Titicut Follies is a black and white 1967 documentary film by United States filmmaker Frederick Wiseman about the treatment of inmates / patients at Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane, a Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The title is taken from a talent show put on by the hospital’s inmates.
The wikipedia article about the film describes the long legal fight over it. Because of "privacy concerns" about the patients depicted (plus, no doubt, official embarrassment about the poor conditions endured by the patients), the film was essentially banned from being shown to the public between 1969 and 1991. A judge at one point even ordered all copies destroyed, though that ruling seems to have been overturned by a higher court. The film was shown on PBS in 1992 after a court finally ended the ban.
ReplyDeleteI watched this film in one of my psychology classes at university in the 1970s. Strangely, one thing I remembered about it was that there were some nice Windsor chairs on the ward.
ReplyDeleteMyweeklylisten, I would have guessed it was closed down by now but I see it's still going. I would want to see if all the more, knowing it was banned.
ReplyDeleteThe Nag, if you couldn't remember the info for the exam, at least you had a nice bit of furniture knowledge to write about :-)