Shakespeare Behind Bars Is An Island Apart

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Shakespeare Behind Bars is essentially a film about redemption and forgiveness from the perspective of self-loathing retrospection. Using The Tempest as its centerweight, the documentary comments both on the universal language of Shakespeare and the flaws of the human psyche.

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What filmmakers Hank Rogerson and Jillann Spitzmiller have done here is quietly brilliant. Shakespeare Behind Bars ostensibly chronicles the making of a convict-produced rendition of Shakespeare's The Tempest. In the process, it offers the viewer a glimpse of people who will pay with large chunks of their lives for moments of evil. What makes it more compelling, though, is its detached approach as it follows the troupe of felons for a year as they rehearse their roles in the play. As they prepare for their roles, they are forced to wrestle with the inner demons that fated them to incarceration.

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Make no mistake, however--this is no teary-eyed, bleeding heart advocacy piece. Rather, the camera looks at the inmates through an unflinching, utterly objective eye, and leaves it to the viewer to reconcile the issues it presents. These are not nice men by any stretch of the imagination--they're murderers and molesters of varying degrees of reprehensibility. And while staging their production of The Tempest, they present themselves as real-life people seeking forgiveness for their past misdeeds. Their place of captivity, Kentucky's Luther Luckdett correctional facility is, for them, a metaphor for Prospero's mysterious island, and the play is itself almost group therapy for them.

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All of them speak of their personal need for society to forgive them, but for the most part, they lay the blame for what they are on society, or family, or anything but themselves. The viewer keeps waiting, wanting to believe that at any moment they will make that breakthrough where they realize that they alone must bear personal responsibility for their circumstances.

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It never happens. They relate not to the lessons inherent in Shakespeare's works, but to the flawed characters themselves. And that is why Shakespeare Behind Bars is often unsettling. We see the inmates for what they are --killers and sociopaths-- on one level. But on another level, they are so convincing they seem like average joes you might share a beer or two with. In that regard, the film clearly puts the face on evil--the face is no face.. or any face..

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The inmates' performance of The Tempest is relatively inconsequential--indeed, we only see snippets of it. Shakespeare Behind Bars, however is a documentary of considerable importance. Considering the opportunities the filmmakers had to exploit a multitude of social issues, it isto their infinite credit they chose to let the film speak for itself. That angle will leave the viewer more than ample time to consider those issues on their own terms.