The celebrated director of “Titicut Follies” and dozens of other documentaries was known for in-depth, unadorned movies that showed a unique and revelatory history of American institutions.
For more than 50 years, the influential documentarian found inspiration in filming the ways his ordinary subjects lived their lives.
The prolific, pioneering filmmaker made dozens of documentaries and chronicled the inner workings of institutions. His 1967 film, Titicut Follies, revealed appalling conditions at a prison facility.
He exposed abuses in films like “Titicut Follies,” a once-banned portrait of a mental hospital, but ranged widely in subject matter, from a Queens neighborhood to a French restaurant.