The Showtime documentary, directed by Stanley Nelson, looks back on the 1971 prison uprising with the benefit of 50 years’ hindsight.
“Attica,” a documentary from Stanley Nelson, is hardly the first screen attempt to deal with the Attica prison riot of 1971, when inmates took control of part of the penitentiary and, holding hostages, demanded better living conditions before authorities violently subdued them on the fifth day. The presence of TV cameras at the time helped keep the events in the national news, and a blistering 1974 documentary by Cinda Firestone looked back on the uprising almost contemporaneously, with sympathy for the reformist perspective and outrage at the bloodshed perpetrated by officials.
But Nelson’s film, and the many former Attica prisoners interviewed for it, has the benefit of 50 years’ hindsight. By going day by day through the riot, it suggests just how differently things might have ended and how close the inmates came to winning most of what they asked for. Then, in the film’s telling, the death of the corrections officer William E. Quinn signaled that all bets were off.
Nelson’s straightforward approach, which alternates talking heads (who also include reporters, mediators called in by the prisoners as observers and a daughter of Quinn’s) with archival material, doesn’t always make for pulse-quickening viewing. But there is a fascination in hearing about the logistics of the riot and just how surreal events were for the prisoners. One inmate recalls another saying that he hadn’t been outside after dark in 22 years.
The dry presentation is also deceptive: It builds to a powerful final half-hour that makes the case that the brutality used in ending the riot was excessive, criminal and racist — a show of force closer to revenge.
Attica
Not rated. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters now, and on Showtime platforms beginning Nov. 6.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
