Titicut Follies

Banned for almost 25 years, Frederick Wiseman's uncompromising account of life inside the Bridgewater state hospital in Massachusetts remains the only film to be censored in America on grounds other than obscenity. The graphic presentation of the brutal cruelty meted out by guards, social workers and psychiatrists is disturbing enough. But what makes the treatment of the criminally insane inmates all the more shocking is what it reveals about a nation that would tolerate such inhumanity while claiming to be the global champion of social justice. Unbearable to watch, but impossible to forget, this is a landmark in documentary film-making.