WEBVTT - Why was Titicut Follies banned? 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:05.000 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.880 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:18.520 Chuck and this is stuff you should know. Just us today. 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.400 Jerry's on vacation and that's cool. 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.120 Yeah. I think Jerry's in the Disney World. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:24.800 Yeah. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:26.920 And it went right after me. She's in the in 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.320 the d I said, hey, Jerry in the south bathroom 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:37.720 of Frontierland, above the toilet I've left. I've taped a gun. 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.240 Go shoot Mo Green. Go shoot Mo Green in the 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:41.960 restaurant booth. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.800 Wow. No, Mo Green got it in the on the 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:45.520 massage table. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:46.760 Oh that's right. 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:53.159 Oh, police commissioner or the police chief. He was. He 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.720 was tangential to the hit with the bathroom. I don't 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:57.840 remember who was trying to hit. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:03.400 That's right. I goofed that up. Hey. Shout out to uh. 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:04.720 Wait, no, we're not done sorting this out. 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.560 Okay, go ahead, name all the hits in the Godfather. 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:11.720 Shout out to our pal and friend of the show, 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:16.080 Kevin Pollack, because that made me think of the great, 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.280 great show that is one of my favorite shows called 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:25.319 Better Things from the wonderful talented Pamela Adlin. They are 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:27.840 entering their final season, and I watched the first episode 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.920 the other night and Pollock, who plays her brother on 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:34.360 the show, had a great line that I knew was 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.200 improved where he was getting in his car and I 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:38.560 can't remember what they were talking about, and he said 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.320 right in the eye like Moe Green. And I texted 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.160 him immediately and I was like, right in the eye 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:44.720 like Mo Green. I was like, that was yours and 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.520 he went, oh yeah, he said that was improv nice. 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:49.760 It was very fun. It's always fun to be able 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.440 to watch a TV show and text your pal that's 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:53.200 on that TV. 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.960 Show, right, Yeah, he's got the best parts. He just 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:57.640 pops up in all the best stuff, you know. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.080 Yeah, he's in masl he's I think. And I've talked 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.840 to Pollock about this and he's like, yeah, I agree. 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:08.200 I think he could star in a really great indie film. 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.000 I just think he's a really great actor and he's 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.120 great at comedy. But I think he's, on top of that, 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:15.440 just a really really great actor. 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.800 Didn't he star in that Project green Light film? I 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.200 don't know, did he which I'm pretty I'm pretty sure. 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:24.200 I think the first season. 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:26.920 Oh boy, I don't remember those movies. I know that 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:29.720 Shila boff that was where he got his start, Is 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:31.720 that right? Was he in one of those the Battle 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:33.320 of Shaker Heights or something? 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.560 I think that might have been the one that Pollock was. 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.320 Was he in that? I don't think of that movie, 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.320 but I mean a really good movie. And I'm not 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.320 sure the Project green Light It was a cool show though, 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.920 I dug it. Yeah, yeah, and brought that back in 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:48.520 the iPhone filmmaking age. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.280 Yeah, it's a little surprising who would be who would 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:52.119 bring it back? Though? 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.080 Now Ben and Mack could bring him back. I mean 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.079 they that's who did it the first time, right. 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.679 Sure, But I mean are they still relevant? Aren't there too? 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:01.960 Like younger version of math better? 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.440 I don't know who the new Ben and Matt are. 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.960 How about Whiz Khalifah. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:11.280 And Charlomagne the God? 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:12.720 Sure there you go? 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.440 All right? Great? Anyway, Keppa Bok's a great actor and 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:17.000 a good dude. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:22.119 Yeah, I agreed, And probably somebody I would guess who's 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.239 seen the movie that we're going to talk about today. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.240 I would be really surprised if he hasn't seen it, 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.200 just because I feel like, if you are into movies, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:31.480 if you're a movie maker. If you are if you 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.680 consider yourself a cinemaphile, if you want to get punched 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:41.040 in the stomach, you've probably seen Titty Cut Follies, right, Yeah, I. 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.400 Mean this is one that I saw in film class 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.720 in college. It is one that you there's about a 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:48.880 fifty to fifty chance that you will see this if 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.400 you've seen it in film class in a college. People 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.400 like Casey, our colleague, Casey Pegram, no doubt, is a 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:58.720 Frederick Weisman fan. I'm surely if I texted him, he'd 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.640 be like, oh, sure Weisman. Yeah, although I found Tittercut 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:03.400 Follies was not one of his great at work. 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:05.280 Yeah, that sounds like Casey. 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:10.480 God bless Casey, all time greatest movie crush guest. But yeah, 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.720 Fred Weisman made this film. He was a law professor 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:19.400 in his thirties in the sixties and made this documentary 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:26.240 film about a mental institution, specifically one for the criminally insane, 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.240 that's what they called it. Yeah, and it was a 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:31.280 very you know, it was a movie that gained a 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.320 lot of reputation as like the most disturbing film you've 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:38.240 ever seen, and it's been banned in this many places. 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:40.440 And that kind of thing. But when you kind of 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.000 peel it back, it's just a very straight up, sort 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.640 of cinema verite documentary about a institution that needed to 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.440 get their act together right. 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.440 And that was kind of Wiseman's told jam. Like, he's 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.880 made forty eight films. I think he just turned ninety 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.360 two a couple months ago, amazing, and starting in nineteen 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:02.920 sixty six he made about a film a year. Yeah, 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.919 and he has his own style, like you said, cinema 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:07.880 verite you, which I feel like we should probably kind 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.279 of just go ahead and explain, don't you sure, Yeah, 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.239 go ahead, go ahead, film guy. 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:20.679 Well, cinema verite. I mean, what's the direct translation, direct cinema. Yeah, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.080 direct cinema. And it's the idea that you kind of 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.599 set a camera up and let it let life happen 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:28.800 in front of it for whatever your subject is. Don't 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.760 you don't do interviews, you don't do talking head shots, 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:37.599 you don't. It's really just one good example is that 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:39.640 documentary in the of course now I can't think of 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.280 it in the seventies about the American family that ran 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.520 on PBS that was so groundbreaking, where they just set 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.760 up a camera and followed this family. And if you're 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.920 thinking it sounds a lot like reality TV, I think, 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.480 and it's purest form reality TV can be this, but 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.719 it really turned into something else entirely. 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.279 Yeah. Yeah, it's just so deeply manipulated by producers behind 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.200 the scenes who tell them to do this or that 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.760 or whatever. Yeah, cinema verites would would not would not 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.320 want to do that. They they just shoot and hope 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.160 hope also that people act like themselves. It's another thing 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.640 and one thing Frederick Wiseman, the guy who made Titty 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:25.040 Cut Follies, said like he believed that people basically acted 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.480 like themselves when the camera was around, because people are 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.760 in general lousy actors. Yeah, and they're behaving like you 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.800 would expect them to behave. So they're probably acting like 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.560 they would without the cameras, but especially in a cinema 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.719 verite kind of setup, because it's it's intrusive. There's a 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:44.840 camera there, but it's not nearly as intrusive as like 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.760 a camera on like some rig that's flying around, Like 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:51.599 there's lighting people and daffers and a craft services table 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:56.560 that's calling your name, but it's just much less intrusive 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.520 than that it's minimally intrusive as far as filmmaking goes, 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.120 and that's the point of it, because they want to 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:06.560 document reality without leading the viewer as much as possible. 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.920 From what I understand, Yeah, that's exactly it. And I 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:16.040 love cinema verite documentaries especially, and I also like sort 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.520 of quasi cinema verite where there's a lot of like 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.480 I don't mind interviews being put in there, as long 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.280 as there's a lot of just sort of watching life happen. 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.400 It's really amazingly engrossing. There were these two filmmakers that 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:37.200 I think inspired Weissman, Richard Leecock and Robert Drew, who 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.240 in the early I think in the fifties and early 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:44.840 nineteen sixties were kind of dabbling in cinema verite documentaries. 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.240 And they made one in particular called Mooney Versus Fowl, 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.640 which is about a high school football championship and Mooney 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.680 and Fowl are the two coaches. And I watched the 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.600 trailer for that today. I guess I'm guessing it's his 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.200 daughter that put this up on VIM along with some 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.400 other like interviews with her dad, Drew's daughter that it's 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.720 really engrossing, just to watch, and especially because all you 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:13.000 see if you're a modern person in twenty twenty two 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.320 and you're like, what was life like in the nineteen fifties, 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:17.880 you don't get that from I love Lucy and Dick 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.560 Van Dyke, Like, those are great shows, but to be 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.240 able to just sit in and take a peek at 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:27.160 these high school football coaches and these people the community 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.840 and the stands and these players, like, it's just so 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.120 engrossing to me. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:32.800 really like it. 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:38.600 Yeah, no, totally, But yeah, I feel like, even if 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.760 it isn't your cup of tea, you would, like you said, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.719 be engrossed by it. I don't think there's any way 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.520 to just be like no, I don't know. Some people 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.680 probably find it dull. I'm sure there are, but it's 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.880 just it is engrossing. I don't think there's any other 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:52.520 way to universally describe it. 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:55.720 Yeah, and Drew, I sent you that one little interview 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.120 snip and I don't know if you saw it, but he 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.520 sort of was talking about being a new form of journalism. Yeah, 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.520 where he talked about you know, it's like a you know, 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.679 they're like, well, what is this though? And he's like, well, 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.319 it's like a play without a playwriter, a movie without actors, 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:15.199 or journalism without opinions. And I was like, oh, well, 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.000 that's interesting to say in the nineteen. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.319 Fifties, yeah, all the way back then. 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:22.560 Yeah, but it's they saw it as leelock, and I 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.480 think Drew saw it more as a form of journalism. 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.400 And I feel like that's what documentaries used to be, 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:29.920 and that's changed a lot, sometimes for the better. It 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.360 can be all things, I guess, but it seems like 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.960 documentaries used to be way more journalism and less at 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:36.920 big time entertainment. 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:39.960 Yeah, what do you think about How do you feel 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.360 about recreations and documentaries. 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.760 I think it can be cool if you have a good, 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.440 like a new spin on it, kind of like when 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.079 the Kid Stays in the picture came out the documentary 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.320 about the producer what's his face Robert Evans, Yeah, Robert Godfather, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:03.280 Yeah exactly. They did those recreations through animation and this 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.360 really cool style of animation that like was really engaging 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.880 and awesome, and like, recrease can be really cool if 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:11.240 you do it right, I think, yeah, or really bad 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.200 if it's like some dumb cop show on TV. 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.840 Oh yeah, like, but those are kind of fun too. Yeah, 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.320 you mean like the one Headline News shows it one 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.200 hundred episodes today. Forensic files. 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:26.839 I haven't seen it, but if it's the recrease, I'm 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.120 thinking of where it's like, you know, they recreated murder 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.280 on like you got five hundred dollars to shoot this. 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.520 Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, you're thinking of forensic files. 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:36.640 But still, if you watch enough of it, it'll really 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.480 like your whole life will turn dark. Yeah, i'd be 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:41.240 careful with court files everybody. 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.240 So should we go back and talk about Bridgewater State Hospital? 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.200 Yeah, because this is the place where Frederick Wiseman showed 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:52.600 up with his camera with permission, as we'll see. And 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:54.559 by the time he got there in nineteen I think 0:10:54.600 --> 0:11:00.480 he shot in nineteen sixty five, maybe nineteen sixty six, yes, okay, 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.000 when he got there, it had been around for over 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.480 one hundred years. It didn't start out as a state hospital. 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.439 It started out as a poor house, an almshouse, I think, 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.080 all the way back in eighteen fifty four. 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.160 Yeah, and it's interesting when you read these it's disturbing. 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:20.160 But when you read these old timey classifications in medicine, 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.880 or especially in mental health, where someone be you know, 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.320 the description of someone that might be put there might 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:32.480 just be bad. Like that's one of the descriptions, right. 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:37.359 Like that'd be on par with like labeling them alcoholic 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.800 or schizophrenia or something like that. 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.280 Yeah, but you know, if you were if you had 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.640 an alcohol problem, or you had legitimate you know, mental 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:52.640 health issues, or if you were pregnant maybe or blind, 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.040 or you had syphilis, you might have been put in 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.560 this poorhouse in eighteen fifty four. 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.160 Right, so in Massachusett by the way, Yeah, I don't 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.800 know if we said that or not. So that's how 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.480 it started out. And then over time they started adding 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:11.120 criminals and focused more on criminals and the mentally ill, 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.840 and then by the time eighteen ninety five rolled around, 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:20.080 it became the State Asylum for Insane Criminals at the 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:24.839 State Workhouse at Bridgewater, and then eventually it became known 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.920 as Bridgewater State Hospital, I think by nineteen oh nine. 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.720 And then very crucially here it was handed over from 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.400 the State Board of Charity, because remember it started out 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.880 as a poorhouse, over to the Massachusetts Bureau of Prison. 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.960 So for all intents and purposes, at least bureaucratically speaking, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.560 is a place where the criminally insane, how they were 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.679 termed in the twentieth century is are held. 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.520 Yeah, and there were some bad criminals in there. I 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.560 mean there were murderers, There were people who were convicted 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:06.280 of can of rape of children or just generally of rape. 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.600 So there were some bad dudes in there for sure. 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.079 But then there were also and this was sort of 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:15.800 one of the saddest things about sort of that time 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.600 in this country. Those people were right alongside other people 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.720 who either committed a very minor crime or maybe didn't 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:25.840 commit a crime at all, and they were just quote 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.880 unquote being held there temporarily, but that could stretch on 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:29.600 into years. 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.680 Yeah, there's still something today called civil commitment, and it's 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:37.640 basically that you were being held not because of a 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:39.800 crime or because of a minor crime, and you maybe 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.000 you've even served your sentence, but you're being held because 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.600 you had been deemed mentally unfit to return to society, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.720 even though maybe you didn't even start out like in 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.679 a mental hospital, maybe you started out in jail and 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.800 then you were just a trouble maker. They considered you 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:57.880 a troublemaker in jail. And you got sent to the hospital. 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.880 At that point, your sentence was just it just went away. 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.480 It was you were there until a doctor decided you 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.960 should be let out. And the problem was getting the 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.240 attention of a doctor long enough to say, oh, actually 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.360 you're fine, to let you out was really difficult to do. 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.240 And so it was a really desperate place, especially for 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.680 people who didn't feel like they should be there, belong there, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.640 because after a while it seemed to exert its influence 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.520 on your mind and your outlook, and it would bend 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:34.160 you to reflect it so that you kind of needed 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:35.840 to be there after a while, even if you didn't 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:36.640 start out that way. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.160 Yeah, I mean, anyone who's ever seen one floor of 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.400 the Cuckoo's Nests is kind of exactly that happens in 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.760 the plot. Like people got worse at these places, right, 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:51.000 And you mentioned the medical actual medical attention. President of 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:55.640 the Massachusetts Bar Association at the time, Paul Tamborello, and 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.320 big thanks to Livia for digging us up and putting 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.360 us together for us. He told the Harvard Crimson back 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.880 then that of the six hundred and fifty men held 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.200 at the hospital at the time, actual medical staff were 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.920 able to see less than half of them one time 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.880 a year for about twenty minutes. So other than that, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.080 you're like, well, then who was it. If it wasn't 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:20.600 medical staff, it was like prison guards basically, yes. 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.240 And even then when you did get that twenty minutes, 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.440 you were confronted by a person or group of people 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.080 who were going on the premise that everything you said 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.040 came out of your mouth was looney right and not 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.520 based in reality or fact. No matter how well you 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.840 put your case or stated your case or complained, like 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.120 any show of emotion would just prove to them that 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.160 you were meant to be in there for another year 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:47.720 until they could hopefully see you again and reevaluate you. 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.400 Yeah, there was this one example Olivia found of jeez, 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:57.160 it's hard to believe. Matteo Kalicochi was arrested in nineteen 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.800 twenty seven, at my daughter's age almost years old, for 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.800 stealing seven bucks from a grocery store, which is pretty 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.040 good take in nineteen twenty seven, by the way, and 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.640 he was found incompetent to stand trial and then sent 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.240 to kind of sent all around over the years to 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.000 different institutions. After he tried to escape in nineteen thirty 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.800 five was eventually landed at Bridgewater, and this is another 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.800 one of those archaic terms. Was charged with bad habits 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:30.640 and resisting authority. And this seven year old eventually ended 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.560 up here later in life, but stayed there for twenty 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.480 eight years and released in nineteen sixty three. So that's 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.040 just one example of how like sort of a small 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.920 petty crime, but if you maybe have an attitude or 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.400 your troublemaker as a kid, and you bounce around from 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.440 place to place, you just might wind up here with 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.200 no one advocating for you. This all made me think 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.960 of like what families were doing. But I guess at 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:59.400 the time some families were kind of like maybe convinced 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.080 themselves there were or off there, or they didn't want 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.760 to deal with the trouble, or there were no family 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:04.320 I don't know. 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.679 Yeah, or their family was poor and had no influence 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.080 over anybody, so they couldn't do anything about it. 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:12.400 Very sad. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:14.960 Yeah, I say, we take a break and we'll come 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.359 back with Wiseman and his tenure while he was at Bridgewater. 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.240 So Frederick Wiseman had an interesting origin story as a filmmaker. 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:53.280 He was he went to law school at Yale supposedly 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.480 to get out of the Korean War draft, but then 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.000 when he graduated, he still ended up getting drafted anyway, 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:02.560 and he was in there for almost two. 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:03.760 Years kind of after the war. 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.000 But yeah, yeah, but I still I'll bet he was 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:11.840 not happy about being drafted either way. Sure, so he 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:13.840 he went he, I guess went to Korea for a 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:15.720 couple of years, and then after the army he and 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.000 his wife what is her. 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:21.280 Name, Zippora Batshaw A great name. 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.760 Yeah, she was a law professor as well. They went 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:26.800 to Paris, lived for a couple of years and then 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:28.880 decided they need to move back, so they moved back 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:33.360 to like the Boston area. But while there, Frederick Wiseman 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:37.399 got into filmmaking. He started just shooting stuff with a 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.560 little eight millimeter camera about the time that cinema verite 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:43.760 was being developed in France. 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.280 That's right. So, like you said, he came back from France, 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:53.560 started teaching law at BU and sort of had that 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.760 filmmaking bug still. So he bought the rights to a book, 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.480 a novel called The Cool World about poverty and Harlem, 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.720 and he hired a woman named Shirley Clark Clark sorry 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.480 to direct it and It was a very small I 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:08.560 don't think it was much of a big film at all, 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:10.200 but it was a very small sort of indie film 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:12.600 at the time, which is to say it was probably 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:17.280 not seen much. But Wiseman was like, hey, like, if 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:19.560 Shirley Clark can do this thing, I can do this thing. 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.520 And I don't like law school. I don't like teaching law. 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.120 And one of the things he did because he didn't 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.040 love teaching law was take his class on a lot 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.320 of field trips, I guess, just to mix things up. 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.320 And they used to go to Bridgewater, and after a 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.160 few visits he was like, wait a minute, I think 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.080 everything kind of came together. His love of filmmaking, his 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.320 cinema verite kind of becoming popular, and his interest in that, 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.359 and then his interest disinterested in law and interest in Bridgewater. 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:50.760 So he had this idea to make this film there. 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.320 Yeah. So, as we'll see later, this is kind of crucial. 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.919 He got permission to show up. He's said many times 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.000 in later interviews, Bridgewater is no the kind of place 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.000 she just kind of parachute in at night, do all 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.320 your filming and then creep away at dawn with all 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:09.160 of your footage, Like he had to get extensive permission. 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:10.639 From sounds like he's done that before though, which is. 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.560 Kind of cool. Yeah, we've done that before too in 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:18.920 grocery stores. Remember, Oh, that's right. So he got permission 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.720 from the Lieutenant governor, he got permission from the Department 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.600 of Corrections head, he got permission of the superintendent of Bridgewater. 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.760 They all knew he was there, and they would have 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.879 figured out eventually anyway, because he spent twenty nine days 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:36.400 filming in Bridgewater, and he would just do his cinema 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:38.560 verita style where he would just walk around and just 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.000 film stuff, film whatever. He could, just film film film. 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:44.640 And I saw something where he said that for his 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.359 documentaries he films anything from like seventy five hours at 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.960 a minimum chuck now, to two hundred and fifty hours, 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:55.639 and then he goes through it all and edits all 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.600 the stuff he likes, and then after like month eight 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.120 of editing, he'll start piecing it together into like an 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:03.879 arc A story arc. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.120 Wow, which boiled down in this case to eighty three 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:10.560 minutes of a movie. Yeah, And the name Tittcut Follies 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.080 comes from I think Titticut was a Native American name. 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:16.800 I would guess somewhere in the region. 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.080 I didn't really pin pink for the Bridgewater area, that's 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:19.760 what they called it. 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.879 Okay, And the follies were that, you know. The film 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:26.640 opens up with a musical performance by the I guess 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.920 there were inmates with a song strike up the band 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.040 where all they're all dressed the same and you can 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.920 see you can see quite a few clips on YouTube. 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.760 But as Livia points out, like Wiseman has always been 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:43.960 really guarded with how his films are exhibited, and so 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:46.840 I don't think you can just like go YouTube this 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:48.800