The Prison Movie As Genre
The term 'prison movie' is both a nebulous and problematic one. It is not a term used in everyday discourse like 'gangster film', 'musical' or 'western' is used and yet most of us would describe Midnight Express, Birdman of Alcatraz and Papillon as 'prison movies'. Only Querry (1973), Nellis & Hale (1981) and Crowther (1989) have written about the prison movie and none of them attempts to define the genre. It is perhaps the difficulty in definition which explains why so little has been written about the prison film despite over three hundred having been made since 1910. The biggest problem with prison films is deciding how much of a film has to be set in prison to be classed as a prison film. As Nellis & Hale (1981) point out:
scenes of imprisonment occur in all different types of...film...like A Man For All Seasons, swashbuckling melodramas like The Count Of Monte Cristo and even in westerns, There Was A Crooked Man for example. (Nellis & Hale 1981, p.6)
Conversely, a film about prison does not necessarily have to be set in one. David Hayman's film Silent Scream (1990) concerns the suffering and mental anguish brought on by incarceration, yet this is not predominantly set in prison. We're No Angels (1955), Breakout (1975), In The Name Of The Father (1995) and Sleepers (1996) could all be seen as concerned with prison, yet in all of them a significant part of the film takes place outside the prison walls. Further more, Laurel & Hardy in The Hoose Gow (1929), Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock (1957) and Porridge (1978) whilst all mainly set within the walls of a prison are merely star vehicles with prison as a backdrop. Having considered these problems, I settled on the following definition of a prison movie - 'a film which concerns civil imprisonment and which is mainly set within the walls of a prison or uses prison as a central theme'. Whilst not without its flaws, not least of which being the well documented problem of delineating genre , I think it is a working definition allowing a discussion of prison movies. Before looking at two specific issues in prison movies, I will deal briefly with broader thematic patterns .