« Sing Sing » tells of freedom in the head – diepresse.com
The Oscar-nominated film drama « Sing Sing » is about an acting group in the high-security prison. Most of the actors are established there themselves.
Maybe it is the tooth gap: the gangster Clarence « Divine Eye » Maclin is a pretty hard guy, but when he smiles, he has something innocent. But it takes a while for you to see the gap for the first time. No wonder: The film drama « Sing Sing » plays in the high security prison of the same name, and there is little reason to be happy here. It is a place where someone is cut through the throat at breakfast. Thank God you don’t see that. But the tight corridors, the iron doors, the bare rooms and inhospitable dining rooms, you can see. And that there is hardly any air to breathe here.
« Divine Eye » is someone who seems to be able to cope with the system here. He knows how to benefit from it. There he pushes a young, new prisoner into the corner of the courtyard. Wants to have « the fabric » that he gave it to storage. Try it, get angry. That is just aspirin! If the new one does not want to be beaten up, he has to pay him the damage. Which of course does not exist. Pretty clever.
« /> Colman Domingo (left) and Clarence « Divine Eye » Maclin. Polyfilm
And a good acting performance. At least that’s the two prisoners who have observed the scene. You want to get a picture of « Divine Eye » who has registered for the acting group of the prison. His motifs for this remain in the dark, he becomes the unpredictable, as clever and angry new addition of the group, at the top of which there is a completely different type of prisoner: John « Divine G » Whitfield. A gentle, empathic man who was convicted of a murder he did not commit. It is embodied by Colman Domingo (known from the series « Fear the Walking Dead »). He is one of the few professional actors in this film.
Return to prison
Most actors themselves were prisoners themselves. The producers asked them to come back to a prison for the film: that was not an easy decision. But cathartic, as well as the acting program itself. This concept « Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) » really exists, it was the basis for the Oscar-nominated film by the US Indie director Greg Kwedar. He shows prisoners like you otherwise see them: open and vulnerable, researching themselves. « Trust on the process » is the motto in the film, it falls every time the men occur silly, when recited Shakespeare approximately. Feel like a king’s son Hamlet when you are pushed by guards? How is that supposed to work?
Real is also the story of Whitfield, who is wrongly condemned who uses his detention to write dramas and to acquire legal knowledge with which he helps his fellow prisoners. He also tries to stand up to the new one who only wants to provoke. They should play something different than just dramas, he says, because people here in prison have enough of trauma and death. You have to put a comedy on stage. The other prisoners are enthusiastic, everyone has an idea: the wild west should go in, pirates and mummies and the main character of a scary film series, Freddy Krueger. In fact, all ideas are implemented, in a crazy comedy, a time travel revue. Played by hard guys with tattoos all over the face.
Homage of resistance
Touching how the prisoners drive each other and encourage each other in this process of rehearsing. How to discuss their roles, help themselves over lows. Incidentally, the reason is why they actually do that: the theater is a way for them to « become human again, » says a prisoner. And you can feel that this summer, in which a sticky heat of the air seems to be able to withdraw the oxygen, she can breathe again. She is told as carefully as it is authentic, this story of freedom behind bars, freedom in the head. And that is why it is precisely because of this powerful homage to resistance and dignity.
« Sing Sing » runs from 4. 4 in the cinema.
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