Category: video

The State Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts

Titicut Follies (1967) by Frederick Wiseman was a banned 81-minute black and white documentary that exposed the unsavory and cruel treatment of the prisoners at Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. It was the first banned film of its kind in the United States. Its filmmaker Frederick Wiseman fought the courts to have it unbanned. Today it can be purchased by the public. The film, along with mental health advocacy, eventually led to Bridgewater State Hospital to make changes but it continues to have its share of problems to this day.

The Filming of the Documentary

The documentary was filmed, with permission from the Superintendent, over a period of eight weeks in the spring and summer of 1966 at the Bridgewater State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Massachusetts, which is run by the Department of Corrections. It was shot on 80,000 feet (Cullen v. Grove Press, Inc., 1967) of 16mm film with a handheld camera by ethnographic cinematographer, John Marshall.

Ethnographic Cinematography

Ethnographic cinematography is like a detached observer. It’s defined as “the practice of documentary film and of visual anthropology informed by the theories, methods, and vocabulary of the discipline of anthropology, involving use of the film camera as a research tool in documenting whole, or definable parts of, cultures with methodological awareness and precision. In its strictest definition, ethnographic film constitutes a form of academic research, with an intended audience of scholars of anthropology” (Kuhn & Westwell, 2012).

Frederick Wiseman

Frederick Wiseman is a graduate of Yale University and has served in the United States Military. Wiseman began making documentaries out of an urge for social reform. Before becoming a filmmaker, he taught law. He got the idea for Titicut Follies during his trips to the institution with his students (Becker, 2014). Titicut Follies is Wiseman’s first film. The word “titicut” represents the name of an annual variety show put on jointly by the inmates and employees of Bridgewater and is a Wampanoag word for the Taunton River. As the court case says, it does not represent the words “titillate” or “titillation.” I guess I could see how some people would think that. Wiseman has made approximately one film a year for the past fifty years such as Hospital, Law and Order, Welfare, Juvenile Court, Public Housing, City Hall, Blind, Basic Training, Multi-Handicapped, State Legislature, etc. They have all been aired on the Public Broadcast Service (PBS) one of his primary funders. They all follow a similar theme: systematic investigation of institutions and social settings.

Patient: I need help, I just don’t know where I can get it.

Doctor: Well, you’ll get it here, I guess.

-Titicut Follies, 1967.

Titicut Follies was shown at the 1967 New York Film Festival as part as the “Social Change in America” program. It received poor reviews. One critic saw the film as exploitation and said it was “offering a vulture’s-eye-view” of the mentally ill (Grant, 1998, p. 249).

Attempt to Ban by the District Court

The United States District Court and four Correction Officers at Massachusetts Correctional Institution sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the distribution and exhibition of Titicut Follies on the grounds that the film violates the plaintiffs’ right of privacy under New York Civil Rights Law (Cullen v. Grove Press, Inc., 1967).

The Court concluded the film is not a false report made with knowledge of its falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth, that it is not obscene and that it is therefore protected by the First Amendment.

Banned by the Supreme Court

In 1968, Massachusetts Superior Court judge Harry Kalus of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ordered the film to be banned and the original negative destroyed (Commonwealth v. Frederick Wiseman, 1969). The Commonwealth claimed it was protecting the privacy rights of its patients and that Wiseman obtained his footage under false representation. There weren’t any privacy rights at this time in Massachusetts.

The patient in particular was named Jim. He can be seen naked throughout the film many times. He is also shown being force fed through a tube while the physician smokes a cigarette, is hosed down instead of bathed, and is relentlessly berated by staff to go clean his room. The Court said Wiseman breached an oral contract giving the state editorial control of the film. This is the first American film to be banned for reasons other than obscenity or national security.

In justifying the decision, Massachusetts judge Harry Kalus wrote that the film abounds in:

crudities, nudities, and obscenities. 80 minutes of brutal sordidness and human degradation. A hodgepodge of sequences, the camera jumping helter-skelter. There is no narrative, each viewer is left to his own devices as to just what is being portrayed.” Therefore, “No rhetoric of free speech and the right of the public to know can obscure this [picture] for what it is: trafficking in human misery, degradation and sordidness of the lives of these unfortunate humans

(Pevere, 2018)

In 1970, Wiseman appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and it refused to hear the case (Wiseman v. Massachusetts, 1970).

For Educational Purposes Only

In 1969, the Superior Court allowed the film to be used only as an educational resource for mental health professionals, not for public viewing. There was so much fighting over the content in the film, but no one fought to implement change at the institution. If the patients are treated so badly you want the film destroyed, then why not fix the problem now that you’ve been made aware of it? The inmates at Bridgewater continued to be mistreated for years. In fact, the hospital is still making headlines with its misuse of seclusion and overuse of restraints. State Rep. Michael Day says, “I am deeply disturbed by the latest report on Bridgewater State Hospital, which highlights chronic problems at that facility” (Becker, 2022).

Wiseman tried to provide public education and awareness. He says he sees his films as “a natural history of the way we live.” (Eames, 1977, para. 5) and are a potential source of information for the purpose of creating an informed and responsible citizenship.

The Ban is Lifted

The ban was removed in 1991 by Superior Court judge Andrew Meyer because the First Amendment took precedence over inmate privacy rights. Meyer also said most of the patients in the film had died and their privacy wasn’t as important as it was then. On September 4, 1992, Titicut Follies played on tv for the first time on the Public Broadcast Service (PBS).

On August 25th, 1987, Wiseman was interviewed on Nightline by Ted Koppel who was doing a story on Bridgewater State Hospital. In the interview, Koppel asked why Wiseman was against a censored screening of Titicut Follies. Wiseman said, “the censoring of Titicut Follies or any other film prevents people in a democracy from access to information which they might like to have in order to make up their minds about what kind of society they would like to live in – it is as simple as that.”

Modern Day

Since 2007, Titicut Follies on DVD can be purchased through Wiseman’s production company Zipporah Films. The company is named after his wife, Zipporah Batshaw, who is a fellow Yale Law graduate of his. In 2020, the film was shown on Turner Classic Movies.

References

_{Becker, D. (2022, Feb. 14). Chemical Restraints, Isolation Often Used at Bridgewater State Hospital, New Report Says. Boston University Radio. https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/02/14/bridgewater-state-wellpath-disability-law-center-report.}

_{Becker, D. (2014, Aug 18). Documentarian Discusses Legacy of Troubles at Bridgewater Hospital. Boston University Radio. https://www.wbur.org/news/2014/08/18/fred-wiseman-bridgewater-state-hospital.}

_{COMMONWEALTH & others vs. FREDERICK WISEMAN & others., 356 Mass. 251. (1969). http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/356/356mass251.html}

_{Cullen v. Grove Press, Inc., 276 F. Supp. 727 (D. N.Y. 1967). https://casetext.com/case/cullen-v-grove-press-inc}

_{Eames, D. (1977, Oct 02). Watching wiseman watch. New York Times, 25. https://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/02/archives/watching-wiseman-watch-his-films-do-not-just-depict-social.html}

_{Frederick WISEMAN et al., petitioners, v. MASSACHUSETTS et al., 398 U.S. 960 (1970). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/398/960}

_{Grant, B. K. (1998). Ethnography in the first person. In B. K. Grant., & J. Sloniowski (Eds.),
Documenting the documentary (pp. 238–253). Wayne State University Press}

_{Kuhn, A. & Westwell, G. (2012).“Ethnographic film.” In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved July 17, 2022.}

_{Pevere, G. (2018, Jan 27). You Don’t Mess Around with Jim. Documentary, Madness, ‘Titicut Follies’ and The Power of Empathy. Point of View Magazine. https://povmagazine.com/you-dont-mess-around-with-jim.}