7. Titicut Follies (1967)
Seminal documentary by American master documentary maker Fred Wiseman, Titicut Follies has the dubious honour of being the first film I have ever switched off half way through due to its extremely harrowing nature. Set in Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts, the film lays bare the lives of the inmates who are routinely mocked and bullied by the staff. Some of them are stripped naked for no discernible reason, some of them are roughly force fed with feeding tubes shoved down their nostrils. The film is named after the hospital's annual variety show in which the inmates take part - Titicut Follies. Even before the film came out, the authorities in Massachusetts got a ban on its release claiming that patient privacy had been violated. In 1969, Wiseman appealed to the Supreme court. He didn't get very far, but the film was allowed to be shown to doctors and medical staff. It was the first time that a film was banned in America for reasons other than National security, obscenity or immorality. In 1991 the ban was finally rescinded as the authorities viewed the issue of privacy as now largely being redundant. This is such a harrowing film, I could not say that I 'like' it, nor could I recommend it because it is so bleak, so disturbing, so dehumanising and degrading to humankind it occupies a space that is rare in cinema - the unwatchable film. It makes Salo seem positively uplifting. A patient complains about the amount of medication he is given and its terrible effects. He states that he wants to go back to jail. And what do the doctors do? Increase his medication and label him 'paranoid'. There is so little regard for human dignity, it is nauseating. And these inmates are among the most vulnerable people in our society. Instead of being protected and rehabilitated, they are trodden on and despised. The film is harrowing because it reveals this ugly truth, a truth it is hard to face up to.