The aesthetics of redemption
| Date | 01 February 2009 |
| Published date | 01 February 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480608100176 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The aesthetics of redemption1
Released prisoners in American film and literature
MIKE NELLIS
Glasgow School of Social Work, University of Strathclyde, UK
Abstract
The released prisoner was a stock figure in American popular culture
throughout the 20th century, and there is an enduring aesthetic
associated with such narratives. Despite the artifice of the aesthetic,
the best of them attempt to say serious things about the perils and
pleasures of ‘straight time’. This paper explores the way in which a
cluster of books and films, dating from the 1990s, has addressed the
experiences of released prisoners and notes an emergent focus on
the personal agony of redemption. This has a contingent rather than
an integral relation to the concern with rehabilitation and control
espoused by criminal justice officials, but none the less enables the
communication of culturally enriching stories to audiences who
might not otherwise be interested in the problems of released
prisoners. Academic criminology should take heed of these stories,
and make more use of them, pedagogically and politically.
Key Words
prison literature •prison movie •released prisoner •redemption
Introduction
The attempted re-entry of released prisoners into variously toned conceptions
of mainstreamsociety has, for good or ill,been a recurrent theme in American
culture—serious literature, pulp fiction, movies, television series and even
popular songs. Over the years it has attracted major authors (John Steinbeck,
Jim Thompson, James Lee Burke, Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosely), major
Theoretical Criminology
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Vol. 13(1): 129–146; 1362–4806
DOI: 10.1177/1362480608100176
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film directors (Brian de Palma, Martin Scorsese), major film stars (Robert
Mitchum, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Nicholas Cage, Billy Bob Thornton)
and major songwriters (Woody Guthrie, Bruce Springsteen) as well as many
lesser names. Particular productions have reflected the concerns of particular
eras—there is a particular interest in Black ex-cons at the moment—but at
their best theseworks have always asked—and sometimes attempted answers
to—searching questions about the nature of rehabilitation, redemption and
public forgiveness. In tandem with high profile offender autobiogra-
phies/prisoner memoirs, histories of, and ‘celebrity chat’about, jazz and blues
(some of whose leading lights had spells in prison—see Maruna et al., 2004)
and journalistic accounts of released prisoners (Gonnerman, 2004), such
works contribute to an amorphous public conversation about crime, punish-
ment and resettlement which is largely outside the boundaries of academic
criminology. This conversation is by definition unscientific, and is indeed
often misinformed and sensationalised, but ifthe movies and books discussed
here are ‘read’ at all seriously, it cannot be assumed that it always contradicts
criminology’s aspirations to facilitate liberal reforms. Recent cultural contri-
butions to the released prisoner narrative certainly suggest otherwise, for at a
time when official attitudes towards criminals have become markedly more
punitive, they have not only retained earlier social preoccupations with reha-
bilitation, but have subtly shifted the emphasis to the quasi-theological issue
of redemption. These contributions explore the question of whether or not
offenders have, or should have, put the past behind them, made suitable
amends and taken responsibility for their futures. It is mostly with these
recent—post 1990s—films and literature (with only a brief backward glance)
that this paper will be concerned.
It is now generally accepted that literary and cinematic representations of
criminal justice institutions play a part in shaping public consciousness of
how those institutions work—or not (Mason, 2003). The contributions
of prison fiction, prisoner autobiography (and biography) and prison film
have all begun to be addressed. Prison films have usually been defined as
films set wholly or mainly in penal institutions, but many of them end, aptly
enough, with the moment of a prisoner’s release—nowhere more porten-
tously or menacingly than in John Hillcoat’s (1988) Ghosts of the Civil
Dead, whose brutalised protagonist is last seen riding up an escalator from
a railway platform, as if returning from some malevolent underworld. Some
movies are in fact wholly devoted to released prisoners, and (like the often
similarly themed escaped prisoner movies) can legitimately be included
within the prison film genre because, whilst not predominantly set in prison,
they can still register significant impressions about the meaning, significance
and impact of imprisonment (Nellis, 1982; Wilson and O’Sullivan, 2005).
The precise ‘penal meaning’ of all such films is, however, problematic and
contingent; whether or not such meaning is imputed or elicited depends not
only on what filmmakers intend, but more so on the frames of reference
through whichaudiences view them—actionmovie, film noir, masculine ram-
page movie, a vehicle for a particular star, etc. Thereis never a guarantee that
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