Film Reviews
as the Klan increases its terrorism. Like James Earl
Ray or Byron de la Beckwith (the infamous assassins
of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Medgar Evers, respectively), a sniper stalks Marcus as confrontations reach
a fevered pitch. Finally, the Justice Department pressures state and local authorities to intervene on the
side of the Deacons, who emerge triumphant in the
face of white supremacy.
In the tradition of Forrest Gump (1994) or JFK
(1991), Deacons for Defense juxtaposes clips of real-life
documentary footage with its own recreated scenes.
Director Bill Duke creatively mixes color footage with
black-and-white footage to dramatize what happened
in Bogalusa. The final product blurs the lines between
Hollywood and history. Shots of Whittaker and other
actors are depicted along with actual footage of civil
rights demonstrators being attacked and arrested by
police, often in places other than Bogalusa; similar use
is made of actual and recreated news broadcasts that
detail the escalating tensions. The director asks much
of his audience when he asks viewers to accept the
familiar scene of a German shepherd tearing the pants
leg of a black demonstrator in Birmingham in 1963 as
having happened in Bogalusa in 1965. Few savvy
viewers will overlook such anachronisms.
More troubling is the film's limited character development and reliance on stereotype. What little character development that occurs is staccato and abrupt.
Whittaker's character instantly transforms from a complacent Negro into an angry, gun-toting black man.
Marcus, a shoe-shuffling Uncle Tom who "yasuhs" and
"nosuhs" his white employers, bears no resemblance to
Charles Sims, the real-life founder of the Deacons for
Defense and Justice in Bogalusa; by most accounts,
Sims was a hard-nosed, gruff man who never kowtowed to anyone, black or white. Relatedly, all of the
characters, regardless of race, are reduced to stereotype: the Klansmen are one dimensionally racist and
the Deacons robotically intrepid. There are no sympathetic whites, other than the idealistic Deane, whose
pacifism blinds him to the reality of those black people
he is trying to help.
In attempting to portray black men as defiant heroes
in a historical milieu that seems to celebrate the
softspoken and the nonresistant in achieving racial
justice, the film should be commended, and, undoubtedly, it will challenge many viewers to reconsider
traditional renditions of the civil rights movement.
However, it does oversimplify the events that transpired in Bogalusa, and exhibits some of the same
imperfections characteristic of other Hollywood renditions of the civil rights era. In Deacons for Defense, the
catalysts for civil rights activism are not local blacks
but white outsiders, and, not unlike Mississippi Burning
(1988), in which FBI agents save the day, the Justice
Department serves as a deus er machina to swoop in
and set things right (while preserving peace and order)
in the film's final scenes. Perhaps the film's greatest
shortcoming is that it sensationalizes a story that needs
no aggrandizement from Hollywood; accordingly, the
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1575
twenty-minute documentary Defending the Deacons,
which Showtime aired as an accompaniment to the
film, proves to be more informative than (and as
equally entertaining as) Deacons for Defense, a film
better viewed as an action movie than as an instructive
work of historical fiction.
CHRISTOPHER STRAIN
Florida Atlantic University
CARANDIRU. Directed by Hector Babenco. Produced by
Walter Salles. Written by Hector Babenco, Victor
Navas, and Fernando Bonassi. Brazil. 2003; color; 146
min. Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics (U.S.) and
Mongrel Media (Canada).
Hector Babenco's film Carandiru is a powerful visual
recreation of life in the Sáo Paulo penitentiary system
in the early 1990s. Through the narrative voice of the
prison's medical doctor, ample use of flashbacks, and
impressive cinematography by Walter Carvalho, Babenco has invented a new genre: the "Brazilian prison
epic." The film gives viewers a picture of what life was
like for inmates in the grim Brazilian prison system
and ends with the bloody massacre of 111 prisoners by
the military police's shock troopers on October 2,
1992. Unfortunately, Babenco misses the opportunity
to engage viewers emotionally with the rich political
and social historical material, and instead has created
a visual text that often meanders without any clear
direction.
Babenco's choices are surprising because the film is
based on Drauzio Varella's compelling nonfiction
work, Estacáo Carrandiru, which captured the author's
experience as a volunteer medical doctor trying to
bring about AIDS awareness and prevention in the Sáo
Paulo prison system for nearly twelve years. In addition, the film follows in the tradition of many of
Babenco's socially conscious films such as Pixote
(1980), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1984), and At Play in
the Fields of the Lord (1991), all of which focus on the
marginalized sectors of American societies.
Before its demolition in 2002, Carandiru was the
largest penitentiary system in Latin America and the
site of several rebellions, raids, and human rights
atrocities, including the massacre that was widely
criticized by activists, journalists, intellectuals, and
artists. The 1992 atrocity also inspired singer-songwriters Caeteno Veloso and Gilberto Gil to create the
song "Haiti," one of the most profound commentaries
on the interconnection of injustice, race, and violence
(issues that are present in Babenco's work, although
never really explored). Babenco has claimed that he
neither analyzes nor provides solutions but simply
offers filmgoers a glimpse into the inner world of a
Brazilian prison and the people condemned to live
there.
This view rings partly true since the film can be
viewed as an audio-visual ethnography of the Carandiru prisoners. The lack of a coherent plot and the
choice not to focus too deeply on any of the burning
DECEMBER 2003
1576
Film Reviews
social issues, such as AIDS or racism, results in a social
history that, however powerful, at two hours and
twenty minutes pushes the limits of most viewers. As
the film moves from one prisoner to another, viewers
glimpse many individual stores without necessarily
receiving deeper insights about any particular one.
Babenco has chosen to present too many stores,
although far fewer than those presented in the book
that inspired him. However, this choice certainly gives
audiences a sense of the enormity and complexity of
the prison facilities.
Some of individual stores of the inmates are compeiling, as are the recreations of the internal patterns
of organization and operation within the prison walls.
There are also powerful moments, particularly when
inmates dialogue with symbols of Brazilian nationality,
such as the scenes of prisoners singing the national
anthem and the scene of one of the soccer games
played inside the compound. In the case of the latter,
Babenco connects the genuine joy and passion of the
inmates for soccer with that of the outside world.
Ironically, the emotions in the aftermath of the soccer
game serve as the catalyst to the riot that ultimately
ends in massacre.
Despite Babenco's claim that his films are more
about compassion and less about political discourse,
Carandiru, like Pixote, is an explicit criticism of Brazil-
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW jan political farces in general and the political authorities in Sáo Paulo, under then-governor Luiz Antonio
Fleury Filho, in particular. In one scene, for example,
Babenco juxtaposes television footage of a clean-cut
President Collar, who was impeached in 1992, giving a
political speech with a scene of a prisoner shooting up
drugs.
While Babenco's humanistic approach to his subject
allow us to understand that the inmates are complex
individuals trying to survive in a cruel world, he never
really addresses the issue of culpability, even when it is
clear that many of the prisoners have committed
horrible acts. Moreover, the film makes a distinction
between the atrocities committed by the inmates and
the state-sanctioned mass murder that is dramatized
by changes in the film's tone, color, and musical score.
The powerful final scene, after the massacre, when the
naked inmates are summoned to the courtyard underscores Babenco's view: robbed of all humanity, they sit
face down before the state.
This is certainly a film that students of history should
see, but they should approach it as an example of
visual social history and be prepared to discuss its
promises and shortcomings.
DARIE.N DAVIS
Middlebury College
DECEMBER 2003