NEWSLETTER

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Watching your films takes me through a huge range of reactions, from amusement to disgust and back again. But at some point in all of them, I have to wonder about you and what is was like to be there. For instance, the scene where they put a feeding tube down an inmate’s nose and feed him through it in Titicut Follies. What’s it like for you when things get that intense?

There’s a variety of things going on. I’m probably thinking, it’s a good scene and I want to do whatever I can to make sure I have it. Second of all, there’s a corner of my mind that’s amazed that people can treat other people this way. It’s hard to reconstruct the way it feels now. When you’re in the midst of it, it’s hard to go beyond thinking, well, this is a great scene. And that’s just because you’re busy. It’s different when you’re in the editing room and you have the opportunity to try and reflect on it. The editing is a much more analytical situation. You have to identify to yourself what you think is going on, and you can run it backward and forward and upside down and sideways as many times as you want.

Titicut Follies is legendary. It was banned and suppressed in various ways. Can you tell me about that?

The movie was completely banned for about six or seven years. It came out in the fall of ’67, and almost immediately after it appeared there was an injunction, and then a trial.

I made the film with the permission of all the relevant authorities. You can’t make a film in a maximum-security prison without being accompanied. When the film was finished, I showed it to the superintendent and to a man named Elliot Richardson who, when I got permission to make the film, had been lieutenant governor supervising Bridgewater and the other prisons. When the film was finished, he was attorney general of Massachusetts.

That name sounds familiar…

He went on to great fame when he was both attorney general and secretary of state under Nixon for a short period of time. He quit over Watergate. Anyway, I showed it to the superintendent and he liked it. I showed it to Richardson and he liked it.

Still from Titicut Follies.

That’s really surprising.

It amazed me that they let me in to shoot there in the first place.

Did they really think that conditions there were presentable to the outside world?

Well, the superintendent was my buddy—in a professional sense. I had known him because I had taught law for a few years and I used to take students on field trips to mental hospitals and prisons. It was out of that experience that I had the idea to do Titicut Follies. So I had met the superintendent when I was making arrangements to bring the students to Bridgewater, and when I thought of making a movie there, I approached him. He became my advocate within the penal system. He guided me around the politics of getting permission. Even with his help, it took around a year and a half to get the OK.

Why could he possibly have wanted the movie made?

At that point he’d been superintendent for something like nine years. He wasn’t getting any money out of the state legislature. He wasn’t getting any additional funds, and he needed money for new programs.

He wanted to show that money was needed.

Right. And Richardson helped just because he thought it was a good idea! They both initially liked the film. They knew that Bridgewater was like that, in part because of the absence of money to attract and train competent guards, psychiatrists, and social workers. That was one of the points. The film was then scheduled to show at the New York Film Festival. It got some prefestival reviews, which were very good. They both praised the film and condemned the state of Massachusetts. Then some social worker from Minnesota wrote the governor of Massachusetts, a man named John A. Volpe, a letter saying, “How could you allow a movie to be made that shows naked men?” She hadn’t even seen the movie—she had just read the reviews. Volpe, not having heard of the movie before this letter, felt that his political career was going to be jeopardized by the movie. He proceeded to get what’s called an ex parte injunction, which means that he got an injunction without having me represented at the hearing. It was against the film being shown at the New York Film Festival.

Just at that festival?

Well, that was the only public place that he knew it was going to be shown. But they showed it anyway, and then it opened in New York and he got a permanent injunction against it. Then there was a committee of the Massachusetts state legislature, which was controlled by the Democrats, that had it out for Richardson. They convened hearings to find out how I had gotten permission to make the film. They wanted to use that information against Richardson.

INTERVIEWED BY JESSE PEARSON


TO BE CONTINUED:
THE FOLLIES OF DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

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