|
Midnight Express (1978)
In Alan Parker's harrowing drama, based on the 1977
non-fiction, biographical book Midnight Express, written by
American college student Billy Hayes (co-authored with William Hoffer),
that told the harrowing story of Billy's arrest, imprisonment, and
ultimate escape (on the "midnight express") from a Turkish
prison for trying to smuggle hashish out of the country:
- the riveting opening scene (with amplified sounds
and Giorgio Moroder's pulsating score) in which a twitchy, ultra-paranoid
and nervous Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) taped blocks of two kilos
of hashish to his torso and nervously tried to board an airliner
at a Turkish airport in 1970 - accentuated by his loudly-beating
heart as he approached suspicious custom guards while sweating
profusely, and then frisked on the tarmac as he was boarding his
airplane
- the scene of his arrest and interrogation when he
was strip-searched at gunpoint
- Billy's many years of imprisonment in a brutally-hellish
Turkish prison when he was subjected to brutal beatings, rapes, and
torture by sadistic guards - including chief guard Hamidou (Paul
L. Smith)
- other prisoners included heroin-addicted Britisher
Max (John Hurt), fellow American Jimmy Booth (Randy Quaid) who was
in prison for stealing mosque candlesticks, and drug-smuggling Swede
Erich (Norbert Weisser); Billy's father (Mike Kellin) - a US consulate
representative, and a Turkish defense lawyer worked on his case,
and Billy was sentenced to a 4 year, 2 month term
- however, when he was nearing
his release date after three and a half years, a new court date and
trial were scheduled, and his original sentence was overturned. Billy
was sentenced for further imprisonment "for a term no less
than 30 years" - for smuggling
- in his second trial scene, Billy argued for his
release: ("What is there for me to say? When I finish, you'll sentence me for my
crime. So let me ask you now: What is a crime? What is punishment?
It seems to vary from time to time and place to place. What's legal
today is suddenly illegal tomorrow because some society says it's
so, and what's illegal yesterday is suddenly legal because everybody's
doing it, and you can't put everybody in jail. I'm not sayin' this
is right or wrong. I'm just saying that's the way it is. But I've
spent three and a half years of my life in your prison, and I think
I've paid for my error, and if it's your decision today to sentence
me to more years, then I...My lawyer, my lawyer, that's a good one.
He says, 'Just be cool, Billy. Don't get angry. Don't get upset.
Be good and I'll get you a pardon, an amnesty, an appeal, or this
or that or the other thing' Well, this has been going on now for
three and a half years. And I have been playing it cool. I've been
good. And now I'm damn tired of being good because you people gave
me the belief that I had 53 days left. You, you hung 53 days in front
of my face, and then you just took those 53 days away. And you, Booth!
I just wish you could be standin' where I'm standin' right now and
feel what that feels like, because then you would know something
that you don't know, Mr. Prosecutor. Mercy! You would know that the
concept of a society is based on the quality of that mercy, its sense
of fair play, its sense of justice. But I guess that's like askin'
a bear to s--t in a toilet")
- the end of Billy's speech was about mercy when he
shrieked at the judge: ("For a nation of pigs, it sure is funny
you don't eat 'em. Jesus Christ forgave the bastards, but I can't.
I hate. I hate you, I hate your nation, and I hate your people. And
I f--k your sons and daughters because they're pigs! You're a pig.
You're all pigs!")
- now with a longer sentence, Billy began to plot an
escape through the sewer's tunnel system beneath the prison, but
the attempt failed at the tunnel's dead end
- in a shocking breakdown scene, Billy - with
uncontrollable violence for being ratted on - vengefully bit off
the tongue of traitorous fellow prisoner Rifki (Paolo Bonacelli)
with his teeth and spit it out
- during a visitation scene, Billy asked his
girlfriend Susan (Irene Miracle) to show him her breasts by pressing
them against the glass separating them so he could kiss them and
pleasure himself at the same time; she also slipped him a photo album
that concealed money for a planned escape
Intimacy in Prison with Girlfriend Susan
|
|
|
|
- in a concluding sequence, Billy made another daring
attempt to escape, after he bribed chief guard Hamidou and was
being taken to the sanitarium; there, he became the
victim of an attempted rape, when the guard unbuckled and lowered
his pants and approached; Billy rushed at him head-first, propelling
the guard's back into a sharp coat hook and accidentally impaling
and killing him; then wearing the guard's stolen uniform, Billy
walked out the front door into the sunlight, passed a guard jeep,
and ran for freedom
- the closing titles were presented over a freeze-frame
of Billy's run and return to the US: ("On the night of October
4th, 1975 Billy Hayes successfully crossed the border to Greece.
He arrived home at Kennedy Airport 3 weeks later"), accompanied
by a montage of still-framed B/W photographs of his reunion and homecoming
with his family and girlfriend
|
Hash Taped to Billy's Torso
Interrogation at Airport
Brutal Prison Treatment
Billy's Rant During Second Trial Scene
Billy's Breakdown
The Sequence of Billy's Escape - Including the Impalement
Death of Prison Guard Hamidou
|