Riot And Refrain By Saidiya Hartman

Films have been able to depict a concept that seemed to be impossible for humanity; that is allowing for a specific point of time to be preserved and relived for others who may have not been in the vicinity to watch in not only text or drawings, but in motion. Occurrences where most individuals may never be placed in can now enter the realm of their reality through cinematography. Prison films in specific have dated back to the origins of the world of cinema as a whole. By videotaping prisoners and incarcerated peoples in places such as the Chicago World Fair, individuals who may have never been in a prison or have never met anyone who has been incarcerated to be able to view what a prison really looks like.

With the expansion of cinema,

As detention centers have extreme mistreatment of incarcerated peoples as well as the individual pressures placed upon each of each inmates, these stressors may lead to an inevitable form of retaliation. We are able to see an attempt of a riot and escape within the movie “Brute Force”. Even though the riot ended unsuccessfully, we are able to witness a huge bloodshed at the end of the film. Riots in the prison usually do not climax to this point, however they are very much real. An example of a real riot is found within an excerpt in “Riot and Refrain” by Saidiya Hartman. The text states, “The New York Times described the upheaval and resistance of Lowel Cottage as a sonic revolt, a ‘noise strike,’ the ‘din of an infernal chorus.’ Collectively the inmates had grown weary of gratuitous violence and being punished for trifles, so they sought retribution in noise and destruction. They tossed their mattresses, they broke windows, they set fires. Nearly everyone in the cottage was shouting and screaming and crying out to whomever would listen” (279). Here, though it may not be as extreme as the riot within brute force, it shows a real example and existence of riots. The frustration of prisoners is able to be depicted through this form of refrain. In a place such as a prison, there is no real savior as you are stuck within the confinement of the detention center for the duration of time assigned to your persons. Even if the riot may just be seen as noise and perceived as inmates going wild, it serves as a cry for salvation from the inmates, who want to flee from the harms of the