naked prisoners all day I'm sure).

There's bullying of a patient called Jim, an old man, who is asked questions repetitively, and then when he answers the guards pretend not to hear him and ask him to repeat himself. It's the kind of bored casual bullying that even bright well-adjusted emotionally intelligent kids slip into at school, "oh there's the weird up kid, let's push their buttons and see which whistles blow and which bells ring". It's not right, but it's a systematic failure, and typical of human behaviour, rather than the results of calculated actions by a group of twisted sadists.

The chief guard appears to have a degree of megalomania, he wants all the applause at the follies and likes to be the centre of attention, and is apparently kind of put off when a nurse is showing a letter of thanks from a patient because he's no longer the centre of attention. I think he would of made a good TV host, but he wound up in a prison, so probably has issues with that.

I was worried about voyeurism at one point. A man is force fed because he has refused to eat for three days and is skeletal, he is dead before the end of filming, and there is a match cut of him on the bed in the hospital after feeding to a picture of his corpse. That seems a little irresponsible to me. I don't see any critical context, if a patient has become insensible, surely it's irresponsible to let them die? The force feeding is not pleasant for sure, but it's not insufferable in my opinion. If the man had made clear his wish to die, then that's another matter entirely.

One really effective criticism for me is that there is man who clearly doesn't belong in Titicut. He complains a lot to the doctors that the place is causing a problem for him that wasn't already there, and that he just needs to be sent back to the normal prison. He's an articulate individual and I was convinced by him. The panel of doctors he was talking to were pretty much ignoring him. He's telling them that the drugs he's on are reacting badly with him. At the end of the hearing the doctor is recommending his dosage of tranquilisers be upped (that really is insane). The man is capable of a lot of restraint, he's being ignored, and when the doctors interrupt him mid-flow and beckon for him to be taken out of the room he just goes. Me, you, and almost anyone else would have gone ballistic in the same situation. It seems he's been sent there because he complained that the coffee at the prison was being drugged, which apparently is a paranoid delusion, well they have done that at prisons a lot in the past, and I think they still do it today. Even if he's wrong, what the hell is he being sent to a hospital for the criminally insane for just for that? There's a suggestion which isn't fully fleshed out that certain individuals are there for being black and uppity, and some for being communist. It's hard to comment on that further when the film doesn't devote to much time to it, but that's the impression I got.

The entertainment that is referred to in the title isn't a point of concern for me. There are a group of songs that the inmates perform. I didn't think there was any manipulation here. Their faces are very unguarded and they are very nervous during the performance, but you can see as soon as they have finished their song the relief and glee, it's probably the only time they'll be happy all year.

I'm fond of DW Griffiths' aspiration that film could change the world, and guess what, that's what Wiseman's film did, there were directly-provoked reforms the year after the film was made. To what extent I don't know, but he achieved something there. It's undoubtedly one of the great documentaries.

One last word is that people are apparently ignoring the main meaning of the word follies, which would be a plural of folly: "the state or quality of being foolish; lack of understanding or sense." That is what is going on at the institution, government by folly.

This film, and pretty much all of Wiseman's films are available directly from Zipporah films on DVD, and are not stocked by Amazon.

Titicut Follies is the sort of film that film students study. A documentary from Frederick Wiseman about a Massachusetts correction facility, an institution for the criminally insane or madhouse as it was probably phrased in 1967. On the surface, it's a loose fly on the wall document. A stark, cold and pretty shocking depiction in grainy black and white. These men don't feel like willing participants, but they've bigger issues than worrying about than the camera. There's an awful lot in here, not least the uncaring treatment these men receive, the largely oppressive unsympathetic staff. It's humanity laid bare, a window into a hopeless world. I'm not sure what it's shot on, but the camera is remarkably agile. It could be argued that with such access to such an interesting and usually hidden world as this, Wiseman really couldn't go wrong. In charge of editing too though, he crafts a compelling 90 minutes. Introducing us to life from the beginning of incarceration, those first desperate moments to the routines imposed and most importantly the voices of these men, some of whom seem guilty of very little, other than being mentally ill or having ideas that don't ring true with those who've locked them up. It's not an easy watch. The inmates often left naked in the cells, belittled and berated. The only solutions offered being to force feed and dose them up. I've no idea how much footage Wiseman had to work with, but there's a sense that we're seeing all the usable shots, he's not hiding anything. I'm sure there's plenty more of course, but what Wiseman chose to show was controversial enough, seeing the film banned in the US for many years. Still though, the way it's assembled tells the story of Bridgewater State Prison without any need for talking heads or additional narrative, leaving it feeling brutally honest. It's all in the moment and it's darkly fascinating.

This is easily one of the most disturbing documentary films ever made. The state of Mass. blocked distribution of this film for well over a decade after its release because it was simply too honest and unflinching in its portrayal of the horrific systemic abuses of this institution. What makes the film so very important is not simply its evidence about this particular institution, but, the light it sheds on the kind of society that would treat the least fortunate of its members in this dehumanizing and cruel way. There is political analysis offered by the patients themselves that brings in the rather obvious connections to the police state, colonization, and genocide.

All I ever read about is how disturbing and controversial "Titicut Follies" is, and how the Surpreme Court commanded to ban the film and prevent further distribution because it was (and still is) an embarrassment for the Law in the state of Massachusetts. Okay, it may be disturbing, but it primarily is a truly saddening & depressing documentary that depicts real human beings in some of the most humiliation footage ever shot on camera. The controversial impact of "Titicut Follies" is actually some sort of paradox to itself. One could state that the atrocious and inhumanly cruel behavior of the guards & doctors at the Bridgewater Institution urgently needed to be made public, but on the other hand you could also easily claim that Frederick Wiseman gratuitously spread humiliation footage of defenseless mental patients on a large scale. If you stumbled upon the page of this film, I presume you already know this documentary illustrates – in shocking and occasionally painful details – how the mental patients at the Massachusetts Bridgewater State Hospital are mistreated and bullied by the staff members. The patients, varying from catatonic people to paranoid and severely suicidal human beings, are humiliated and mocked, resulting in extended images of mentally disabled people shouting and raving around their rooms naked. Wiseman may have had the permission of the patients' relatives and/or their legal guardians to use the footage, but who is he to "exploit" these poor people's lamentable living conditions to make a statement about the contemporary incompetent medical treatment of mental patients? I heavily appreciate this documentary because it caused a huge scandal and undoubtedly influenced the future of medicine in a good way, but maybe the footage never should have left the evidence room of the Supreme Court in Massachusetts. By now "Titicut Follies", in all his uncut and reputedly infamous glory, inevitably is offered on DVD-websites that usually just sell nauseating horror and perverted sleaze films, and the events of this documentary seriously don't belong in this entertainment section. The essence and importance of "Titicut Follies" is actually more reminiscent to the status of Nazi-propaganda films. They're reflections of the black pages in our social history, but by now they're just here to remind us never to go down that road again. No rating from me, because it feels too much like you're judging the real-life misery of defenseless people on a pathetic scale of 1 to 10.

The coarseness of this film is so hard to watch. Unlike most documentaries, the camera and the sound do everything, without any narration. What we have here is a kind of subjugation of decency and respect for human life as the criminally insane (most of them) are treated horribly. The artistry is in the selection of events as the camera runs. I was in college when I first saw this. A fellow student told me a film was being shown in the student union that had been banned in many places and I should see it because it may never be available again. It took me days to get it out of my head. I was pretty innocent in those days and to this day I'm affected the same way. Just a warning. Don't really expect to be entertained.

What? You expected a state prison psychiatric facility to be humane and well run? And therein lies the reason why this vaunted documentary from Frederick Wiseman failed to "get" to me. It doesn't tell me anything I don't already know and it does so with such poor sound quality that it's hard to hear what the inmates and guards are saying. Also, by eschewing a more targeted approach, wherein the focus is on one or two inmates and jailers, and thus build empathy and identification, Wiseman simply chooses to rub the viewer's nose in an institutional slop bucket for an hour and forty min. Consequently, after about 30 min, one says "I get the point" and pulls the plug. Give it a C plus.

Not exactly the kind of movie for which star-ranking seems appropriate.

As a professor at Bridgewater State College, I learned about this movie in a peculiar way: when considering a job at the college in 1997, a web search of the town name mainly yielded comments about this movie.

Once I started teaching here, I learned that students did not like for us to say "Bridgewater State" because their friends back home (mostly other towns in the general region south of Boston) would always tease them about being inmates/patients at Bridgewater State Hospital. So I always say "BSC" or the full name of the college.

I should say that I watched most but not all of the film. It was disturbing but not horrific. I think that the lack of dignity afforded the inmates/patients is what bothered me the most. I blame this as much on the director as on the institution itself.

I like to think that 40 years later, the movie had the desired effect, though, of bringing attention to a chronically unattended problem: the treatment of mentally ill people in general and the criminally insane in particular.

One last thing, as I write this while sitting in my home about three miles from the site -- in nine years of living here and being very active in the community, I have yet to meet an employee of the prison complex (which includes the State Hospital and regular prisons). I rarely hear about the movie, nor do I hear discussions of what the place might be like today.

"Titicut Follies" is a controversial documentary by Frederick Wiseman. The film records events at the Bridgewater State Prison For the Criminally Insane. It was shot in 1967, but was subjected to a worldwide ban until 1992. The Judicial Court ruled that the film was an invasion of inmate privacy, but in reality Wiseman had been granted full permission to film at the prison. The ban was merely an attempt by the authorities to silence the uneasy truths that Wiseman's camera had uncovered.

Wiseman is oft said to be of the leading proponents of cinéma verité. His films have no narration, music or titles. He simply observes his subjects with cool, clinical detachment. Whatever Wiseman records, the viewer is left to interpret for themselves. Nothing is explained.

Along with Emile de Antonio, Wiseman is one of the godfathers of documentary cinema. Throughout his career, he'd established the standard for what is now known as "observational" or "objective" documentary film-making. Unfortunately, this tag obfuscates the many symbolic, didactic and "engineered contrasts" found in Wiseman's films. Wiseman's films aren't strictly "objective". They have points to make, and are never free of his subjective biases.

Unlike many documentary filmmakers, Wiseman's films all focus on institutions. His subjects are whole organisations, and he typically generates "drama" by simply observing the various cogs and people at work within these societal machines. High schools, welfare offices, zoos, hospitals, ballet groups, army basic training camps, small towns, ICBM bases and business corporations are just some of the institutions he's tackled.

With "Titicut Follies", Wiseman goes behind the walls of a Massachusetts Mental Institution and exposes the treatment of inmates by guards and social workers. The footage he shoots is both macabre and revolting. The mental institution pretends to be a place of logic and the scientific method, but Wiseman reveals it to be a place of chaos and absurdity. Patients are deemed "mentally unsound" simply for not conforming to the institution's absurd standards. They're routinely teased and bullied, and left to roam the corridors completely naked. One articulate patient attempts to get his doctor to explain why he's being imprisoned, but the doctor has no answer.

Several inmates, one a socialist and the other an intelligent Russian, seem to be in the institution for political reasons. Both are of sound mind, but because they sympathise with the communist cause and distrust American's involvement in Vietnam, they've been labelled paranoid schizophrenics and jailed indefinitely.

The hardest scene to watch is of a forced feeding. A doctor smokes a cigarette as he inserts a long rubber tube into a patient's nostril and pours soup into a funnel. Halfway into the procedure, the doctor's cigarette falls into the funnel. In a surprisingly heavy handed directorial intrusion, Wiseman inter-cuts this painful scene with glimpses of the patient's corpse being prepared for burial.

Frederick Wiseman is a curious case in cinema. You can arguably group modernist "brain" cinema into two categories: left brain artists and right brain artists. Left brain artists (Antonioni, Kubrick, Bresson, Haneke etc) are very rare. They're logical, sequential, rational, analytical, objective and look at things in terms of parts, units or sections.

Right brain artists are more common. They're intuitive, holistic, synthesising, subjective and look at wholes. They like randomness and communities. Altman, John Sayles, Spike Lee, Fassbinder, Wenders, Malle, Fellini and Lynch are good examples.

Wiseman's form is very much like a Stanley Kubrick film. He sees his subjects in terms of sections and parts. In terms of machines and larger constructs. His camera is always distant, detached and objective. One can see echoes of "Full Metal Jacket" in Wiseman's "Basic Training" and "2001" in "Zoo".

But behind this is an artist who seems to embrace improvisation and chaos. Wiseman works fast with a single camera and a simple microphone. He catches what he can, without purpose and plan, sculpting his films entirely in the moment. This lends his films, when viewed together, a strange feel. You get the sense of large social constructs, giant institutions and sprawling communities, machine like in their workings and routines, and yet within these machines, Wiseman captures fleeting glimpses of humanity, spontaneous and wild.

8/10 – This is a nightmarish little film. It's not as great as some of Wiseman's later flicks, but it is perhaps his most influential. To this day it remains the only movie in U.S. history to be banned for reasons other than obscenity or national security. Director Milos Foreman would screen "Titicut Follies" for his crew prior to making "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and Paddy Chayevsky would base "The Hospital" on Wiseman's "Hospital". Makes a good companion-piece to Wiseman's "Near Death".

Over a year ago, I talked about Let There Be Light, a film made by famed director John Huston that details the mental anguish patients of a mental hospital go through on a daily basis. The film documented World War II veterans, and most of them are traumatized because of their own terrible experiences, not because they were mistreated by the staff. Despite this, the film was considered so shocking that it wasn't released until 1980. Titicut Follies has a very similar premise, except here, I think the suffering is even more extreme. Titicut Follies is filmed at the Bridgewater Correctional Institution in Massachusetts, which resembles a real version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This is because not only are the patients depicted made to live in their own filth for days on end and forced to live in squalid conditions, but the medical staff show truly grotesque behavior towards them. Some scenes in this documentary are so awful I don't know if I can discuss them. One scene has a few guards escort a man (who used to be a math teacher) into a room in order to shave him. All the while, one of the guards keeps repeating that he can't hear whatever he was saying. He's only doing this to agitate and get a reaction out of him, since he seems to take great enjoyment in bothering him. Later, they take him to another room that has absolutely no furniture, toilet, or anything in it at all (except a window). I really don't get what the point of such a hellish place is, especially in a mental institution. It makes even a prison cell look pleasant. Another part has some guy doing what looks like squats in a similar room, while he screams at the top of his lungs. Probably the most egregious scene has guards taking someone out of his room since he refused to eat for 3 whole days. They lay him down and put a tube into his nose which extends all the way into his stomach. It shows how life in this place was so horrible, some people were willing to kill themselves to escape it, but the guards couldn't let them do that. While it's easy in retrospect to pin the blame for this kind of treatment on the ones running and staffing the facility, it's not entirely their fault. By the time this movie was made, they didn't have the types of medicine we now do. It's kind of like how lobotomies used to be seen as an effective way of curing those who were thought to be mentally incurable, but now, the lobotomy is understood to be a grossly barbaric procedure. Interspliced with all these disturbing things, there's clips of musical performances, mental patients playing games, and other bizzare spectacles. While I think this film is quite important because of what it represents, I'd be out of my mind to recommend it to anybody. Let's just say it's not the kind of thing you would watch for entertainment. I'm generally used to violent films and tv programs involving war, but many of the things shown in Titicut Follies are real sickening. It's also worth pointing out that because of this film, the authorities at Bridgewater have strove to do better and make more hospitable living conditions for the patients there, which may or may not mean anything. Overall, this movie is undeniably difficult to look at, but it is historically important because it woke people up and gave them a glimpse into how inhumane a lot of these places were. Wiseman lived up to his name when he decided to expose this place.

Joseph Wiseman's searing documentary of the poor medical and social services on view at Massachusets Correctional Institution Bridge can still make. this viewer wince more than half a century later.

At the time, the government of Massachusetts claimed it was biased and purposefully sensational. Doctors and nurses going through their routines tend to look uncaring. However, details like the dirty water hydrotherapy patients are stuck in tell a different story. Massachusetts fought its release for years, and it was banned from showing in that state for decades.

Titicut had a long and troubled history. At times a almshouse, a workhouse and a prison for the criminally insane, at the time this movie was made, the staff was short-handed and undercrtrained, and the administration was a disgrace. There was one 'patient' who had been sent there in 1910 for an evaluation during his two-year prison term, and was still there in 1968.

Bridgewater is still open.

I had to leave this film after about one hour as so much of it was just too painful to watch. I felt I was, all these years later, still violating the privacy of the men filmed. Especially since they were forced to spend so much of their time naked, in cold bare rooms with nothing to read or view--nothing. How in god's name did the prison establishment think any sort of rehabilitation could take place in those circumstances? And the bullying of the men by the guards was horrific. Enough to drive anyone already in bad mental health completely insane. I rated it as I did, however, because in contrast to the sickening procedures shown, not to mention the shocking testimony of a man who casually spoke about sexually assaulting his daughter, Wiseman's camera caught some wonderfully joyful moments of song. In scenes from performances of the Follies show, one in particular of a white man and a black man doing a beautiful duet, made it possible for the viewer to imagine a better reality. A reality in which hope survives.

Can you imagine a correctional institution in which a criminally insane is more reasonable and logical than some of the staff, or even the doctors? After watching this documentary you probably will.

Without resorting to commentary, interviews, or titles, Wisman exposes the inhuman conditions and treatment the patients in Bridgewater institution in Massachusetts had to endure at the the time. From being forced to stay naked in empty rooms, to being bullied and force fed using a nose tube, you'll soon figure out that it's unlikely anyone will leave this institution a better man, on the contrary, it will only worsen their condition.

One can speak in length about the moral aspects of filming mentally ill people without their consent, considering they can't give any. But given the great cause this film serves, and the pressure it generated to improve the condition in Bridgewater institution and many other, I can't see how anyone could be mad about that.

"Titicut Follies" by Frederick Wiseman is a deeply disturbing 1967 documentary film about the mistreatment of patients at Bridgewater State Hospital in Bridgewater,Massachusetts.The film's release was banned(outside of the field of education)in the United States from 1967-1992 by a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that,since it was filmed in a hospital,it violated the patients' rights to privacy.In 1992,it was allowed to be shown on PBS.The film shows the systematic abuse and dehumanization of mentally ill patients:they are force-fed,beaten and left naked and raving in empty cells.The cinematography is grainy and the film is so real that it's certainly very difficult to watch.Give it a look,if you have a chance.7 out of 10.

From the incomparable Frederick Wiseman: a mind-blowing documentary about the things they did in Bridgewater, the Massachusetts hospital for the criminally insane. And then some. It was banned for so long that you owe yourself to watch this one. It depicts the treatment of the inmates and it's heartbreaking to watch. The men are unnecessarily kept naked, in rooms with no facilities, no furnishings and nothing to do. When they are allowed out they are tormented by the staff AND DOCTORS. This movie made waves.

I'm finding I'm not a fan of these fly on the wall type documentaries, where it's really just about showing something without much of a narrative, argument, or sense of direction. And I know it still has a message and something to say, albeit more vaguely than many other documentaries. The style doesn't really impress me, but that might just be me. At least it was better than the similarly styled Grey Gardens, which I found insufferable. This one I just found a bit boring, with a few short sequences here and there standing out. It's confronting sure, and I can imagine it would have been so much worse back in the 1960s, but it didn't really unsettle or trouble me as much as I thought it would. If you want a documentary that truly documents and not much else- and have a strong stomach- then this might be for you. Despite my complaints, I still found myself not enjoying some usually delicious icecream while watching it, so it definitely gave me some kind of nauseous feeling, and therefore an emotional response. For that alone, I can't in good faith call it bad.

In a classical Cinema Verite-way, the film shows the everyday lives of patients in a mental institution. From their entry, to their everyday lives living in squalor in their own rooms, and their interaction with the personnel and others, and the often referenced performance show.

Not as controversial as it seems.

Some of the issues raised here are somewhat mundane in retrospect. Clearly, the nudity upon entry could have been handled better (like a separate room), or the nudity in the rooms are not actually forced BUT is concerned with patients with higher degree of mental illness (which could have been handled better), even the bullying is more or less banters. It was not as horrific as people describes it.

I do think the bigger and stronger chunk of the film's controversy should have concerned with the inmates who thinks they should not be administered medicine that is not helping. That was from what I observe a truly concerning moment in the film, especially since he was one of the more mentally capable inmates. He knows something was not working AND they were just diffusing his concerns. Its somewhat forgotten given THAT it was not the flashiest sequence.

Otherwise, this was an ok documentary. Not as revelatory as people had suggested. A noteworthy timepiece if anything.