description:
Page Two - The SKYSCRAPER - October 4,1968 Editorial Theater of the absurd actor pollutes mainstreams of U.S. political drama There is something dangerous happening in American society that is so absurd for some that it is incomprehensible; but, for others, absurdity is the only viable direction. In the real world, real people are being beaten and real homes are being burned. However, in the absurd world of George Wallace, anybody black should be suppressed . . . anybody harboring a different political philosophy should be suppressed . . . anybody who desires a peacefully co-existing multi-racial society should be suppressed . . . anybody who chooses to peacefully demonstrate to change the existing order should be sup pressed .'. . anybody who does not have a carbon-copy of George Wallace's mind should be suppressed. For this candidate of the absurd, your sup port is the price of admission. But are you sure you want to pay the full price? Wiseman's Titicut Follies chronicles Bridgewater hospital alienation, pain By Eileen Jack There is a world that remains isolated from our society, a pathetic and lonely world that you and I may hope never to find and will perhaps never understand. It is a world like that found behind the closed doors of Massachusetts' Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Those doors opened briefly one. Mr. Wiseman shuns the in 1967 for producer-director Frederick Wiseman and a portion of that strange life be comes a part of ours in Titi- cnt Follies. Titicut Follies, currently at the Aardvark Cinematheque, is a chronicle of the citizens of that world parallel to ours and yet chasms apart. Produced with the approval and co-operation of the hospi tal authorities and the state of Massachusetts but distrib uted, understandably, without the approval of either, Follies is commonly labeled an ex pose. But it is such only in the sense that, say, a 10 o'clock news clipping of the brutal and Inhuman war in Vietnam is an expose. It Is left to you, the viewer, to de cide just who Is the object of this expose the inmates, the guards, the medical personnel or perhaps ourselves, perhaps man with his incredible ca pacity to range from com radeship to alienation, from love to hate, from concern to indifference. For while Follies goes be yond what is happening at Bridgewater, the director nev er points the finger at any- that-is-why-we-did-it and this- is-what-is-happening narrator and uses the more intimate hand-held camera. He lets his actors, who can portray only themselves, speak for them selves and at times condemn themselves. The result is ap palling, often revolting and too seldom encouraging. An old trombone player, dwarfed in the high-fenced hospital yard, puffs out a bro ken phrased My Blue Heav en. An inmate, hand raised in admonition, delivers an un ending stream of pompous po litical theorizing and pious Roman Catholic pontificating continuously interrupted by in- coherent babbling. Another stands on his head intoning chants of blessings An an cient man with lined, sunken cheeks sings China Town, smiling to some secret per son, then stops abruptly and moves robot-like up the stairs. Each man is unique in this brutal world and each man Is totally alone. That is probably what you notice first and last in Titicut Follies. There is no contact, no reaction to each other among the Inmates. Even in the gayer scenes of the an nual variety show, Titicut Follies, Interspersed with everyday scenes, the eyes of any one inmate never reach another and their only com mon bond, paradoxically, is their aloneness. But Bridgewater is more than a place of loneliness. It is a place without hope. Here com mon therapy seems to be to lock a man naked in a brick- walled cell with the only furni ture a mattress on the floor. Early in the film, one in mate pleads: I need help, but I don't know where I can get it. And his doctor's only reply Is: Well, you can get it here, I guess ... As Wiseman's amazing black and white documentary con tinues, that doctor's skepticism seems to pre-figure the attitude of the entire staff. The same doctor funnels an unidentifiable liquid into a dying old man through a nose tube to the stomach with about the same care as a gas station attendant puts oil in a car. A guard, for no apparent reason, relentlessly baits an inmate into revealing the depths of his illness. And another doctor pre scribes increased medica tion for a paranoid and sounds as though he is deal ing with a guinea pig in a research lab. There is an un easy feeling that the doctors and guards are merely play ing with their patients. But before you are tempted to condemn anyone, Wiseman carefully presents the other facets of the aristocracy of this other world. Catching mo ments of real concern, humor and even a certain gentleness, he shows his protagonists may not be the vtllians yon think them. And you can never get away from that question: Would I-couId I-day after day, be concerned about these men so akin, yet so alien? Titicut Follies clearly is not entertainment. At best you will leave the theater ap palled, perhaps disgusted and maybe even physically sick, but you will leave thinking, remembering the inhabitants of that other world, remem bering that for a little while you were there too. Titicut Follies, like so much contem porary criticism, is a film with a message. And its mes sage is sung by a trio at an inmate's birthday party: If you've ever been where I've been, then you know why I ask you: Have you ever been lonely, Have you ever been blue? The answer of the inmates of Massachusetts' Bridgewater State Hospital for the Crimi nally Insane is a muttered, shouted, sung, silent, shattering Yes. ZJh* Jjftpocrttp0r The Skyscraper is published weekly, October to May inclusive, except during1 exam ond vacation periods, by the students of Mundelein College, 6363 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago. III. 60626 Opinions expressed ore those of the Skyscraper staff. Second-class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois. Editors Mory Beth Mundt, Janet Sas* News Editor Sheila McCarthy Feature Editor Kathy Cummin* Photography Editor - Linda Sullivan Copy Editor Mary Ann Novak Business Manager Theresa Ebenhoe Cartoonist , Cathleen Harrington Staff: Mary Kate Cooney, Kathy Costanzo, Pat Devine, Kathleen Flynn, Marianne Fusillo, Zoe Hillenmeyer, Eileen Jack, Alex Jafowka, Alice Johnson, Rose McKiernan, Ve'O Milenkovieh, Chris Molnar, Sharon Pelletier.
title:
1968-10-04 (2)
publisher:
Women and Leadership Archives http://www.luc.edu/wla
creator:
Mundelein College
description:
Student newspaper for Mundelein College
subject:
Newspapers
subject:
Religious communities--Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
subject:
Students
subject:
Universities and colleges
subject:
Women's education
relation:
Mundelein College Records
type:
Text
language:
English
rights:
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coverage:
Chicago, Illinois
coverage:
Mundelein College