Attica

Open my eyes on the brutality by correction. Which their job was care custody and control. Me being a retired correction officer l know people do crazy stuff in a group. Alot of correction believe their family member could never go to prison. The President at that time condone this.

This is a tough, but necessary, watch. Even though the horrific display of state sanctioned violence and killing towards Black inmates at Attica prison in NY happened 50 years ago, it unfortunately feels contemporary. The scary thing is that not much has changed regarding police brutality, prison conditions, or racism over the past 50 years. The footage included is remarkable. You'd be hard pressed to find this kind of all access media regarding a similar event in 2021. As I said, this is necessary viewing for anyone interested in racial and social justice and abolition. Remarkably well done documentary.

Documentaries, like any form of journalism, can not be completely objective. But of any one of the forms of journalism, documentaries have the toughest challenge; for wherever the documentarian points his camera a subjective choice is being made. In fact, every one of the elements of filmmaking used express a subjective viewpoint no matter how devoted the intent to objectivity is.

Attica is one of the better journalistically sound docs I've seen in the last ten years. It's about the 1971 uprising at the Attica Prison in New York State that shined a spotlight on the brutal conditions inmates endured, but ultimately resulted in a massacre.

The recollections from former inmates, government officials, family members of guards, and journalists do most of the groundwork here. But, there's a massive amount of arrival footage including horrific images of the aftermath that leave indelible conclusions about what happened.

In the end, what happened is that there's a lot of blame to go around for what went wrong.

And, without directly commenting on it, documentarian Stanley Nelson Jr.'s film also points out that 50 years later much work at improving race relations needs to be done.

The last 25/30 minutes of this really elevates this doc to a different level, even if it's as painful as revolting.

Yes, I was mostly ignorant about this. I'm not American and I was only born almost 20 years after. This was shocking as hell, I knew there were some deaths, but never thought it was a cold bloody massacre. How come not a single one of those racist pigs were prosecuted for the killings?

I can't even analyse this as a film. Yeah, the sound is good, the editing too and the testimonies are great to hear. But this is such an emotional journey that I think that it is what it will stay with me, more than any technical achievements.

Between the film shot at the time and the alarming interviews with former inmates and guards, the riot at Attica is brought to gritty life.

Anyone who imagines that prison is an appropriate or safe place for ANYONE, is delusional.

And anyone who imagines that the US had or has a functioning democracy, should know that the NY governor, Nelson Rockefeller, failed to act and is directly responsible for the deaths and injuries caused by the riot. He could have prevented them.

But Rockefeller wanted to run for the GOP nomination for President and could NOT afford to look soft on crime, so he ignored the crisis to achieve that.

He gets a pass in history books as relatively warm and fuzzy but he was a neo fascist, just like Nixon / Reagan / the Bushs / Trump.