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Frederick Wiseman: Titicut Follies (1967)

The film was definitely hard to watch and left me with mixed feelings. Aside from the cruel and inhumane scenes, the passiveness of the filmmaker in the documentary was also disturbing. I agree with Grimwash and Ravez, the film is both open and closed (pg 12). Despite the fact that Wiseman directly exposes his observees without any context or chronology of the story, the viewer has to untangle the ambiguity of the filmmaker's choices: why did he choose this certain angle? why did he choose this specific sound for the scene? why is he showing this to us? The last question was especially on my mind while watching the film. What is Wiseman's goal by documenting this passive observation? Why didn't he intervene or try to understand the participants better instead of only showing the surface of the story? I think this also brings up the issue of ethics and it reminded me of a short film One Hundredth of a Second (2006) by Susan Jacobson. The short story is about the ethics of documenting violence – how should the filmmaker or a photographer act when her observee is in danger? 

       

 Nevertheless, according to Grimshaw and Ravez, Wiseman's goal was to raise public awareness of the problems of the judicial system and the treatment of the mentally ill. Yet, while cinéma vérité should "show, not tell", it doesn't seem to show any empathy or engagement with its subjects. The social distance created between the filmmaker and his subject doesn't give the impression that he wants to change the reality, but just to observe and document it without any intervention.


Wiseman frequently uses the close-up technique which makes the film more uncomfortable to watch. I think this kind of filming invades into the subject's personal space without his permission, creating some kind of power dynamic between him and the filmmaker. What I mean by this is that the camera becomes a source of pressure on its own, while the patient is unshielded and exposed. The film clearly demonstrates that observation is not merely looking at the institution from the inside, but actively engaging with its actors, participants and producers. 




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