Titicut Follies (1967), directed by Fredrick Wiseman, is a “fly-on-the-wall” style documentary which

showcases the goings-on of the Bridgewater State Hospital, and exposes the degradation and
harassment inflicted on the occupants on a day-to-day basis, as well as highlight the indifference and
negligence the staff seem to show for their patients. Filmed in the Observational mode, the film uses
a clever combination of cinematography, editing and other rhetorical features to instil a sense of
shock, aversion and anger into its audience.

As stated above, the film is shot in the style of The Observational Mode of documentary filmmaking,
meaning that the it “abandoned all forms of control over staging, arrangement, or composition” ¹
and utilised “no voice-over commentary, no supplementary music or sound effects” ¹. That being said,
the film is incredibly effective at using its cinematography to instil an emotional response in its
audience. For example, a scene towards the beginning of the film shows the guards escorting a
patient from his cell into a bathroom to shave him. Along the way, the guards constantly berate the
patient for not tidying his room, in the hopes that the patient will have an emotional reaction.
Wiseman shoots the patient being escorted to-and-from his cell in a telephoto wide-shot, centre-
framed. Not only does this showcase the barren-room devoid of any furniture or bedding, but also
reveals that the patient has currently been stripped of all of his clothes. The camera slowly zooms-in
to the patient’s face as he stamps around his cell, staring directly down the camera lens. This scene
is incredibly confronting in many ways; the wide-shot of his naked body contrasted with the empty
cell highlights the vulnerability of said patient, instilling a sense of aversion and shock in the
audience for the image they are seeing. As the camera zooms on the patient’s face during the
outburst, anger is also felt in from the audience towards the staff for how this man can be treated in
such a manner.

Another example of emotive use of cinematography in Titicut Follies occurs much later in the film. In
this scene, a patient makes a plea to the hospital administration board to be transferred back to
prison instead of staying at Bridgewater, and advises that his medication is not working. This patient
has been shown previously in the film making similar requests, but nothing as official as addressing
the board directly. As the man makes his plea, we see the desperation on his face in a telephoto
close-up shot. The camera is positioned at a straight-on angle and the image has a very shallow
depth-of-field, making the audience focus on his expression and further empathise with him. When
the film cuts to the staff’s reaction, they are also shot in a telephoto close-up. However, the staff are
shot entirely in profile, making their reactions much harder to read than the patient’s and implying
that they are emotionally distancing themselves from the man’s request. This in turn implants anger
into the audience, as the staff members are presented, through clever imagery, as not taking the
man’s request seriously. After the patient is escorted out of the room, the staff are finally presented
from front-on in another telephoto close-up to make their conclusion that much more shocking and
averse: that the patient’s dosage should be upped to further sedate him. Again, Wiseman showcases
his exceptional understanding of exactly where to place a camera to instil different emotional
responses from his audience.

Fredrick Wiseman’s editing is also incredibly effective at soliciting emotional responses from the
viewer. Although there are not cuts to insert-shots of any non-diegetic imagery or interviews of
people after-the-fact, Wiseman seems to edit his Titicut Follies in a style similar to “classic fiction
films than to earlier documentary [films]” ². Namely, his use of cross-cuts and long-takes are used in
a manner that is very moving. The most prominent example of both of these techniques being
utilised for maximum effect is during a scene where a patient is tied down to a table so he can be
force-fed his meals through a tube in his nose. Although there are many different camera
movements used during this scene (zooms, pans and tilts), what makes the scene incredibly
1. B Nichols, Introduction to Documentary Third Edition, Indiana University Press, Bloomington Indiana, 2017, pp. 132
2. I Brabash & L Taylor, Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic
Films and Videos, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, pp. 28
uncomfortable and averse is that is all the shots documenting this are all over a minute long. The
conscious decision Wiseman made to not cut-away from the patient being force-fed and instead
focus on it in close-ups and medium-shots maximises the shock and aversion driven into the
audience. When the film finally cuts away, what the viewer is presented with is a close-up of the
same patient’s dead body being prepared for burial by the hospital staff. Just as the viewer begins to
comprehend the shocking image they are witnessing, the film then cross-cuts back to the force-
feeding process of that patient. The film then continues cross-cutting between these two events
until both reach their natural conclusion: the patient is released from being tied-down, and the
hospital staff subsequently bury his remains. Instead of presenting these two events as separate
encounters throughout the film, like how Wiseman edits the previous patient’s numerous pleas to
be transferred back to prison interspersed at different intervals during the film, Wiseman made the
conscious decision to edit these two events as if they were happening sequentially. The result is
powerful: the stark cuts to the patient’s dead body both shock and disturb the audience, as well as
the incredibly uncomfortable long-takes used during the patient’s force-feeding session. Keeping in
lines of the staff dispassionately discussing what different types of lubricant should be used on the
feeding-tube, as well as coldly requesting for a beverage when preparing said patient’s dead body
infuse the audience with a sense of anger at how nonchalant they seem to be in this situation,
implying that they have done it many times before.

Although Titicut Follies was released in cinemas over fifty years ago, the film’s clever use of
cinematography and editing is still as effective in eliciting an emotional response from its audience as
it was back then. Truly, Fredrick Wiseman has proven himself a master of the form, and deserves to
be celebrated for his exceptional exposé uncovering the brutality and humiliation inflicted on those
under care at the Bridgewater State Hospital.

Bibliography:
 Titicut Follies, motion picture, Zipporah Films Incorporated, Cambridge, Massachusetts, director F
Wiseman, 1967
 B Nichols, Introduction to Documentary Third Edition, Indiana University Press, Bloomington Indiana, 2017,
pp. 132
 I Brabash & L Taylor, Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and
Ethnographic Films and Videos, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, pp. 28

1. B Nichols, Introduction to Documentary Third Edition, Indiana University Press, Bloomington Indiana, 2017, pp. 132
2. I Brabash & L Taylor, Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic
Films and Videos, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, pp. 28