50th Anniversary Restoration
Thursday, June 22 | 5:30 & 8 pm
Banned from general release until 1991, Titicut Follies presents a harrowing portrait of life inside Massachusetts’s Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane. The directorial debut of Boston lawyer-turned-documentarian Frederick Wiseman (High School, National Gallery), Titicut Follies is a pioneering work of Direct Cinema that chronicles the inhumane treatment and living conditions at the Bridgewater facility without recourse to interviews, intertitles, or an artificially imposed narrative. And yet, despite Wiseman’s spare observational approach, his fluidly moving camera, keen eye for light and composition, and richly polyphonic sound design lends Titicut Follies a surreal, primitive lyricism that resonates beyond the profound material urgency of its subject matter. We are proud to present this essential documentary masterwork in a new 50th anniversary restoration.
Director Frederick Wiseman 1967 In English 84 minutes NR DCP
