Titicut Follies corpse scene

In this scene, Wiseman cross-cuts between the force-feeding of an inmate and the preparation of the man's corpse for burial.

Frederick Wiseman is often categorized among the most rigorous practitioners of what Bill Nichols termed "observational documentary." This mode of documentary filmmaking is characterized by minimal use of narration (in Wiseman's case, voice-over narration is all but non-existent), long takes, real-time, synch sound, spatio-temporal continuity, present tense, indirect address, etc. The observational mode is exemplified by the American “Direct cinema” movement and the French “Cinema verite” movements. In both cases, the presence of filmmakers is minimized as they ostensibly simply watch while actions unfold before the camera. However, in this clip from Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies, we see a very precise use of rhetorical editing to construct an argument that is critical of the treatment of an inmate in the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts. In this sequence, an inmate who is refusing to eat is subjected to a rather brutal force-feeding, while a sequence edited in parallel shows his body being prepared (with a great deal more care) for burial.