Random Thoughts on Titicut Follies

Saw this very infamous documentary the other day for the first time. I purchased it from Zipporah.com, which, I have to say, is making a lot of money for Frederick Wiseman. Maybe deservedly so. The quality is not terribly good and I sure do wish there were subtitles. Very hard to hear some of the dialog or to even comprehend what they were talking about.

1. Hungarian physchiatrist was very scary guy. Missing a lot of his teeth and squinting horribly made him very scary to look at. Chain-smoking like a fiend, even when feeding an inmate with a feeding tube. His questions to the young sex fiend were very disturbing. Seemed like the doctor got off on some of the replies of the young inmate.

2. The young sex fiend was very scary too. He sexually abused little girls, including his own daughter. He agreed that he was sick and I think he genuinely believed the asylum could help him. I had a vision of him being locked up for life before he realizes what he has let himself in for.

3. The guy being force-fed was horrible. Was he the same person who later died? I thought they referred to the corpse as "Jim", which was the name of the teacher they were mocking.

4. The Titicut Follies themselves were horrible. Horrific when the middle-aged nurses raised their skirts over their heads at the end of the show.

5. The young Polish man, Vladimir: I was glad to read on this forum that he was later released. He seemed to be in a Kafkaesque situation with no relief in sight.

6. The head of the asylum (the guy who wore a suit and had 4 children) was extremely odd too.

7. There was absolutely nothing for the inmates to do. A walk outside in the yard and that was it. No remedial therapy, no games, zero.

What I came away with was that, as in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it was really hard to tell who was sane or insane in this place. A lot of the so-called sane people working there looked and acted crazy to me.