a man gets shaved, cut and bleeds. he's naked and rambling, led back to his small, empty cell.

another man considers the nature of his illness, the medication he's on and the institution he's being confined to.

later, a feeding tube is administered to another man who refuses to eat. he appears tranqued out of his skull, and you wonder if he really knows what's going on at all.

later the house doctors reveal the psychiatric attitudes of the time, insisting that the institutional philosopher needs more tranquilizers to get his delusions under control.

this is the realm of the titicut follies, a 1967 documentary that could not be released in its time. it's readily available now, and i can't encourage you enough to watch it.

one reflection i had while watching it was on how much the format/style of the documentary has changed since the 60s. long shots have been replaced by hyperkinetic editing. what feels like a precursor to the so-called dogme films is swapped out with soundtracks and storytelling and superb cinematography. titicut follies feels simple and honest, though contemporary editing techniques are not necessarily any more or less truthful. the long takes feel like they're showing you everything, but of course they're not. but these extended sequences do allow for the story to emerge on its own, requiring a patience that few viewers probably have any more. i'd like to be wrong about that. maybe the viewer today is indeed capable of more but the urge to continually refine and evolve the format of filmmaking has given us a stream of progressively amped-up films that require no attention span whatsoever.

has the audience been dumbed and numbed or do filmmakers/documentarians/tv producers think they know what we want and need?

regardless, just go watch titicut follies.