Somewhat on the same order, I recommend the film version of
Animal Factory by Edward Bunker - produced by Steve Buscemi,
starring Willem Dafoe and Edward Furlong. Dafoe made the
tabloids this week while filming another crime movie - the
Bob Crane murder, in which he plays Col. Hogan's pal and at
one time the prime suspect in the murder investigation; the
story in the Star said that in filming the nude orgy scenes
it was noted surprise, shock and apparently some fear that
Dafoe is dangerously well-hung. Paul Schrader is
directing.
JAA
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no
more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier
than a sober one ." GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
----- Original Message ----- From: "Rene Ribic" <
rribic@optusnet.com.au> To: <
rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002
3:45 PM Subject: RARA-AVIS: Jack Henry Abbott dies
> I thought it may be of interest to some list members
that Jack Henry
> Abbott, author of "In the Belly of the Beast" died a
couple of days
> ago.For those who don't know who Abbott was, he was
a long time criminal
> & recidivist prisoner who sent a series of
letters to Norman Mailer
> after Mailer had published "The Executioner's Song".
These letters were
> a combination of autobiographical stuff about his
life in prison & his
> confrontations with prison authorities, &
political rants that were a
> self-educated man's combination of Nietzsche &
Marx. These letters so
> impressed Mailer that he had them edited &
published as "In the Belly of
> the Beast". He also proceeded to agitate for
Abbott's release & the
> efforts of Mailer & other literary types, IIRC,
eventually succeeded in
> having Abbott released. Two weeks later, Abbott got
into a minor
> argument with a waiter in a restaurant & stabbed
him to death.
> When this happened, Mailer figuratively threw his
hands in the air,
> saying, in effect, "We was wrong. The guy's an
animal.Lock him up &
> throw away the key".
> The sad irony here is the fact that anybody who read
the book & was
> awake at the time would not have been surprised. The
book says, over &
> over, that prisons train men to become the very
animals that society
> fears. To survive in prison & keep your
self-respect, & more
> importantly, perhaps, from the point of view of
survival, the respect of
> other inmates, you have to be more brutal than the
other brutes. A man
> is systematically brutalised by the prison &
it's guards, by the other
> inmates for many years. Then he is released &
expected to adjust
> overnight to civilised life. As I remember the book,
Abbott as good as
> warned the reader that he was no longer fit to live
in the civilised,
> (more or less) world that most of us live
in.
> Regardless of your views on prison, etc, I think
that Abbott's book is
> one of the most significant works of prison
literature available.
> Abbott's writings were a major influence on the
Australian prison flick,
> "Ghosts of the Civil Dead", which I would recommend
despite over-acting
> from Nick Cave, whose role is a fairly small one.
(Cave also wrote a
> song about Abbott, "Jack's Shadow").
> I'm not sure about this but I felt that a character
in the prison escape
> flick "Runaway Train" (co-scripted by Edward Bunker,
IIRC) may have been
> based on Abbott.
> The news about Abbott's death said he had committed
suicide in his cell
> by hanging himself. There's nothing unusual about
prisoners committing
> suicide. On the other hand, it's also a method that
has been used by
> crooked jail warders (certainly in this country -
there was one very
> suspicious instance only a couple of years ago,
ruled as suicide) to
> murder troublesome inmates so there will probably be
a question mark
> over his death that may never be resolved,
particularly now that Abbott
> has lost his erstwhile friends & allies in the
literary set & in effect
> probably nobody cares any more.
>
> Rene
>
> --
> # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say
"unsubscribe rara-avis" to
> # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the
digest version.
> # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
.
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 23 Feb 2002 EST