Coming to NYC’s Metrograph for a week run as part of its Three Wiseman series this Friday, April 1: TITICUT FOLLIES
Frederick Wiseman’s controversial study of a Massachusetts prison asylum had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival in 1967. The documentary faced legal challenges by the state almost immediately, which successfully prevented its general release until 1991, though it did initially screen in European fests including Mannheim-Heidelberg and Florence’s Festival Dei Popoli in 1967. This newly restored print entered the festival circuit at Toronto last year.
Wiseman’s debut film fittingly began his interest in documenting institutions, in this case the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater. Borrowing its title from the name of the disturbing musical talent show foisted upon the inmates which bookends the film, this observational portrait unflinchingly reveals the horrific treatment and lack of empathy that existed in this setting. While individuals or their diagnoses are rarely identified, their lack of differentiation underscores the inadequacies and abuses of their care by prison and hospital officials. Neglected when they’re not being actively ridiculed or maltreated, these men seem destined to wither away, hopeless, as Wiseman’s camera, and, by extension, the audience, bear witness to their suffering.
what (not) to doc 