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Titicut Follies

Wednesday, April 18, 2012 – 7:30pm
USA
1967.
Director: Frederick Wiseman

In his legendary first documentary, cinéma vérité master Frederick
Wiseman leads us into the MCI-Bridgewater mental institution, a
prison-hospital for the criminally insane run by the Massachusetts
Department of Corrections. Wiseman shows us, without judgment, the
incessant abuse of inmates as they are needlessly stripped bare,
insulted, herded about, mocked, and taunted. His portrayal of the guards
is equally intimate and disturbing; there’s a sense of horror that the
daily routine can work with such good humour, efficiency, and brutality.
Titicut Follies is a documentary film that tells you more
than you could possibly want to know — but no more than you should know —
about life behind the walls of one of those institutions where we file
and forget the criminal insane … The repulsive reality revealed in Titicut Follies forces us to contemplate our capacity for callousness” (Richard Schickel, Life).
The film’s release caused a huge outcry; the State of Massachusetts
sought to prevent its further circulation, and ultimately obtained a
court order that restricted its exhibition: only members of the
health-care, legal, or social work professions, or students in those
fields, could legally see it. It was not until 1991 that Titicut Follies was released again to the general public. B&W, 16mm, 84 mins.

Post-screening discussion with Robert Menzies, a
professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University. Robert has published
widely on the relationship between psychiatry and law, and on mental
health history in British Columbia. He is currently involved with a
collective of academics and activists in a website project entitled The
History of Madness in Canada — http://historyofmadness.ca/ — and is co-editing a forthcoming book entitled Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies.

Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia.

REVIEWS

“One of the most
despairing documentaries I have ever seen; more immediate than fiction
because these people are real; more savage than satire because it seems
to be neutral.”

Chicago Sun-Times | full review

“A masterpiece of muckraking in which he examines the workings and inhumanities of a state mental hospital in Massachusetts.”

Chicago Reader | full review

“It is a small, black-and-white picture, laconic, abrasive, occasionally awkward and always compelling.”

New York Times | full review