Frederick Wiseman is a documentarian who began his career with a controversial film that featured a Massachusetts correctional facility for the criminally insane, Titicut Follies. After receiving permission to shoot the film on “verbal agreement” Wiseman showed up with his cameraman and started shooting footage. Unlike many other documentaries Wiseman presents his footage without any subjective narrative sequence or a guiding narrator, via voice over. Instead Wiseman gives you the opportunity to just observe but that’s not to say that he leaves his voice out entirely.
After Wiseman cut his footage and was preparing to distribute the film he faced several censors who felt he painted an unfair portrayal of the Massachusetts facility. In fact, the film shot in 1967 was banned from being shown in Massachusetts until 1991. If you see the film you’ll understand why. One particularly upsetting scene involves a nude patient being taken out of his room for a shave. During the shave the staff continually harass the patient by repeatedly asking him the same two or three questions. The scene goes on for about fifteen minutes and the patient responds in cycles of ignoring them, giving monotone answers, and shrieking in confusion and anger. Another scene features an emaciated patient being force fed soup through a tube inserted in his nose; however, the scene is intermediately interrupted for close ups of the same patient’s body being prepared for incineration.
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