TITICUT FOLLIES — CLASSIC FILM PICK

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Frederick Wiseman’s classic black-and-white documentary exposé of the horrendous conditions and treatment of mental patients at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts is one of the most famously banned films in America. An attorney-turned-activist-filmmaker, Wiseman received permission from the institution’s superintendent to freely film inside the all-male facility in 1967.

With the help of cameraman John Marshall, the two-man team recorded interviews between patients and staff, daily rituals—such as the cleaning of patients’ rooms—and interactions between the inmates. The result is a shocking and undiluted look inside callous institutional exploitation.

Candid footage of perpetually nude inmates being extracted from their cells for bathing and room cleaning, displays bare cells without so much as a table or chair, much less a cot.

Guards verbally harass an inmate named Jim with constantly repeated questions about the condition of his room until he finally lashes out with grimaced screaming responses.

Made during an era when mental hospitals dotted America’s map like flies on manure, “Titicut Follies” presents an invaluable time capsule. The film’s title comes from an inmate talent show that opens the film. Titicut comes from an Indian name for the Taunton River that runs near the facility.

One of the film’s most memorable sequences involves the force-feeding of a starving inmate by a cigarette-smoking bureaucrat who shoves a rubber hose down the compliant inmate’s nose. Short on Vaseline, the administrator casually requests lard or butter to lubricate the tube. Guards use towels wrapped around the naked man’s feet and wrists to restrain him. Wiseman uses quick cuts to show the man’s corpse being prepared for burial. Needless to say, the brutal force-feeding treatment is not effective. Although Wiseman later came to regret his “heavy-handed” editorializing, the cuts add a jarring quality of welcome disapproval by the filmmaker for the outrageous conduct he witnessed.

After winning awards at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival in Germany, and at Italy’s Festival Dei Popoli, “Titicut Follies: film was banned by the Massachusetts Superior Court just before it was to be shown at the 1967 New York Film Festival. Massachusetts Superior Court judge Harry Kalus ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed, citing Massachusetts laws about patients' rights to privacy and dignity.

Wiseman appealed the case to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which allowed it to be shown only to “doctors, lawyers, judges, health-care professionals, social workers, and students in these and related fields” in 1969. It was the first time in American history that a film was banned from general distribution for reasons other than “obscenity, immorality, or national security.” “Titicut Follies wasn’t available for viewing by the general public until 1989.

Not Rated. 84 mins.

MEDIUM COOL — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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"Jesus I love to shoot film." That character line from Robert Forster's television news cameraman John Cassellis, succinctly states writer/director Haskell Wexler's overriding impulse behind his 1969 textbook example of vérité film-making.

"Medium Cool" opens with Cassellis and his soundman partner pulling over on the side of the road to film the aftermath of a deadly car crash.

Cut to a cocktail party where a group of journalists actively discuss social issues and bemoan their daily plight of being beaten up by both cops and civilians when they do their job. It's in these kind of loosely strung together moments of compulsive social activity and intimate interaction that Wexler captures a zeitgeist of authoritarian abuse, warmongering, racism, sexism, poverty, and class conflicts that permeate the film like a thunderstorm on a sunny day.

Cassellis and his partner travel to Chicago in the summer of 1968 to cover the Democratic National Convention. Using a combination of documentary footage of military training exercises and indiscriminate police abuse of protestors, Wexler puts his cynical protagonist in the middle of a media-propagated tempest, of which Cassellis has been an unwitting accomplice.

Thoroughly of its time, and yet decades ahead of the curve, "Medium Cool" goes beyond neorealism and social realist genres by putting the filmmaker and his medium directly in the context of the film. Straight-to-camera monologues by ghetto-dwelling black characters cut through the movie with an editorial vengeance. Wexler may have been going after something "cool," but what he came up with is smoking hot cinema that puts Jean-Luc Goddard to shame.

Rated R. 111 mins. 

COCKSUCKER BLUES

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For all of the mystery and legal controversy surrounding Robert Frank's unstructured Cinéma vérité Rolling Stones documentary (filmed during their 1972 "Exile on Main Street" tour) the proof in the pudding is fairly prosaic.

Although the film was originally commissioned by the Stones, the band took issue with its less than flattering image of its backstage and hotel room shenanigans that famously included drug use and sex.

A court ruling decreed that the film could only be shown with Robert Frank present, although it is--at the time of this writing--available online. "Cocksucker Blues" takes its intentionally profane title from the title of a final song that Mick Jagger wrote to fulfill the band's contract to Decca Records. Sadly, the nasty little ditty appears nowhere in the movie.

The film's highlight occurs during a live performance of "Satisfaction," with Stevie Wonder contributing to a magnificent moment of concert inspiration. Another bit of charming cool occurs with a shirtless Keith Richards playing boogie woogie on a hotel room piano. Frank left various cameras around for anyone to pick up and film whatever they wanted, and the result is a sloppy time capsule of early '70s rock 'n' roll excess. "Cocksucker Blues" is interesting from a time capsule point of view, but doesn't hold up as much of a movie.

Not Rated. 93 mins.