上課的時候教授要求寫的....參考了許多此板大大們的影評寫出來的...有興趣看看吧....:) ［劇情透露］
Midnight Express Movie Review
Almost all great films about prison break are not simply action-packed ticket-sellers that seek to thrill the audience. What makes these films great is the depth they went into to explore the darkest and at the same time, the brightest themes of human society and lives. Corruption, violence, sexual abuse, justice, injustice, homosexuality, dignity, love, freedom and hope, all of which are seen throughout the whole film. The setting itself is another interesting topic, meaning the prison, like a microcosm of the society outside. Overall, the film tells a story of man's endeavor to self-redemption and self-justice against odds from the political and structural obstacles of the real world, despite a sensible political undertone against Islamic nations.
The Story
On October 6, 1970, Billy Hayes, an American is on a trip back to America from Turkey with his girlfriend Susan. While boarding a flight at the Istanbul Airport, Billy is caught smuggling 2 kilos of dope. He is told by the authorities that if he cooperates in finding the actual drug dealer he will be released. For some reasons he tries to escape after the assistance and is captured. With the support from the American embassy, he is sentenced to only over four years for possession of drug, but is exempted from the more serious charges of smuggling and drug dealing.
The prison as expected is not a very hospitable place. It is crowded, filthy and ruled over by Warden Hamidou who punishes the prisoners with harsh physical and mental tortures. Billy, however, does manage to befriend a few inmates, an American named Jimmy, who is imprisoned for stealing candlesticks from a mosque, and an English named Max, who is sentenced for over 12 years for smuggling 100 grams of drug. At this point, it is becoming obvious that foreign prisoners are only tools and sacrifices in political maneuvers between the Turkish government and other Western governments. The only seeming way out is to catch the "midnight express", namely prison break. The inmates start planning the escape routes.
Many of their attempts failed, and the “insider” prisoner Rifki informs Hamidou on their scheme. Jimmy is taken away to brutal punishment. Max and Billy take revenge to Rifki by destroying his dashed money. Without any evidence, however, Rifki frames Max, and Max meets a similar fate as Tommy does. As Billy is told the court resentence him to up to 30 years in prison on drug smuggling, he cannot contain his emotions any longer. He attacks Rifki and bites off part of his tongue.
After many months in the prison ward for the insane, Billy is at the brink of total breakdown. This is when his girlfriend Susan visits and delivers him her love, hope to survive and some cash hidden within a photography book. Billy starts to plan to escape again. He bribes the Warden and asks to be transferred to the sanatorium where there is a chance of escaping. Instead, Hamidou drags Billy to a cell, beats him down and tries to rape him. In despair, Billy kills Hamidou and escapes with the Warden’s outfit. And it is revealed that Billy flees to Greece and flies his way back to The States and the reunion with his family.
Justice and Injustice
Often times when we try to define justice and injustice, we resort to the laws, which supposedly take into account the moral standards of a given society. But this is not necessary when the government takes other things onto their priority list such as their power of control, political stability, economic interests and in this case, political maneuvers with foreign nations. Under such conditions, laws can no longer uphold justice but become a tool wielded by the government for their own propuses.
In the movie, it is revealed that Nixon’s US government is at bad terms with the Turkish government. As a result foreign prisoners become valuable assets to the Turkish government in dealing with The US. In a beginning of the film, passengers for international flights not only need to pass through normal airport checking routines, before they board, soldiers also search their bodies one by one, and Billy is then found carrying dope. Let Billy’s personal case aside, this measure is questionable. It might be due to the Turkish government’s tightened measures against drug-smuggling, but it might very well be a political measure to attain more foreign prisoners.
In the prison, Billy learns that many foreign inmates are serving unreasonable sentence years. It might be the result of difference in customary laws regarding crimes in different countries, but it might as well be a way to retain the government’s valuable assets, as Billy after almost finishing serving his initial sentence, faces serious charges of smuggling and is resentenced up to 30 years in jail. It makes one wonder what causes such an abrupt change, could it be the result of a worsen diplomatic relationship with Turkey and The US? Either way, justice is vague. Should a man of a certain sociocultural upbringing face criminal charges in a different sociocultural background? Where is justice for individuals when they are of only small part of a much bigger scheme?
Billy, at his defense in court against smuggling charges, says “What is crime, what is punishment? It seems to vary from time to time, from place to place. What’s legal today is suddenly illegal tomorrow because some society says so. What’s illegal yesterday is legal today because everybody’s doing it. They can’t put everybody in jail.” Ironically it seems that his words are not even translated properly to the judge, assuming the judge does not speak English. So if the system does not grant individual justice, the only justice one can find is through self-redemption, a prison break, a breach through the system. This is the underlying premise in most prison break stories from “Shawshank Redemption” in 1995 to the hit American TV series “Prison Break” and to “The Next Three Days” in 2010. These screenplays’ success implies an unshakable belief in moral justice that most people uphold but is often disregarded due to different sociopolitical or cultural circumstances.
Prison and Society
One might expect prison to be a place of rehibilitation and reeducation for the social deviated so that they can be reassimilated back to the society. In reality, however, prison is hardly such a place in a sense that it has its own power control, hierarchy, division that works like ethnicity and nationality, social rules and taboos. The prison with all these elements as a whole is but a microcosm of the society that it derived from. Similar to Marxist's idea of the base and the superstructure, people with a certain set of sociocultural upbringings recreate the prison to be functional in the same way as the society does.
In the prison in "Midnight Express", ethnic or racial division is not clearly observed due to the relative narrow ethnic spectrum of the Turks, so the most prominent division is between the local and the foreign. The prison in America, however, as observed in "The Shawshank Redemption" or "The Next Three Days", is devided mostly among the white, the black, the Asian and the Mexican. This reveals the exact same way the respective societies devide themselves. What does not change is human's tendency to corruption, and this is seen very clearly in the film. When Billy's father comes to Turkey to hire a local lawyer in Billy's defence, the lawyer tells them that with money favourable court and judge can be arraged, and it does seem to work out seeing that Billy is only doing 4 years without serious charges of drug-smuggling.
It is the same trick but different places.
Hope and Prison
In "The Shawshank Redemption" Morgan Freeman speaks of "Institutionalization", and likewise Al Pacino in "Carlito's Way" talks about his thoughts on prison "You don't get reformed, you just run out of wind." The harsh reality in prison strips a man off everything he ever possesses that can define himself. Your possession is gone when you go in jail, your connections fade as family, friends and lover slowly drift away, your dignity is no more when someone forces you to fellatio, and hope is perhaps the most important thing above all, that once lost dooms a man.
One can see how devastated Billy is after hearing he is resentenced to more than 30 years in jail for smuggling. A hope for freedom taken away like that can drive anyone mad. Jimmy loses himself fanatically trying to escape and meets a gruesome end, and Max withers to a walking corpse after too much torture. Even out of prison, one has not really left the prison. The old man Brook's tragic suicide in "The Shawshank Redemption" proves just that. If Susan does not come to visit Billy and gives him the desire and hope to survive and self-rescue, it is not difficult to imagine how his fate will be sealed. Andy Dufresne says in his letter to Red "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things." It indeed is despite the various sociocultural background that an individual might be from.
The American Bias and Propaganda
From most modern and western point of view, the escape of Billy from prison might strike one as of a noble cause or is it? In the film, it is depicted that many foreigners are imprisoned on heavy sentences due to but "relatively" mild criminal deeds. Based on American standards, these sentences are unjust and barbaric, but is judicial freedom and independence not so highly upheld by the so-called democratic America? A few years back, The US president Clinton personally arrived in Singapore and successfully intervened with a case of a teenager being sentenced to caning. Such action is never seen among The States, but it however could be applied outside The US judicial boundaries.
Corruption is considered a despicable crime in America, who often times criticizes other non-western countries for their corrupted bureaucracy and judiciary. However, in "Midnight Express" Billy and his father's maneuvers to bribe the authorities for more favorable courts and judge are considered a justified mean to a noble end. This image of direct involvement in a corrupt judiciary system proves hypocritical to what The US government advocates.
In an interview with the real Billy Hayes, based on whose story this film was shot, he revealed that contrary to what is depicted in the film, the prison guards and wardens were mostly fair and hard-working, and only one guard as he recalled punished prisoners for whatever reasons. In reality, Billy did not kill anyone, and the Rifki character was solely created for the film, and the antagonist Warden Hamious did not die by Billy's hand but was shot to death by a discharged prisoner. After learning these facts, it makes one wonder if "Midnight Express" is but an American propaganda against Islamic or Arabic nations. Ironically, the film was allowed to be screened in Turkey. No matter the purposes the film was made for, artistic or commercial, it is not easy to ignore the sociocultural background of the place of production.
Other
The film's heart-wrenching soundtrack composed by Giorgio Moroder won both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes for Best Original Score in 1979. Although the score is scarcely scattered through the film, leaving most of the scenes unaccompanied, it however adds more sense of realism and the occasional Arabic tunes display perfectly the Islamic setting of the film. The most memorable themes are the love theme and the ending theme which are very fitting and moving.
Cast-wise, Brad Davis for the role of Billy Hayes, Irene Miracle for the role of Susan and John Hurt for the role of Max received highly positive critics, winning respective Golden Globes awards for the year. Sadly, Brad Davis died of AIDS complications in 1991 at the age of 41, leaving his wife and only child.
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