Sing Sing
Many of them are large, middle-age men. But when they move they are lithe as gazelles on the African savannah.
They come from the raw, dangerous streets of inner-city New York. But when they speak they sound like Royal Shakespeare Company players.
They live locked up in Sing Sing, a maximum security facility on the Hudson River. Its name comes from Sintsing, the Native American tribe colonists bought the land from in 1648. Thirty miles upriver from the hustle-bustle of midtown Manhattan it's a tranquil, sylvan setting. The river laps the shore. Comforting railroad tracks bisect the sprawling prison yard, their safe passage secured by chain link and rolled razor wire.
These jarring contrasts generate powerful electricity, making “Sing Sing” one of the most affecting movies you'll see this year. And one of the best.
Colman Domingo delivers an unforgettable portrait of John Whitfield, whose name on the yard is “Divine G.” The real Divine G is a member of the movie's ensemble surrounding Domingo's Oscar-ready performance. They all play versions of themselves. They learned to act in the RTA (Rehabilitation Through the Arts) program when they were Sing Sing inmates themselves.
They're hardly household names, or famous in any way, but when the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) hands out its award for best performance by an entire cast later this year, the guys from “Sing Sing” deserve to be in the running.
Paul Raci, who all but stole the show in “The Sound of Metal” a couple of years ago, pulls the same trick here, playing the director of the shows the inmates put on. Diminutive in size with tattoos up his bony arms, he's the guy with the guts to come onto the yard, and handle whatever dangers may arise.
Teaching convicts to “act” is actually the pathway to discovering who they truly are. Staring down the demons known so well to anyone who has ever been incarcerated, he's the tamer of their fears, the wrecking ball of their doubts, the guide to lead them through vulnerability to find their strength and power.
All of that by just by giving them respect.
Greg Kwedar directs the film, with three screenwriters adapting the script from the proverbial true story. Walking a tightrope between documentary realism and Shakespearean artifice, Kwedar manages the amazing feat of never hitting a wrong note. The film he creates has a haunting beauty, whether in close-ups of its cast's faces, or in its settings that convey the endless sameness of prison life.
Narratives overlap in the storyline as the players prepare a new production. Away from rehearsals, Divine G – his sad eyes speaking volumes – nervously tries to prepare for an upcoming clemency hearing after securing proof of his innocence in the murder case that sent him up the river years ago.
The newest member of the program, a superb Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclen, is untrained, but still has the raw talent to steal the role of Hamlet from the veteran Divine G. But the younger man is also a volatile hothead threatening to blow up and take down everything and everyone around him.
Occupying the cell next to Divine G, Sean San José plays Mike Mike, best friend and constant companion in the dehumanizing monotony of prison life that can turn lethal in a moment's notice. Their bond illustrates the depths and fragility of prison relationships, which are the only relationships many of these men will ever know.
Interestingly, the usual tropes of shower room rapes or rumbles on the yard, aren't to be found in “Sing Sing.” It's not that such things don't exist – they're always lurking as possibilities, reasons to be alert 24/7. But such occurrences exist more plentifully on reality TV than in reality reality. Facts of prison life are less sensational than boring, and far more complicated than urban legends.
Framed beautifully by Pat Scola's cinematography, “Sing Sing” has moments of levity and surrealism – as when the cast members get in costumes ranging from pirates to gladiators and ancient Egyptians – to cushion the reality of being locked behind heavy doors that clang in the night.
The cast members aren't movie characters. They are more wretched than men “on the outside,” but less self-pitying. They possess self-knowledge, gained the hardest way possible.
They are fated to live out the consequences of the worst decision they ever made – or, more likely, a string of poor decisions triggered by the first one.
As old as time, incarceration is an inconvenient truth, society's way of dealing with those incapable of abiding by the social contract. If it's crude, draconian and even sadistic, oh well. Those who have put themselves at its mercy deserve what they get. Prison is not only a way of protecting everyone else from convicts' worst impulses, but of protecting them as well, providing a structure many can't find any other way.
“Sing Sing” pulls off a remarkable achievement, not in showing the reality of convicts' lives, but in illuminating their reality, and talent, and dignity, and worth as human beings.
(Note: For more on this subject, see Chain Link Zen.)
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