8. Titicut Follies (1967)
Documentary guru Frederick Wiseman gains access to the inner corridors of Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Massachusetts. He films the day to day goings on in the place - charting the cruel indifference of the staff to the inmates' plights. The inmates are routinely forced to strip naked for no discernible reason. They are goaded and verbally humiliated by the staff, herded around like donkeys, forced to live in unclean tiny cells and rarely washed. A highly morbid look at some of society's most vulnerable and downtrodden individuals, Titicut Follies embarrassed the heck out of the relevant Massachusetts authorities who managed to get the film banned worldwide on the basis that it was an invasion of the patients' privacy. What was really going on is that they didn't want people to see that psychiatry at Bridgewater State Hospital had progressed little beyond the days of Bedlam. The film is very direct and simple. There is no commentary, music, visual tricks - Wiseman just points his camera at the action and records it because it speaks for itself. Direct observation is a very potent tool. Most of the patients are desperately mentally ill. The authorities wouldn't treat cardiac or orthopaedic patients in a cruel way for having a bad heart or a broken leg. The men in Titicut Follies are given no compassion or dignity. This is maybe due to the then inability to treat severe mental illness. A morbid look at institutional abuse.