Console best movie i've ever seen.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx Titicut Follies for me is an exploration of the human condition in general, an empathetic approach to both prisoners and staff in a hospital for the criminally insane (asyla have often been used as metaphors for society and it's power structures, since Poe's tale "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether"). It's also a reforming film, a quiet condemnation of the treatment of the prisoners in a systematic sense. The prisoners are kept naked seemingly for a lot of the time. It's not really clear why this is, and it's humiliating for them (they are covering up their modesty, and so they are aware of loss of dignity). On the other hand I'm sure that however inappropriate, it's done for (doubtlessly foolhardy) reasons of practicality (none of the guards want to look at naked prisoners all day I'm sure).There's bullying of a patient called Jim, an old man, who is asked questions repetitively, and then when he answers the guards pretend not to hear him and ask him to repeat himself. It's the kind of bored casual bullying that even bright well-adjusted emotionally intelligent kids slip into at school, "oh there's the weird up kid, let's push their buttons and see which whistles blow and which bells ring". It's not right, but it's a systematic failure, and typical of human behaviour, rather than the results of calculated actions by a group of twisted sadists.The chief guard appears to have a degree of megalomania, he wants all the applause at the follies and likes to be the centre of attention, and is apparently kind of put off when a nurse is showing a letter of thanks from a patient because he's no longer the centre of attention. I think he would of made a good TV host, but he wound up in a prison, so probably has issues with that.I was worried about voyeurism at one point. A man is force fed because he has refused to eat for three days and is skeletal, he is dead before the end of filming, and there is a match cut of him on the bed in the hospital after feeding to a picture of his corpse. That seems a little irresponsible to me. I don't see any critical context, if a patient has become insensible, surely it's irresponsible to let them die? The force feeding is not pleasant for sure, but it's not insufferable in my opinion. If the man had made clear his wish to die, then that's another matter entirely.One really effective criticism for me is that there is man who clearly doesn't belong in Titicut. He complains a lot to the doctors that the place is causing a problem for him that wasn't already there, and that he just needs to be sent back to the normal prison. He's an articulate individual and I was convinced by him. The panel of doctors he was talking to were pretty much ignoring him. He's telling them that the drugs he's on are reacting badly with him. At the end of the hearing the doctor is recommending his dosage of tranquilisers be upped (that really is insane). The man is capable of a lot of restraint, he's being ignored, and when the doctors interrupt him mid-flow and beckon for him to be taken out of the room he just goes. Me, you, and almost anyone else would have gone ballistic in the same situation. It seems he's been sent there because he complained that the coffee at the prison was being drugged, which apparently is a paranoid delusion, well they have done that at prisons a lot in the past, and I think they still do it today. Even if he's wrong, what the hell is he being sent to a hospital for the criminally insane for just for that? There's a suggestion which isn't fully fleshed out that certain individuals are there for being black and uppity, and some for being communist. It's hard to comment on that further when the film doesn't devote to much time to it, but that's the impression I got.The entertainment that is referred to in the title isn't a point of concern for me. There are a group of songs that the inmates perform. I didn't think there was any manipulation here. Their faces are very unguarded and they are very nervous during the performance, but you can see as soon as they have finished their song the relief and glee, it's probably the only time they'll be happy all year.I'm fond of DW Griffiths' aspiration that film could change the world, and guess what, that's what Wiseman's film did, there were directly-provoked reforms the year after the film was made. To what extent I don't know, but he achieved something there. It's undoubtedly one of the great documentaries.One last word is that people are apparently ignoring the main meaning of the word follies, which would be a plural of folly: "the state or quality of being foolish; lack of understanding or sense." That is what is going on at the institution, government by folly.This film, and pretty much all of Wiseman's films are available directly from Zipporah films on DVD, and are not stocked by Amazon.

ElijahCSkuggs I was pretty psyched before watching this flick due to growing up in Massachusetts and living close to the somewhat famous Danvers State Mental Hospital. Session 9 anyone? Anyways, when I heard that Bridgewater Mental Institution was also surrounded by commotion and actually had a documentary displaying the issues, I was more than interested. What you get is a sad and very intimate look into the lives of the unfortunate men who have ended up at Bridgewater's Insanasylum.From confused men who don't have the will-power to do what they believe is the right thing to do (molestation etc.), to a non-stop babbling machine who is almost always in some sort of heated one-way conversation, and even to ex-teachers who have become mere shells of what they most likely were. The film does a fantastic job show-casing the wide selection of characters that reside at the institution.You're also shown how the employees at the institution interact and help these inmates. The treatment in manner by the employees are never truly abusive or mean, but that's not the real issue. It's having employees who are actually right for the job. There wasn't one person in the entire hospital that struck me as professional. It felt like just a bunch of average Joe's just trying to make an honest buck. Also, back in 67 it seemed the answer always seemed to be, for any inmate problem, was to up their medication.Titicut Follies is a unique documentary. It has zero narration. With such a gritty and intimate feel, the movie definitely showed us how even good ideas (helping the mentally disabled) can almost back-fire in a way. It was sad seeing grown, helpless men living out their, most likely, last days in this very blah-looking hospital. But the part that struck me hardest was just the overall pathetic treatment they were given. Again, it wasn't really negative treatment, but I'll be the 158th to say it was just very unprofessional. Though I can understand 40 years ago was a long-time ago when it comes down to health services. Nevertheless, it was still pretty bad.

Coventry All I ever read about is how disturbing and controversial "Titicut Follies" is, and how the Surpreme Court commanded to ban the film and prevent further distribution because it was (and still is) an embarrassment for the Law in the state of Massachusetts. Okay, it may be disturbing, but it primarily is a truly saddening & depressing documentary that depicts real human beings in some of the most humiliation footage ever shot on camera. The controversial impact of "Titicut Follies" is actually some sort of paradox to itself. One could state that the atrocious and inhumanly cruel behavior of the guards & doctors at the Bridgewater Institution urgently needed to be made public, but on the other hand you could also easily claim that Frederick Wiseman gratuitously spread humiliation footage of defenseless mental patients on a large scale. If you stumbled upon the page of this film, I presume you already know this documentary illustrates – in shocking and occasionally painful details – how the mental patients at the Massachusetts Bridgewater State Hospital are mistreated and bullied by the staff members. The patients, varying from catatonic people to paranoid and severely suicidal human beings, are humiliated and mocked, resulting in extended images of mentally disabled people shouting and raving around their rooms naked. Wiseman may have had the permission of the patients' relatives and/or their legal guardians to use the footage, but who is he to "exploit" these poor people's lamentable living conditions to make a statement about the contemporary incompetent medical treatment of mental patients? I heavily appreciate this documentary because it caused a huge scandal and undoubtedly influenced the future of medicine in a good way, but maybe the footage never should have left the evidence room of the Supreme Court in Massachusetts. By now "Titicut Follies", in all his uncut and reputedly infamous glory, inevitably is offered on DVD-websites that usually just sell nauseating horror and perverted sleaze films, and the events of this documentary seriously don't belong in this entertainment section. The essence and importance of "Titicut Follies" is actually more reminiscent to the status of Nazi-propaganda films. They're reflections of the black pages in our social history, but by now they're just here to remind us never to go down that road again. No rating from me, because it feels too much like you're judging the real-life misery of defenseless people on a pathetic scale of 1 to 10.

Richard Stiek This documentary was shot without the knowledge of the senior staff and management of the facility, making the shooting sometimes rather difficult. What is often lost on the modern viewer is the attitude toward the criminally insane and the mentally disturbed at the time. In the 1960s, not many people outside of the psychiatric world knew much of anything about disorders like schizophrenia and sociopathy, and this film gave an insight into the daily patterns of people with these disorders.Also, this film opened some eyes about the treatment of prisoners and of mental patients at the time. There is significant instances of abuse and neglect, including, as stated in the other review, an unsanitary force feeding of a patient who would not eat. It also shows electroshock convulsive therapy (basically putting two electric leads on either temple and sending a shot of electricity through the brain). There is significant nudity and maltreatment by the guards, but there are two things not readily apparent in any of the reviews or promos. First, this is a prison, and all prisoners had to experience some form of nude inspection. Second, this is also a population of mentally disturbed, who may use the clothing to harm themselves or others.As an aside, there are some seriously disturbing scenes including some involving bodily functions. If you have a strong stomach and heart, and you are interested in a reflection of this aspect of society in the 1960s, this documentary is a solid view. There is no soundtrack, and rather than making it seem more distant, I feel it allows you to feel like you are there, able to interpret your own feelings rather than have them influenced by the choice of music of the director / producer. This isn't a film for entertainment, it is educational.