Titicut Follies

Wiseman's notorious first film TITICUT FOLLIES looks behind the walls of the "State Hospital for the Criminally Insane" in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Wiseman spent severla weeks filming in the jail. The film shows how guards, social workers and psychiatrists deal with the prisoners, all of whom suffer from a mental disorder. It is a shocking film that documented how the prisoners were kept in their cells, to the point of neglect. The prison superintendent had initially hoped publicity from the film would help him secure funds to modernize but the state of Massachusetts intervened to ban the film from being screened. It was only released for public screening in 1991. (hb)