#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 26: An Australian in the lead on #HugAnAustralianDay

Skip the hugging. John Hillcoat's deeply unpleasant debut Ghosts… of the Civil Dead (1988) is based on the book In the Belly of the Beast (1981), a collection of excerpts of letters between prisoner Jack Henry Abbott and author Norman Mailer. True to the book's format, Ghosts consists of disjointed vignettes of monologues, #CCTV footage, title cards, and prisoners' phone calls. For the last 37 months, these filters inform the observer, the hypermodern #supermax Central Industrial Prison has been in permanent lockdown. The cast, a mix of professional actors and ex-cons, and the location, a clean factory-style hangar in the middle of the Australian desert, underscore the underlying raw brutality of the unfolding events.

The #industrial soundtrack is by Bad Seeds Nick Cave (co-writer and starring as Maynard), Mick Harvey, and Blixa Bargeld from when they were still closer to being birthday boys than morose crooners.

#film #cinema #Australia #crime #prison #PrisonSystem #SciFi #BookAdaptation #prisoners #JackHenryAbbott #NormanMailer #NickCave #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @bales1181 @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/