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Why was Titicut Follies banned? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:14
Speaker 2: Chuck and this is stuff you should know. Just us today.
0:18
Speaker 2: Jerry's on vacation and that's cool.
0:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think Jerry's in the Disney World.
0:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
0:24
Speaker 1: And it went right after me. She's in the in
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Speaker 1: the d I said, hey, Jerry in the south bathroom
0:31
Speaker 1: of Frontierland, above the toilet I've left. I've taped a gun.
0:37
Speaker 1: Go shoot Mo Green. Go shoot Mo Green in the
0:41
Speaker 1: restaurant booth.
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Speaker 2: Wow. No, Mo Green got it in the on the
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Speaker 2: massage table.
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Speaker 1: Oh that's right.
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Speaker 2: Oh, police commissioner or the police chief. He was. He
0:53
Speaker 2: was tangential to the hit with the bathroom. I don't
0:56
Speaker 2: remember who was trying to hit.
0:59
Speaker 1: That's right. I goofed that up. Hey. Shout out to uh.
1:03
Speaker 2: Wait, no, we're not done sorting this out.
1:04
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead, name all the hits in the Godfather.
1:09
Speaker 1: Shout out to our pal and friend of the show,
1:11
Speaker 1: Kevin Pollack, because that made me think of the great,
1:16
Speaker 1: great show that is one of my favorite shows called
1:19
Speaker 1: Better Things from the wonderful talented Pamela Adlin. They are
1:25
Speaker 1: entering their final season, and I watched the first episode
1:27
Speaker 1: the other night and Pollock, who plays her brother on
1:32
Speaker 1: the show, had a great line that I knew was
1:34
Speaker 1: improved where he was getting in his car and I
1:37
Speaker 1: can't remember what they were talking about, and he said
1:38
Speaker 1: right in the eye like Moe Green. And I texted
1:41
Speaker 1: him immediately and I was like, right in the eye
1:43
Speaker 1: like Mo Green. I was like, that was yours and
1:44
Speaker 1: he went, oh yeah, he said that was improv nice.
1:48
Speaker 1: It was very fun. It's always fun to be able
1:49
Speaker 1: to watch a TV show and text your pal that's
1:52
Speaker 1: on that TV.
1:53
Speaker 2: Show, right, Yeah, he's got the best parts. He just
1:56
Speaker 2: pops up in all the best stuff, you know.
1:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's in masl he's I think. And I've talked
2:01
Speaker 1: to Pollock about this and he's like, yeah, I agree.
2:04
Speaker 1: I think he could star in a really great indie film.
2:09
Speaker 1: I just think he's a really great actor and he's
2:12
Speaker 1: great at comedy. But I think he's, on top of that,
2:14
Speaker 1: just a really really great actor.
2:15
Speaker 2: Didn't he star in that Project green Light film? I
2:19
Speaker 2: don't know, did he which I'm pretty I'm pretty sure.
2:22
Speaker 2: I think the first season.
2:24
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I don't remember those movies. I know that
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Speaker 1: Shila boff that was where he got his start, Is
2:29
Speaker 1: that right? Was he in one of those the Battle
2:31
Speaker 1: of Shaker Heights or something?
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Speaker 2: I think that might have been the one that Pollock was.
2:35
Speaker 1: Was he in that? I don't think of that movie,
2:37
Speaker 1: but I mean a really good movie. And I'm not
2:39
Speaker 1: sure the Project green Light It was a cool show though,
2:43
Speaker 1: I dug it. Yeah, yeah, and brought that back in
2:46
Speaker 1: the iPhone filmmaking age.
2:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little surprising who would be who would
2:51
Speaker 2: bring it back? Though?
2:52
Speaker 1: Now Ben and Mack could bring him back. I mean
2:55
Speaker 1: they that's who did it the first time, right.
2:57
Speaker 2: Sure, But I mean are they still relevant? Aren't there too?
2:59
Speaker 2: Like younger version of math better?
3:03
Speaker 1: I don't know who the new Ben and Matt are.
3:05
Speaker 2: How about Whiz Khalifah.
3:09
Speaker 1: And Charlomagne the God?
3:12
Speaker 2: Sure there you go?
3:13
Speaker 1: All right? Great? Anyway, Keppa Bok's a great actor and
3:16
Speaker 1: a good dude.
3:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agreed, And probably somebody I would guess who's
3:22
Speaker 2: seen the movie that we're going to talk about today.
3:24
Speaker 2: I would be really surprised if he hasn't seen it,
3:26
Speaker 2: just because I feel like, if you are into movies,
3:29
Speaker 2: if you're a movie maker. If you are if you
3:31
Speaker 2: consider yourself a cinemaphile, if you want to get punched
3:34
Speaker 2: in the stomach, you've probably seen Titty Cut Follies, right, Yeah, I.
3:40
Speaker 1: Mean this is one that I saw in film class
3:43
Speaker 1: in college. It is one that you there's about a
3:46
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty chance that you will see this if
3:48
Speaker 1: you've seen it in film class in a college. People
3:52
Speaker 1: like Casey, our colleague, Casey Pegram, no doubt, is a
3:56
Speaker 1: Frederick Weisman fan. I'm surely if I texted him, he'd
3:58
Speaker 1: be like, oh, sure Weisman. Yeah, although I found Tittercut
4:01
Speaker 1: Follies was not one of his great at work.
4:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds like Casey.
4:05
Speaker 1: God bless Casey, all time greatest movie crush guest. But yeah,
4:10
Speaker 1: Fred Weisman made this film. He was a law professor
4:14
Speaker 1: in his thirties in the sixties and made this documentary
4:19
Speaker 1: film about a mental institution, specifically one for the criminally insane,
4:26
Speaker 1: that's what they called it. Yeah, and it was a
4:29
Speaker 1: very you know, it was a movie that gained a
4:31
Speaker 1: lot of reputation as like the most disturbing film you've
4:34
Speaker 1: ever seen, and it's been banned in this many places.
4:38
Speaker 1: And that kind of thing. But when you kind of
4:40
Speaker 1: peel it back, it's just a very straight up, sort
4:43
Speaker 1: of cinema verite documentary about a institution that needed to
4:47
Speaker 1: get their act together right.
4:50
Speaker 2: And that was kind of Wiseman's told jam. Like, he's
4:52
Speaker 2: made forty eight films. I think he just turned ninety
4:54
Speaker 2: two a couple months ago, amazing, and starting in nineteen
4:58
Speaker 2: sixty six he made about a film a year. Yeah,
5:03
Speaker 2: and he has his own style, like you said, cinema
5:06
Speaker 2: verite you, which I feel like we should probably kind
5:07
Speaker 2: of just go ahead and explain, don't you sure, Yeah,
5:11
Speaker 2: go ahead, go ahead, film guy.
5:15
Speaker 1: Well, cinema verite. I mean, what's the direct translation, direct cinema. Yeah,
5:20
Speaker 1: direct cinema. And it's the idea that you kind of
5:24
Speaker 1: set a camera up and let it let life happen
5:26
Speaker 1: in front of it for whatever your subject is. Don't
5:29
Speaker 1: you don't do interviews, you don't do talking head shots,
5:32
Speaker 1: you don't. It's really just one good example is that
5:37
Speaker 1: documentary in the of course now I can't think of
5:39
Speaker 1: it in the seventies about the American family that ran
5:43
Speaker 1: on PBS that was so groundbreaking, where they just set
5:46
Speaker 1: up a camera and followed this family. And if you're
5:48
Speaker 1: thinking it sounds a lot like reality TV, I think,
5:53
Speaker 1: and it's purest form reality TV can be this, but
5:57
Speaker 1: it really turned into something else entirely.
6:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's just so deeply manipulated by producers behind
6:04
Speaker 2: the scenes who tell them to do this or that
6:06
Speaker 2: or whatever. Yeah, cinema verites would would not would not
6:10
Speaker 2: want to do that. They they just shoot and hope
6:13
Speaker 2: hope also that people act like themselves. It's another thing
6:17
Speaker 2: and one thing Frederick Wiseman, the guy who made Titty
6:20
Speaker 2: Cut Follies, said like he believed that people basically acted
6:25
Speaker 2: like themselves when the camera was around, because people are
6:28
Speaker 2: in general lousy actors. Yeah, and they're behaving like you
6:32
Speaker 2: would expect them to behave. So they're probably acting like
6:35
Speaker 2: they would without the cameras, but especially in a cinema
6:38
Speaker 2: verite kind of setup, because it's it's intrusive. There's a
6:42
Speaker 2: camera there, but it's not nearly as intrusive as like
6:44
Speaker 2: a camera on like some rig that's flying around, Like
6:47
Speaker 2: there's lighting people and daffers and a craft services table
6:51
Speaker 2: that's calling your name, but it's just much less intrusive
6:56
Speaker 2: than that it's minimally intrusive as far as filmmaking goes,
6:59
Speaker 2: and that's the point of it, because they want to
7:01
Speaker 2: document reality without leading the viewer as much as possible.
7:06
Speaker 1: From what I understand, Yeah, that's exactly it. And I
7:10
Speaker 1: love cinema verite documentaries especially, and I also like sort
7:16
Speaker 1: of quasi cinema verite where there's a lot of like
7:19
Speaker 1: I don't mind interviews being put in there, as long
7:23
Speaker 1: as there's a lot of just sort of watching life happen.
7:26
Speaker 1: It's really amazingly engrossing. There were these two filmmakers that
7:30
Speaker 1: I think inspired Weissman, Richard Leecock and Robert Drew, who
7:37
Speaker 1: in the early I think in the fifties and early
7:40
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties were kind of dabbling in cinema verite documentaries.
7:44
Speaker 1: And they made one in particular called Mooney Versus Fowl,
7:48
Speaker 1: which is about a high school football championship and Mooney
7:51
Speaker 1: and Fowl are the two coaches. And I watched the
7:54
Speaker 1: trailer for that today. I guess I'm guessing it's his
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Speaker 1: daughter that put this up on VIM along with some
8:01
Speaker 1: other like interviews with her dad, Drew's daughter that it's
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Speaker 1: really engrossing, just to watch, and especially because all you
8:08
Speaker 1: see if you're a modern person in twenty twenty two
8:13
Speaker 1: and you're like, what was life like in the nineteen fifties,
8:16
Speaker 1: you don't get that from I love Lucy and Dick
8:18
Speaker 1: Van Dyke, Like, those are great shows, but to be
8:20
Speaker 1: able to just sit in and take a peek at
8:23
Speaker 1: these high school football coaches and these people the community
8:27
Speaker 1: and the stands and these players, like, it's just so
8:30
Speaker 1: engrossing to me. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I
8:32
Speaker 1: really like it.
8:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally, But yeah, I feel like, even if
8:38
Speaker 2: it isn't your cup of tea, you would, like you said,
8:40
Speaker 2: be engrossed by it. I don't think there's any way
8:42
Speaker 2: to just be like no, I don't know. Some people
8:45
Speaker 2: probably find it dull. I'm sure there are, but it's
8:48
Speaker 2: just it is engrossing. I don't think there's any other
8:50
Speaker 2: way to universally describe it.
8:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Drew, I sent you that one little interview
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Speaker 1: snip and I don't know if you saw it, but he
8:58
Speaker 1: sort of was talking about being a new form of journalism. Yeah,
9:02
Speaker 1: where he talked about you know, it's like a you know,
9:04
Speaker 1: they're like, well, what is this though? And he's like, well,
9:06
Speaker 1: it's like a play without a playwriter, a movie without actors,
9:10
Speaker 1: or journalism without opinions. And I was like, oh, well,
9:15
Speaker 1: that's interesting to say in the nineteen.
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Speaker 2: Fifties, yeah, all the way back then.
9:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's they saw it as leelock, and I
9:22
Speaker 1: think Drew saw it more as a form of journalism.
9:24
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's what documentaries used to be,
9:27
Speaker 1: and that's changed a lot, sometimes for the better. It
9:29
Speaker 1: can be all things, I guess, but it seems like
9:32
Speaker 1: documentaries used to be way more journalism and less at
9:35
Speaker 1: big time entertainment.
9:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think about How do you feel
9:39
Speaker 2: about recreations and documentaries.
9:43
Speaker 1: I think it can be cool if you have a good,
9:47
Speaker 1: like a new spin on it, kind of like when
9:50
Speaker 1: the Kid Stays in the picture came out the documentary
9:54
Speaker 1: about the producer what's his face Robert Evans, Yeah, Robert Godfather,
9:58
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. They did those recreations through animation and this
10:03
Speaker 1: really cool style of animation that like was really engaging
10:06
Speaker 1: and awesome, and like, recrease can be really cool if
10:08
Speaker 1: you do it right, I think, yeah, or really bad
10:11
Speaker 1: if it's like some dumb cop show on TV.
10:15
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like, but those are kind of fun too. Yeah,
10:18
Speaker 2: you mean like the one Headline News shows it one
10:21
Speaker 2: hundred episodes today. Forensic files.
10:24
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, but if it's the recrease, I'm
10:26
Speaker 1: thinking of where it's like, you know, they recreated murder
10:29
Speaker 1: on like you got five hundred dollars to shoot this.
10:31
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, you're thinking of forensic files.
10:34
Speaker 2: But still, if you watch enough of it, it'll really
10:36
Speaker 2: like your whole life will turn dark. Yeah, i'd be
10:39
Speaker 2: careful with court files everybody.
10:41
Speaker 1: So should we go back and talk about Bridgewater State Hospital?
10:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, because this is the place where Frederick Wiseman showed
10:48
Speaker 2: up with his camera with permission, as we'll see. And
10:52
Speaker 2: by the time he got there in nineteen I think
10:54
Speaker 2: he shot in nineteen sixty five, maybe nineteen sixty six, yes, okay,
11:00
Speaker 2: when he got there, it had been around for over
11:04
Speaker 2: one hundred years. It didn't start out as a state hospital.
11:06
Speaker 2: It started out as a poor house, an almshouse, I think,
11:10
Speaker 2: all the way back in eighteen fifty four.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting when you read these it's disturbing.
11:16
Speaker 1: But when you read these old timey classifications in medicine,
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Speaker 1: or especially in mental health, where someone be you know,
11:24
Speaker 1: the description of someone that might be put there might
11:27
Speaker 1: just be bad. Like that's one of the descriptions, right.
11:32
Speaker 2: Like that'd be on par with like labeling them alcoholic
11:37
Speaker 2: or schizophrenia or something like that.
11:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, if you were if you had
11:44
Speaker 1: an alcohol problem, or you had legitimate you know, mental
11:47
Speaker 1: health issues, or if you were pregnant maybe or blind,
11:52
Speaker 1: or you had syphilis, you might have been put in
11:55
Speaker 1: this poorhouse in eighteen fifty four.
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Speaker 2: Right, so in Massachusett by the way, Yeah, I don't
12:01
Speaker 2: know if we said that or not. So that's how
12:03
Speaker 2: it started out. And then over time they started adding
12:06
Speaker 2: criminals and focused more on criminals and the mentally ill,
12:11
Speaker 2: and then by the time eighteen ninety five rolled around,
12:15
Speaker 2: it became the State Asylum for Insane Criminals at the
12:20
Speaker 2: State Workhouse at Bridgewater, and then eventually it became known
12:24
Speaker 2: as Bridgewater State Hospital, I think by nineteen oh nine.
12:28
Speaker 2: And then very crucially here it was handed over from
12:32
Speaker 2: the State Board of Charity, because remember it started out
12:35
Speaker 2: as a poorhouse, over to the Massachusetts Bureau of Prison.
12:40
Speaker 2: So for all intents and purposes, at least bureaucratically speaking,
12:45
Speaker 2: is a place where the criminally insane, how they were
12:48
Speaker 2: termed in the twentieth century is are held.
12:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there were some bad criminals in there. I
12:55
Speaker 1: mean there were murderers, There were people who were convicted
12:59
Speaker 1: of can of rape of children or just generally of rape.
13:06
Speaker 1: So there were some bad dudes in there for sure.
13:10
Speaker 1: But then there were also and this was sort of
13:13
Speaker 1: one of the saddest things about sort of that time
13:15
Speaker 1: in this country. Those people were right alongside other people
13:20
Speaker 1: who either committed a very minor crime or maybe didn't
13:23
Speaker 1: commit a crime at all, and they were just quote
13:25
Speaker 1: unquote being held there temporarily, but that could stretch on
13:28
Speaker 1: into years.
13:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's still something today called civil commitment, and it's
13:32
Speaker 2: basically that you were being held not because of a
13:37
Speaker 2: crime or because of a minor crime, and you maybe
13:39
Speaker 2: you've even served your sentence, but you're being held because
13:43
Speaker 2: you had been deemed mentally unfit to return to society,
13:47
Speaker 2: even though maybe you didn't even start out like in
13:50
Speaker 2: a mental hospital, maybe you started out in jail and
13:53
Speaker 2: then you were just a trouble maker. They considered you
13:55
Speaker 2: a troublemaker in jail. And you got sent to the hospital.
13:58
Speaker 2: At that point, your sentence was just it just went away.
14:02
Speaker 2: It was you were there until a doctor decided you
14:04
Speaker 2: should be let out. And the problem was getting the
14:08
Speaker 2: attention of a doctor long enough to say, oh, actually
14:11
Speaker 2: you're fine, to let you out was really difficult to do.
14:15
Speaker 2: And so it was a really desperate place, especially for
14:19
Speaker 2: people who didn't feel like they should be there, belong there,
14:22
Speaker 2: because after a while it seemed to exert its influence
14:25
Speaker 2: on your mind and your outlook, and it would bend
14:29
Speaker 2: you to reflect it so that you kind of needed
14:34
Speaker 2: to be there after a while, even if you didn't
14:35
Speaker 2: start out that way.
14:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, anyone who's ever seen one floor of
14:39
Speaker 1: the Cuckoo's Nests is kind of exactly that happens in
14:42
Speaker 1: the plot. Like people got worse at these places, right,
14:46
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the medical actual medical attention. President of
14:51
Speaker 1: the Massachusetts Bar Association at the time, Paul Tamborello, and
14:56
Speaker 1: big thanks to Livia for digging us up and putting
14:58
Speaker 1: us together for us. He told the Harvard Crimson back
15:01
Speaker 1: then that of the six hundred and fifty men held
15:03
Speaker 1: at the hospital at the time, actual medical staff were
15:07
Speaker 1: able to see less than half of them one time
15:10
Speaker 1: a year for about twenty minutes. So other than that,
15:14
Speaker 1: you're like, well, then who was it. If it wasn't
15:16
Speaker 1: medical staff, it was like prison guards basically, yes.
15:20
Speaker 2: And even then when you did get that twenty minutes,
15:23
Speaker 2: you were confronted by a person or group of people
15:26
Speaker 2: who were going on the premise that everything you said
15:29
Speaker 2: came out of your mouth was looney right and not
15:32
Speaker 2: based in reality or fact. No matter how well you
15:35
Speaker 2: put your case or stated your case or complained, like
15:40
Speaker 2: any show of emotion would just prove to them that
15:43
Speaker 2: you were meant to be in there for another year
15:45
Speaker 2: until they could hopefully see you again and reevaluate you.
15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was this one example Olivia found of jeez,
15:51
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe. Matteo Kalicochi was arrested in nineteen
15:57
Speaker 1: twenty seven, at my daughter's age almost years old, for
16:01
Speaker 1: stealing seven bucks from a grocery store, which is pretty
16:04
Speaker 1: good take in nineteen twenty seven, by the way, and
16:08
Speaker 1: he was found incompetent to stand trial and then sent
16:11
Speaker 1: to kind of sent all around over the years to
16:14
Speaker 1: different institutions. After he tried to escape in nineteen thirty
16:18
Speaker 1: five was eventually landed at Bridgewater, and this is another
16:21
Speaker 1: one of those archaic terms. Was charged with bad habits
16:25
Speaker 1: and resisting authority. And this seven year old eventually ended
16:30
Speaker 1: up here later in life, but stayed there for twenty
16:33
Speaker 1: eight years and released in nineteen sixty three. So that's
16:37
Speaker 1: just one example of how like sort of a small
16:41
Speaker 1: petty crime, but if you maybe have an attitude or
16:43
Speaker 1: your troublemaker as a kid, and you bounce around from
16:46
Speaker 1: place to place, you just might wind up here with
16:48
Speaker 1: no one advocating for you. This all made me think
16:52
Speaker 1: of like what families were doing. But I guess at
16:55
Speaker 1: the time some families were kind of like maybe convinced
16:59
Speaker 1: themselves there were or off there, or they didn't want
17:01
Speaker 1: to deal with the trouble, or there were no family
17:03
Speaker 1: I don't know.
17:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, or their family was poor and had no influence
17:07
Speaker 2: over anybody, so they couldn't do anything about it.
17:11
Speaker 1: Very sad.
17:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I say, we take a break and we'll come
17:15
Speaker 2: back with Wiseman and his tenure while he was at Bridgewater.
17:44
Speaker 2: So Frederick Wiseman had an interesting origin story as a filmmaker.
17:48
Speaker 2: He was he went to law school at Yale supposedly
17:53
Speaker 2: to get out of the Korean War draft, but then
17:57
Speaker 2: when he graduated, he still ended up getting drafted anyway,
18:01
Speaker 2: and he was in there for almost two.
18:02
Speaker 1: Years kind of after the war.
18:03
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, but I still I'll bet he was
18:07
Speaker 2: not happy about being drafted either way. Sure, so he
18:11
Speaker 2: he went he, I guess went to Korea for a
18:13
Speaker 2: couple of years, and then after the army he and
18:15
Speaker 2: his wife what is her.
18:19
Speaker 1: Name, Zippora Batshaw A great name.
18:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was a law professor as well. They went
18:24
Speaker 2: to Paris, lived for a couple of years and then
18:26
Speaker 2: decided they need to move back, so they moved back
18:28
Speaker 2: to like the Boston area. But while there, Frederick Wiseman
18:33
Speaker 2: got into filmmaking. He started just shooting stuff with a
18:37
Speaker 2: little eight millimeter camera about the time that cinema verite
18:41
Speaker 2: was being developed in France.
18:44
Speaker 1: That's right. So, like you said, he came back from France,
18:48
Speaker 1: started teaching law at BU and sort of had that
18:53
Speaker 1: filmmaking bug still. So he bought the rights to a book,
18:55
Speaker 1: a novel called The Cool World about poverty and Harlem,
18:59
Speaker 1: and he hired a woman named Shirley Clark Clark sorry
19:03
Speaker 1: to direct it and It was a very small I
19:06
Speaker 1: don't think it was much of a big film at all,
19:08
Speaker 1: but it was a very small sort of indie film
19:10
Speaker 1: at the time, which is to say it was probably
19:12
Speaker 1: not seen much. But Wiseman was like, hey, like, if
19:17
Speaker 1: Shirley Clark can do this thing, I can do this thing.
19:20
Speaker 1: And I don't like law school. I don't like teaching law.
19:25
Speaker 1: And one of the things he did because he didn't
19:28
Speaker 1: love teaching law was take his class on a lot
19:30
Speaker 1: of field trips, I guess, just to mix things up.
19:32
Speaker 1: And they used to go to Bridgewater, and after a
19:35
Speaker 1: few visits he was like, wait a minute, I think
19:37
Speaker 1: everything kind of came together. His love of filmmaking, his
19:41
Speaker 1: cinema verite kind of becoming popular, and his interest in that,
19:44
Speaker 1: and then his interest disinterested in law and interest in Bridgewater.
19:48
Speaker 1: So he had this idea to make this film there.
19:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, as we'll see later, this is kind of crucial.
19:54
Speaker 2: He got permission to show up. He's said many times
19:56
Speaker 2: in later interviews, Bridgewater is no the kind of place
20:00
Speaker 2: she just kind of parachute in at night, do all
20:02
Speaker 2: your filming and then creep away at dawn with all
20:04
Speaker 2: of your footage, Like he had to get extensive permission.
20:08
Speaker 1: From sounds like he's done that before though, which is.
20:10
Speaker 2: Kind of cool. Yeah, we've done that before too in
20:13
Speaker 2: grocery stores. Remember, Oh, that's right. So he got permission
20:18
Speaker 2: from the Lieutenant governor, he got permission from the Department
20:21
Speaker 2: of Corrections head, he got permission of the superintendent of Bridgewater.
20:25
Speaker 2: They all knew he was there, and they would have
20:28
Speaker 2: figured out eventually anyway, because he spent twenty nine days
20:31
Speaker 2: filming in Bridgewater, and he would just do his cinema
20:36
Speaker 2: verita style where he would just walk around and just
20:38
Speaker 2: film stuff, film whatever. He could, just film film film.
20:42
Speaker 2: And I saw something where he said that for his
20:45
Speaker 2: documentaries he films anything from like seventy five hours at
20:49
Speaker 2: a minimum chuck now, to two hundred and fifty hours,
20:53
Speaker 2: and then he goes through it all and edits all
20:55
Speaker 2: the stuff he likes, and then after like month eight
20:58
Speaker 2: of editing, he'll start piecing it together into like an
21:02
Speaker 2: arc A story arc.
21:04
Speaker 1: Wow, which boiled down in this case to eighty three
21:06
Speaker 1: minutes of a movie. Yeah, And the name Tittcut Follies
21:10
Speaker 1: comes from I think Titticut was a Native American name.
21:14
Speaker 1: I would guess somewhere in the region.
21:16
Speaker 2: I didn't really pin pink for the Bridgewater area, that's
21:19
Speaker 2: what they called it.
21:19
Speaker 1: Okay, And the follies were that, you know. The film
21:22
Speaker 1: opens up with a musical performance by the I guess
21:26
Speaker 1: there were inmates with a song strike up the band
21:29
Speaker 1: where all they're all dressed the same and you can
21:32
Speaker 1: see you can see quite a few clips on YouTube.
21:35
Speaker 1: But as Livia points out, like Wiseman has always been
21:39
Speaker 1: really guarded with how his films are exhibited, and so
21:44
Speaker 1: I don't think you can just like go YouTube this
21:46
Speaker 1: thing up and watch the whole thing still, even.
21:49
Speaker 2: I did last night.
21:50
Speaker 1: Oh on YouTube?
21:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay? And not on YouTube, nos on vimeo.
21:55
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, all right? I wonder if that's like some
21:57
Speaker 1: sort of pirated upload.
21:59
Speaker 2: It was. It's it was a VHS copied put online,
22:03
Speaker 2: so I'm thinking, yeah, it was pirated.
22:04
Speaker 1: Did you watch it all?
22:05
Speaker 2: Yeah?
22:06
Speaker 1: I did.
22:06
Speaker 2: I watched I'd never seen it before. I was familiar
22:08
Speaker 2: with it the title. I had not a lot of
22:11
Speaker 2: idea of what it was about, but yeah, it was
22:13
Speaker 2: what do you think certainly striking? It was really something
22:17
Speaker 2: like I had ups and downs and highs and lows.
22:19
Speaker 2: And I think I it was everything Wiseman wanted me
22:22
Speaker 2: to feel about it. It was pretty great.
22:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is great. It's even the eighty
22:27
Speaker 1: three minutes. It's tough to sit through the whole thing
22:29
Speaker 1: because I think by its nature, cinema verite can be taxing. Yeah,
22:35
Speaker 1: even while engrossing, it can be pretty taxing. That's the
22:38
Speaker 1: best way to put it. But it's also obviously in
22:42
Speaker 1: this case, it's not about high school football championship. It's
22:45
Speaker 1: it's literally watching these people. I mean, I guess we
22:48
Speaker 1: should just talk about some of the scenes maybe.
22:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, And a lot of the people are going to
22:53
Speaker 2: go back and be like, justa this was great. Bear
22:56
Speaker 2: with us everybody.
22:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, hey, you're a cinophile, right, punch me
23:01
Speaker 1: in the face.
23:02
Speaker 2: No, the stomach, he says, way too hostile stomachs. A
23:06
Speaker 2: little bit of friendliness left in it, you.
23:08
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, like Kudini style, Right, that'll do. Uh well.
23:14
Speaker 1: One of the scenes that Livia picked out that certainly
23:16
Speaker 1: stands out in my mind too, and I think you
23:18
Speaker 1: can actually find parts of this one on YouTube is
23:21
Speaker 1: a guard. I guess was he dry shaving him? It
23:24
Speaker 1: looked like dry shaving or was it a wet shave.
23:27
Speaker 2: No, they put like shaving cream on him and everything.
23:30
Speaker 2: Oh okay, And everybody seems to characterize it as like
23:34
Speaker 2: really rough, like forceful, kind of almost like he's being
23:38
Speaker 2: tortured with the shave.
23:40
Speaker 1: It was fast, It was fast, Yeah.
23:42
Speaker 2: I didn't. It didn't look like it hurt the patient,
23:46
Speaker 2: so it didn't. And it didn't seem like the guy
23:48
Speaker 2: was trying to torture him. It just seemed like he
23:50
Speaker 2: was being very quick and efficient. And he does like
23:53
Speaker 2: cut him at the edge of one of his mouth,
23:56
Speaker 2: one of the edges of a corner of his mouth. Sorry. Right,
23:59
Speaker 2: so he's eat a little bit, but he doesn't seem
24:02
Speaker 2: like he doesn't seem in distress at all while he's
24:04
Speaker 2: shaving him. At the very least, he's not in distress
24:06
Speaker 2: because of the shaving, right. But then what happened, Well,
24:12
Speaker 2: there are these at least two guards, right, and this inmate,
24:16
Speaker 2: by the way, his name Jim. He's probably the most
24:18
Speaker 2: famous character in the in the movie. Yeah, or patient,
24:22
Speaker 2: I should say, he's not a character he has he's
24:27
Speaker 2: very it's easy to get a rise out of Jim,
24:30
Speaker 2: as hard as Jim tries to not let you get
24:32
Speaker 2: a rise out of him. If you press his buttons,
24:34
Speaker 2: he's gonna like, yeah, he's gonna get mad. He's going
24:36
Speaker 2: to try to contain himself. And there were a couple
24:39
Speaker 2: of guards that were guarding Jim while he was being
24:42
Speaker 2: like like washed and shaved and all that stuff, who
24:46
Speaker 2: just spent the entire scene trying to get a rise
24:48
Speaker 2: out of him by saying like, why is your room
24:50
Speaker 2: so dirty, Jim? Or is your room going to be
24:53
Speaker 2: clean tomorrow? Jim, You've got to keep your room clean Jim,
24:56
Speaker 2: just ceaselessly and incessantly, and we see eventually when they
25:00
Speaker 2: take him back to his room, it's totally empty. There's
25:04
Speaker 2: a window, there's nothing in the room. Yeah, and in fact,
25:07
Speaker 2: Jim is kept naked in his room, so there's no
25:10
Speaker 2: way for Jim for Jim's room to be dirty, and
25:13
Speaker 2: also for no way for Jim to keep his room clean.
25:16
Speaker 2: These guards, you realize, we're just trying to get a
25:18
Speaker 2: rise out of Jim, and they do over and over again,
25:22
Speaker 2: and it's really hard and sad to watch Jim like
25:26
Speaker 2: like just get up, saying he's trying so hard to
25:29
Speaker 2: just not let these guys get to him. Because he
25:31
Speaker 2: knows what they're doing. He's fully aware of what they're doing,
25:34
Speaker 2: and he just can't help himself. Probably like five different
25:36
Speaker 2: times he reacts and then tries to regain his composure again.
25:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost as if they're trying to drive him mad.
25:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're also doing I saw somebody describe it
25:46
Speaker 2: as they're they're goading him with the kind of like
25:50
Speaker 2: bored desensitization or desensitivity of somebody who does this like
25:55
Speaker 2: every day and know exactly what he's gonna do, and
25:58
Speaker 2: there's no fun in it anymore. But they just kind
26:00
Speaker 2: of do it to amuse themselves as much as they
26:02
Speaker 2: can from it, which is even worse, you know, because
26:05
Speaker 2: they're torturing this poor guy mentally.
26:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we should point out too that you know,
26:10
Speaker 1: Wiseman showed scenes like this, but it wasn't it wasn't
26:15
Speaker 1: like a indictment on the people who work there, because
26:19
Speaker 1: he did also show some parts where there was some caretaken.
26:26
Speaker 1: I mean, what was your like, I haven't seen the
26:28
Speaker 1: whole thing since college, so what was your net net
26:31
Speaker 1: on that?
26:33
Speaker 2: So? I think the thing that I got from it
26:38
Speaker 2: was that Wiseman treats everybody as human and equal in
26:42
Speaker 2: that he's not expressing like empathy necessarily, he's not trying
26:47
Speaker 2: to even get you do to empathize or sympathize. He's
26:50
Speaker 2: not trying to get you to form an opinion. He's
26:53
Speaker 2: just showing you what he found right. And if he
26:56
Speaker 2: is trying to get you to form an opinion, it's
26:58
Speaker 2: so obtuse that it's tough to put your finger on.
27:01
Speaker 2: In retrospect, maybe maybe you respond exactly the way he
27:05
Speaker 2: wanted you to, but he's not very rarely does he
27:09
Speaker 2: like hammer you with it. So yeah, I feel like
27:12
Speaker 2: he just treats everybody the same. Like there's a guy,
27:15
Speaker 2: there's a patient who talks about all of the children
27:18
Speaker 2: he's raped, and he knows that it's bad. He knows
27:21
Speaker 2: that it's like that, like what he's doing is wrong
27:24
Speaker 2: and he can't help himself. But there's like Wiseman makes
27:30
Speaker 2: no effort to make this man seem despicable or evil
27:35
Speaker 2: or anything like that. He might as well be talking
27:37
Speaker 2: about like a car he's thinking about buying. Yeah, for
27:41
Speaker 2: how Wiseman portrays it, And so like, if he's treating
27:44
Speaker 2: that guy equal, he's definitely treating like the guards and
27:47
Speaker 2: the clinical staff and everybody equally. But I think more
27:49
Speaker 2: than that, he just turns the camera on and lets
27:52
Speaker 2: them behave as they're going to behave. He lets them
27:54
Speaker 2: present themselves to you, rather than him trying to manipulate
27:58
Speaker 2: it so that you see what Wiseman I want you
28:00
Speaker 2: to see.
28:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the purest form of cinema verite,
28:04
Speaker 1: which you know, it's interesting how conditioned we are to
28:07
Speaker 1: even hearing an ominous musical score during a scene where
28:13
Speaker 1: a guy might talk about crimes like that, and when
28:16
Speaker 1: all that's stripped away, like it can be like more
28:20
Speaker 1: unsettling I think than hearing that creepy score totally. It
28:23
Speaker 1: reminds me then this is certainly not the same thing.
28:26
Speaker 1: But we went to a Cleveland Indians baseball game one
28:29
Speaker 1: time when Emily's family still lived in Ohio, and it
28:32
Speaker 1: was this throwback game where they didn't do any modern
28:38
Speaker 1: things at all, and you don't really think about that.
28:41
Speaker 1: You're like, when was a baseball game? What do they do? Like?
28:43
Speaker 1: All they had was the organ player and the announcer going,
28:48
Speaker 1: you know, all off the bat number five, so and
28:50
Speaker 1: so so and so awesome, man done that you didn't
28:53
Speaker 1: play a song when they came up that the batter
28:56
Speaker 1: picked out. They didn't have the home depot hammer and
29:00
Speaker 1: nail and shovel chase each other around the field between
29:03
Speaker 1: innings and a race. They didn't. You know, there's you
29:06
Speaker 1: don't realize when you go to a pro sports game
29:08
Speaker 1: of all the extra boy, especially in an NBA game, sure,
29:12
Speaker 1: all the extra stuff that's there until it's gone. And
29:17
Speaker 1: it was really really weird. I liked it. Our family
29:21
Speaker 1: was like, I'm bored, and I was like, I think
29:24
Speaker 1: this is kind of cool.
29:25
Speaker 2: Did they have jacks at least?
29:27
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, I mean they sold this stuff and it
29:29
Speaker 1: wasn't throwback prices, of course, but it was. It's weird
29:33
Speaker 1: when you're so conditioned though, kind of like with film,
29:36
Speaker 1: just to background noise and just sort of the things
29:40
Speaker 1: that we hear in movies, lighting or a camera move
29:43
Speaker 1: or you know, cinema verite is all about sort of
29:46
Speaker 1: just locking that camera down or handholding it. Sometimes when
29:50
Speaker 1: all that artifice is gone, it can have a reverse
29:53
Speaker 1: effect that all the artifice has like you're using it for.
29:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think in addition to what is added
30:01
Speaker 2: to kind of manipulate you emotionally or unconsciously. There's also
30:05
Speaker 2: a lot that's removed, a lot of reality that's removed,
30:08
Speaker 2: like the background noise. If they put background noise in,
30:11
Speaker 2: it's folly artists, it's not the actual background noise that
30:14
Speaker 2: was there when they were filming. Yeah, that's not what
30:16
Speaker 2: Wiseman does. This film is replete with disturbing background noise,
30:22
Speaker 2: like televisions that are on that you can't see, other
30:25
Speaker 2: people's conversations that you can't make out what they're saying.
30:29
Speaker 2: The lighting he uses is only the lighting at Bridgewater.
30:32
Speaker 2: He doesn't use any of his own light. It's all
30:34
Speaker 2: whatever it's called available light. And Yeah, when you just
30:40
Speaker 2: kind of watch it, you're like, this is just like
30:42
Speaker 2: looking in on real life, which makes what you're seeing
30:45
Speaker 2: all the more disturbing because, in addition to almost being there,
30:51
Speaker 2: you almost feel guilty, especially if you have half a
30:53
Speaker 2: conscience of witnessing the stuff that you're seeing, because you're
30:57
Speaker 2: seeing some of these people like Jim when he's taken
31:00
Speaker 2: back to his cell after those guards got a rise
31:02
Speaker 2: out of him while he was being shaved, he's naked,
31:06
Speaker 2: fully naked, stomping around, Yeah, basically throwing a tantrum trying.
31:12
Speaker 2: You can tell he's trying to calm himself down. This
31:14
Speaker 2: is how he's like getting out his anger, and Wiseman
31:18
Speaker 2: just sits there and films the whole thing. Yeah, and
31:21
Speaker 2: you're forced to watch as the viewer. You're I saw
31:24
Speaker 2: somebody put it. It's basically like you're the one standing
31:27
Speaker 2: in the doorway. Even after the guards have left, you're
31:29
Speaker 2: still standing there watching this man in one of the
31:32
Speaker 2: probably one of the several worst points of his recent life,
31:39
Speaker 2: just gawking at him, basically, and it's it's that's the
31:42
Speaker 2: hard part of it for sure.
31:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. Or you know, at the other end of the spectrum,
31:47
Speaker 1: there's a scene with a guy named Vladimir, and this
31:51
Speaker 1: guy is very lucid, and he's speaking very clearly about
31:56
Speaker 1: you know, I think my my, I've deteriorated since i've
31:59
Speaker 1: been here. I think all this noise that you're hearing,
32:02
Speaker 1: all these TVs that are always turned on full blast,
32:05
Speaker 1: it's sort of driving me crazy. And I would like
32:09
Speaker 1: to go back to prison where I actually could work
32:11
Speaker 1: out in a gym and I could take classes. And
32:13
Speaker 1: this medication that they're giving me is making me worse,
32:16
Speaker 1: Like I feel that it's harming me. And when he's
32:21
Speaker 1: you know, when the guards take him out of the room,
32:23
Speaker 1: then there's a scene of the clinicians like discussing things,
32:28
Speaker 1: and it's sort of like sounds like we need to
32:30
Speaker 1: up his medication and his tranquilizers because he's paranoid. So
32:36
Speaker 1: when you see something like that, it's sort of the
32:38
Speaker 1: other end of the spectrum from Jim equally disturbing. But
32:41
Speaker 1: part of the beauty of this and the rawness of
32:43
Speaker 1: this film is like, these people are all into here together. Yeah,
32:47
Speaker 1: he's never lost on you.
32:48
Speaker 2: His is a particularly sad case. Yeah, because you can tell,
32:52
Speaker 2: like you no, he's with it. This guys. He knows
32:55
Speaker 2: what he's saying. He's not trying to manipulate. He's pleading
32:57
Speaker 2: his case in a logical way. He's trying so hard
33:00
Speaker 2: not to get worked up. How would you not get
33:03
Speaker 2: worked up when you're when you're pleading your case to
33:05
Speaker 2: be released from a mental institution from somebody who's just
33:09
Speaker 2: taking you as as you know, nuts, So why should
33:12
Speaker 2: you be listened to? There's even one of the one
33:15
Speaker 2: of the medical staff at that meeting after he leaves
33:18
Speaker 2: the room and they're discussing him, she says, what did
33:23
Speaker 2: she say? She's like, if you take his basic premise
33:26
Speaker 2: as true, then everything he says from that is totally logical.
33:32
Speaker 2: But of course his basic premise is total hogwash or whatever.
33:36
Speaker 2: She says something like that. I'm paraphrasing. So it's like
33:38
Speaker 2: that guy never had a chance. He just wasted his breath.
33:42
Speaker 2: He just like they they were never going to listen
33:45
Speaker 2: to him, And it's like red, yeah, yeah, what was
33:50
Speaker 2: he not supposed to be there? He was supposed to
33:52
Speaker 2: be there, wasn't he?
33:53
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, but every time he came up for parole,
33:56
Speaker 1: he would plead his case and they would deny it,
33:59
Speaker 1: and then and finally in the end he was like,
34:02
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't matter what I say in here,
34:04
Speaker 1: you're not gonna let me out anyway. That's my Morgan Freeman.
34:07
Speaker 2: But that's sound a little more like boss Hog un tranquilizers.
34:12
Speaker 2: What yeah, that was boss Hog sedated. Oh man, let's
34:17
Speaker 2: hear it again.
34:18
Speaker 1: No, no, I can't.
34:20
Speaker 2: Maybe Jerry can edit that.
34:21
Speaker 1: I can't have a new mom. Morgan Freeman again one
34:25
Speaker 1: of the great voices. But uh yeah, he basically says,
34:27
Speaker 1: you know, institutionalized you're not You're not gonna let me
34:30
Speaker 1: out no matter what I say. And of course that's
34:31
Speaker 1: when they let him out, because it's a dramatic film
34:34
Speaker 1: and with a great, wonderful, happy ending, not like titty
34:37
Speaker 1: cut follies.
34:39
Speaker 2: No one other thing that I think we should point
34:42
Speaker 2: out too, for people who haven't seen the movie, Like
34:44
Speaker 2: we know Vladimir's name in Jim's name, just because it
34:48
Speaker 2: comes up like in discussion, like they're calling him Jim,
34:53
Speaker 2: or somebody addresses Vladimir's Vladimir. There's no chiron at the
34:57
Speaker 2: bottom of the screen says Vladimir or Jim. There's no
35:01
Speaker 2: no one explaining how Jim got here or what Vladimir did.
35:05
Speaker 2: There's no nothing, Nothing is explained. It's just here's a scene.
35:09
Speaker 2: Here's another scene. Here's another scene, here's another scene. Nothing
35:13
Speaker 2: necessarily leads into anything else. There's one part that scene
35:18
Speaker 2: that Wiseman says he regrets because it was so he
35:21
Speaker 2: calls it ham fisted. Where there's it's really hard to watch.
35:25
Speaker 2: It is the main doctor, the main clinician, who's a
35:28
Speaker 2: recurring character whose name we have no idea who it is,
35:31
Speaker 2: at least if you just watch the movie he force
35:35
Speaker 2: feeds a patient who stopped eating and through with a
35:39
Speaker 2: naso gastric tube stuff down knows all the way into
35:42
Speaker 2: his stomach. And this guy is just stoically taking this,
35:46
Speaker 2: like he's decided he is not going to eat. They
35:48
Speaker 2: even give him a choice, They like, you can drink
35:50
Speaker 2: the super you're gonna we're gonna force feed you. And
35:52
Speaker 2: he's like, you're gonna have to force feedback. I don't
35:54
Speaker 2: even think he says anything. So there's a there's a
35:57
Speaker 2: force feeding scene. You watch an emaciated man who's starving
36:01
Speaker 2: himself force fed, and he intercut that part with scenes
36:08
Speaker 2: from the man's preparation for burial right to kind of
36:12
Speaker 2: show like, you know, he didn't make it, he was
36:14
Speaker 2: successful in ending his own life through starvation. And then
36:18
Speaker 2: also I think what Wiseman was trying to get across
36:21
Speaker 2: was that he was, you know, he's really being cared for.
36:23
Speaker 2: He's given like a decent burial and like I think
36:26
Speaker 2: eight that he has eight pallbearers from the institution and
36:29
Speaker 2: he's like treated very well compared especially to this this
36:33
Speaker 2: force feeding through a tube down his nose. And Wiseman
36:37
Speaker 2: thought that was a little ham fisted. That is, that
36:40
Speaker 2: is the most cinematic part of the entire movie. Nothing
36:44
Speaker 2: else is anywhere remotely like that. It's all just seen, seen,
36:47
Speaker 2: scenes seen, and like no explanation of who these people are,
36:51
Speaker 2: what they are trying to say.
36:53
Speaker 1: All right, should we take a break? Yeah, all right,
36:56
Speaker 1: we'll take our second break and be back right after this,
37:24
Speaker 1: so before we talk about the sort of court cases
37:27
Speaker 1: in the whether or not this film could be banned
37:30
Speaker 1: or exhibited. It's interesting you talk about like it's just seen, seen, seen,
37:38
Speaker 1: But on the flip side of that, it is like
37:41
Speaker 1: a such a carefully curated edit from all those hundreds
37:45
Speaker 1: of hours of footage down to eighty three minutes. And
37:47
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that Weissman sort of talked
37:50
Speaker 1: about was he didn't apparently he didn't. I don't know
37:53
Speaker 1: if he came around, but he didn't even like the
37:54
Speaker 1: term cinema verite because he felt it sounded too much
37:58
Speaker 1: like you were just shooting stuff and putting it in
38:01
Speaker 1: front of people. And he said, I am manipulating people.
38:04
Speaker 1: But it's through the edit. So while you may not
38:08
Speaker 1: think that, I mean, I guess he was a master
38:10
Speaker 1: at it, because you probably shouldn't feel manipulated. But he's
38:14
Speaker 1: still putting together that careful edit. You know, it's interesting.
38:18
Speaker 2: He is a master edit and it's pretty remarkable. This
38:20
Speaker 2: was his first film and he was that masterful at it.
38:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
38:24
Speaker 2: So I said earlier that it was crucial that he
38:27
Speaker 2: had gotten permission to film, not only from you know,
38:31
Speaker 2: the Lieutenant governor in the Superintendent of Bridgewater, but also
38:35
Speaker 2: from everyone he shot. He got either written permission from
38:39
Speaker 2: them or verbal permission audio visual I guess, on camera
38:43
Speaker 2: them giving him permission to use them in his film.
38:47
Speaker 2: So he was covered up in permission. And don't forget
38:50
Speaker 2: he was a law professor too. And when the movie
38:54
Speaker 2: first came out, when he finished, he showed it to
38:56
Speaker 2: the Superintendent of Bridgewater and to the Lieutenant governor. They
39:01
Speaker 2: both apparently liked it, according to Wiseman, But it wasn't
39:04
Speaker 2: until the movie came out into wider release at the
39:09
Speaker 2: very beginning I think New York Film Festival or something
39:11
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, and people started responding by saying, like,
39:15
Speaker 2: this is barbaric, this treatment at Bridgewater, what's wrong with
39:18
Speaker 2: the state of Massachusetts that they suddenly turned on the
39:21
Speaker 2: film and Wiseman had on his hands what would come
39:26
Speaker 2: to become a banned film.
39:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. So one of the central players here is Elliott Richardson,
39:33
Speaker 1: who was that lieutenant governor you referenced at the time,
39:36
Speaker 1: had a loftier political aspiration, so when it came time
39:41
Speaker 1: to run for an office higher than that, tried to
39:44
Speaker 1: suppress this film, thinking it would you count against him,
39:49
Speaker 1: and it became sort of like O Livy calls it
39:51
Speaker 1: a political tool, that's exactly what it became. Richardson would
39:56
Speaker 1: end up accusing Wiseman of double crossing this, and it
40:01
Speaker 1: all sort of hinged on the idea, not like, oh,
40:04
Speaker 1: you showed these awful things, but it hinged on the
40:06
Speaker 1: idea of permissions in privacy was sort of the legal
40:09
Speaker 1: framework of it, because the argument was, sure, you might
40:12
Speaker 1: have gotten the permission from these men, but they are
40:16
Speaker 1: in no state to give real permission. And so there
40:18
Speaker 1: were a series of court cases over the years that
40:20
Speaker 1: sort of debated this, like for many many years. In
40:24
Speaker 1: sixty eight, it was a judge, spirit court judge named
40:27
Speaker 1: Harry Callous who found that it breached privacy. And this
40:34
Speaker 1: was interesting though, because like, I get that as a
40:37
Speaker 1: legal basis for argument, but this judge said he kind
40:41
Speaker 1: of attacked the filmmaking process and said it's just a
40:44
Speaker 1: hodgepodge of sequences with no narrative, and said each viewer
40:48
Speaker 1: is left to his own devices as to what's being
40:49
Speaker 1: portrayed and in what context. And in the meantime, Weisman's
40:53
Speaker 1: over there going to a duh, Like that's what cinema
40:56
Speaker 1: verite is. But I thought that was like this judge
41:00
Speaker 1: just said you should destroy that should like ordered it
41:04
Speaker 1: to be destroyed.
41:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. He also called it a nightmare of ghoulish obscenities
41:08
Speaker 2: and said the negative has to be burnt and judge judge, yeah,
41:13
Speaker 2: And of course Wiseman was like, well, I'm not burning
41:14
Speaker 2: my negative. I'm going to fight this and appealate.
41:16
Speaker 1: Oh sure.
41:17
Speaker 2: That case, by the way, was the first one in
41:19
Speaker 2: Massachusetts history where a court affirmed that a right to
41:23
Speaker 2: privacy exists. Yeah, it had never been affirmed in a
41:25
Speaker 2: court case, and it was established in that case. So
41:29
Speaker 2: it was it was. It was not cut and dried, though,
41:32
Speaker 2: because Wiseman has First Amendment right to freedom of expression.
41:36
Speaker 2: So it became freedom of expression versus freedom of privacy
41:40
Speaker 2: or right to privacy, I should say, And it the
41:45
Speaker 2: I think the ACLU got involved and they formed it.
41:49
Speaker 2: They submitted an amicus brief that basically said, we think
41:53
Speaker 2: that this film has value, but to a very limited
41:57
Speaker 2: number of people, specifically lawyers, judges, law students, medical students, psychiatrists,
42:06
Speaker 2: people in those fields should be able to see this
42:09
Speaker 2: and that is about it. And so that kind of
42:12
Speaker 2: became the ruling shortly after that initial you need to
42:15
Speaker 2: burn the negatives an appeal, that's what they came up with.
42:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so for a number of years after that,
42:21
Speaker 1: for those reasons, it was shown in like film class,
42:25
Speaker 1: it was shown in medical schools, it was shown in
42:29
Speaker 1: the library. Yeah, it was shown in libraries that was
42:31
Speaker 1: a great place to see something like this, or in
42:35
Speaker 1: different institutions would show this and say this is what
42:39
Speaker 1: not to do, like you can't do stuff like this.
42:43
Speaker 1: There was a believe and this was sort of through
42:45
Speaker 1: the seventies and then in the eighties some attorneys got
42:49
Speaker 1: involved that said there were some suicides at Bridgewater in
42:53
Speaker 1: the mid to late eighties, there were some class action
42:56
Speaker 1: lawsuits that followed by patients where the attorneys that they
43:00
Speaker 1: could draw a direct line basically between a patient dying
43:04
Speaker 1: by suicide and the fact that this film wasn't shown,
43:09
Speaker 1: like it should be allowed to be shown for these reasons.
43:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, like had it been shown, there would have been
43:13
Speaker 2: a public outcry for more reforms, and that wouldn't have
43:16
Speaker 2: led you know, those reforms might have prevented those suicides
43:20
Speaker 2: at Bridgewater. And so Wiseman said that he never gave
43:24
Speaker 2: up on the film being released to a wider audience,
43:27
Speaker 2: and he saw that that was a good time to
43:30
Speaker 2: bring this up again, and it actually worked out. He
43:36
Speaker 2: got a judge to basically say, like, okay, this is
43:39
Speaker 2: a Yes, you should be able to show this, but
43:41
Speaker 2: we need to blur the faces of the men out,
43:44
Speaker 2: and Wiseman said, it's impossible. This is film, it's not video.
43:47
Speaker 2: And then also work with me here man, right, he said, Also,
43:50
Speaker 2: it'll artistically ruin my film. Yeah, but you remember when
43:55
Speaker 2: we did that one gorilla filming in the supermarket, we
43:59
Speaker 2: ended up having to go back. I can blur every
44:01
Speaker 2: single thing in the supermarket aut exo for us. I
44:04
Speaker 2: kind of screwed it up a little bit. I could
44:06
Speaker 2: see where he's coming from, right, And so he appealed
44:09
Speaker 2: again and finally they said, you know what, not a
44:11
Speaker 2: single inmate at Bridgewater, and none of their families has
44:15
Speaker 2: ever filed a formal objection to this film being shown,
44:18
Speaker 2: So how about this just show it. It's unbanned officially
44:22
Speaker 2: by the early nineties.
44:24
Speaker 1: Right, that was a ninety one with Judge Andrew Gilmeyer
44:27
Speaker 1: of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and then after that
44:32
Speaker 1: it was still because Weisman is, like I said earlier,
44:35
Speaker 1: very picky about house films are exhibited, and so it
44:38
Speaker 1: wasn't like it was just everywhere. I think PBS aired
44:42
Speaker 1: it in ninety three in full. You could always buy
44:45
Speaker 1: the DVD from him from his website or if there
44:49
Speaker 1: was a film festival or a film class, like I said,
44:52
Speaker 1: when I saw it was in college film class from
44:55
Speaker 1: a VHS tape that the professor owned, probably bought it
44:59
Speaker 1: from Weisman, and that's sort of how it lived its life.
45:03
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting that like this still is a
45:08
Speaker 1: relevant topic and irrelevant film, and you know, is being
45:12
Speaker 1: talked about today, like in twenty twenty two. I think
45:15
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen he even tried to or I think
45:18
Speaker 1: he successfully finally got it on a streaming service called
45:22
Speaker 1: Canopy with a K, which is also kind of through
45:25
Speaker 1: the library system, which is awesome.
45:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can watch it for free if you sign
45:28
Speaker 2: up for a Canopy account with your library card number. Yeah,
45:32
Speaker 2: you can go watch I think all of Wiseman's films
45:34
Speaker 2: all forty eight, which is pretty great. But there seems
45:38
Speaker 2: to have been some direct effects of the film on Bridgewater,
45:43
Speaker 2: but still from what it sounds like, there's still a
45:46
Speaker 2: long way to go with Bridgewater too.
45:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they made a lot of strides, and
45:51
Speaker 1: then they found even as recently as this year that
45:56
Speaker 1: they were using what they call chemical restraints, basically just
46:00
Speaker 1: oping people up more than they said they were doing.
46:03
Speaker 1: So this is ongoing there. And then we Wispan, like
46:06
Speaker 1: you said, made forty eight films and they had names
46:09
Speaker 1: like hospital or high school, and it's just sort of
46:12
Speaker 1: that very bare bone cinema verite look at a single
46:17
Speaker 1: topic that's sort of been his bread and butter. I
46:20
Speaker 1: think it's a really cool thing.
46:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really cool. He's just fascinated with institutions,
46:25
Speaker 2: although he even says he has no idea how they work,
46:27
Speaker 2: and I think he's even said he's not quite sure
46:29
Speaker 2: he understands his film himself. Yeah, which is pretty awesome.
46:32
Speaker 2: To say.
46:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Zuppora Films is named after his wife, who
46:37
Speaker 1: passed away a couple of years ago at the age
46:38
Speaker 1: of ninety. And he's, like you said, still going strong.
46:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. What's his latest one City Hall?
46:45
Speaker 1: Yeah about Boston City Hall.
46:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, it came out in twenty twenty.
46:50
Speaker 1: Pretty cool.
46:52
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to know more about Tidny Cut Follies,
46:54
Speaker 2: you should probably go watch it, but be warned it
46:57
Speaker 2: is really rough, even though it is great. In the
46:59
Speaker 2: term of a cinema file, I would use it. How
47:02
Speaker 2: about that a centopis I always add an extra syllable,
47:06
Speaker 2: so that, of course means it's time for listener mail.
47:12
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this follow up on the effective altruism.
47:15
Speaker 1: One of our favorite things is when we talk about
47:18
Speaker 1: a topic and someone from that topic gets in touch
47:20
Speaker 1: and as a listener, yeah for real, And that's what
47:23
Speaker 1: happened in this case with Grace Adams. Hey, guys, we
47:26
Speaker 1: are so excited that you covered effective altruism and you
47:28
Speaker 1: did so wonderfully and graces with giving what we can.
47:32
Speaker 1: Giving what we can. Would love to give your listeners
47:35
Speaker 1: a free book on effective altruism if you include this
47:39
Speaker 1: link in the show notes, which we don't have, but
47:41
Speaker 1: we'll just say here people can opt to have a
47:44
Speaker 1: free book sent to them, including the precipice by Toby
47:47
Speaker 1: Ord anywhere in the world. We love sending out books
47:50
Speaker 1: and things is a great way for people to engage
47:52
Speaker 1: more at the ideas. Wishing you all the best from
47:55
Speaker 1: a big personal fan, Grace Adams And oh I should
47:59
Speaker 1: have made this into a bit lead Should I do
48:00
Speaker 1: that real quick?
48:01
Speaker 2: Yeah?
48:02
Speaker 1: All right, so you just talk to people while I
48:03
Speaker 1: do that.
48:04
Speaker 2: Okay, well, hey, everybody.
48:06
Speaker 1: Actually could edit this together.
48:07
Speaker 2: But Toby Ord wrote in and said the same thing too.
48:11
Speaker 2: But he also sent us well wishes and said we
48:14
Speaker 2: did a good job on the effective Altruism episode, which
48:16
Speaker 2: I thought was pretty good because I like to think
48:18
Speaker 2: we're fairly fair handed with it. We weren't too over
48:23
Speaker 2: the top a subjective, don't you think?
48:26
Speaker 1: I think so, although we did get one email from
48:27
Speaker 1: someone that's like kind of acted like we didn't point
48:30
Speaker 1: out any of the downsides, which I disagree with.
48:33
Speaker 2: I disagree with that. But anyway, how's that Bitley coming, Chuck?
48:38
Speaker 1: Okay, my friend, I am done. I have the bit lee.
48:41
Speaker 1: If you go to bit b T dot L y
48:44
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48:50
Speaker 2: Yes, pretty great free books on effective altruism and free
48:53
Speaker 2: books by Toby Ord on existential risks, which I mean,
48:58
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49:01
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49:04
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49:07
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