Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater where people stay trapped in their madness.Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater where people stay trapped in their madness.Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater where people stay trapped in their madness.
- Director
- Awards
- 6 wins
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAlong with Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987), which is illegal due to copyright issues, this is the only American film banned from release for reasons other than obscenity or national security. 'Titicut Follies' was filmed inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Bridgewater, a prison hospital for the criminally insane. After the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sued the filmmakers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the film constituted an invasion of inmate privacy and ordered the withdrawal of the film from circulation.
- Quotes
Patient: How did the first Great War start? Because of a demand by the Austrian Hungary Dynasty for the execution of an accomplice who already was sentenced to life imprisonment in, um, in Serbia. Yet they demanded a prosecution for execution for Austria-Hungary laws! What does that mean? They wanted execution! The war was fought over execution! The same execution that is going on in Vietnam; over making an execution over these natives of Vietnam. They're not Vietcong, they're not communists. Whatever the American Government doesn't like, they use the - they foist on this term "communist". Because I speak the way I do, you gonna call me a communist? I'm not a communist! Even though, I have communist affiliations. Communist really means Community-ist. That's what we are if you want to call us communists because we are FOR our community. We like the well-standards. We're for the people. And that's what they call these uh... what do they call? these people that talk about a new matter... Agitators! We agitate... do we start these troubles? I'm a communist because I expound my views about the world conditions? It's the duty of every citizen to expound his views or her views of what goes on in the world. If more of them expounded their views about the conditions in the world, less chaotic conditions would exist. And the nuclear war is gonna happen not because - not what i say, not what all these war-mungers or peace-mungers blab about because all throughout the ages you will find: every time a new weapon was put out they say its the end of war. They said the submarine was the end of war, what happened? The gas masks put an end to war. What happened? They got masks. What about these submarines that are supposed to control the seas? What happened? They got airplanes that drop def-charges. You look through the ages and you find new weapon is put out, somebody puts out a counter-weapon. But the nuclear weapon doesn't stop because people are stock-piling. Anybody who starts stock-piling weapons eventually uses them! They get tired of stock-piling them and they use them. They're just like kids. They figure they got toys to play with, they're gonna play with those toys!
- Crazy creditsRe-release: 'The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ordered that "A brief explanation shall be included in the film that changes and improvements have taken place at Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater since 1966".
- ConnectionsFeatured in What Is Cinema? (2013)
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.
- boblipton
- Sep 28, 2020
- How long is Titicut Follies?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 24 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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