Did anyone find the penal colony more tame compared to other prison films like Shawshank or Cool Hand Luke? Not that the prison wasn't awful, but other than the solitary confinement scenes, it was pretty much what I expected of a prison in that time period/situation. I guess the overall tone of the film wasn't how bad the prison was, but how bad McQueen wanted out. Either that or I've just seen too many prison movies...
shareI have to disagree here. I love both The Shawshank Redemption and Cool Hand Luke. Prison life was hard in both of those movies for sure. But there were also egg eating contests, music, refurnished libraries, movies, visits from family, generally much better food and even soapy women to gawk at on occasion.
shareAlso in Papillon, there seemed to be a lot of out-in-the-open, normal part of the day, corpses that needed disposing of with not a lot of ceremony. This was true at Kilo-40 and the infirmary later in the film.
Though I think the OP hits it when he says it was more about how McQueen's character wanted out than the portrayal of the harsh conditions themselves. Also, one can never see enough prison movies. :)
Seems to me everyone is forgetting the most important thing. Luke is a fictional character born from someone' imagination and Papillon was a real man. It's kind of pointless to debate the difference.
shareI guess the overall tone of the film wasn't how bad the prison was, but how bad McQueen wanted out.True. But having said that, conditions should've been shown harsher. Give us even more of a reason to wanna see Pap escape. share
Cool Hand Luke was a very chill prison unless you tried escaping though. That movie is even more about the main characters desire to escape thematically.
shareI have to disagree. Cool Hand Luke in my opinion was about Luke's desire to punish himself. Papillon had a genuine desire for freedom against all odds. No matter how they tried to break him his desire for freedom never wavered.
Both are great films and rank in my top ten but the only similarities between the two are that the characters are prison inmates. I suspect Luke never even really wanted to escape. Luke could never be free of his demons. He went out of his way looking for the punishment he felt he deserved.
As I write this I have the overwhelming desire to see both again even though I've seen them multiple times. A true testament of the greatness of both.
I'm not sure he wanted to punish himself, but he wanted to make a scene and not have to conform to any rules, as well as impress the inmates. Except for the third escape, he was broken and just wanted to die at that point. But you're right, it's not so much about freedom in a literal sense. I'll have to watch it again soon.
shareOne is nothing but a figment of a writer's imagination and one was a real man.
shareI find that a very bizarre comment. The living conditions were horrendous: heat, humidity, poor sanitation etc. And as for solitary confinement...half rations and 6 months in darkness makes Shawshank and Cool hand Luke look like holiday camps.
shareTrue. Just look at the state of Paillon after his final 5-year stint in solitary. He's aged 40 years.
Luke and Dufresne had it easy by comparison (not counting Dufresne's unhappy encounters with the Sisters).
I find the OP very strange! Tame? Based on what?
Solitary is harsh enough, add to that that he did it twice! And one of them was six months in darkness!
Plus they had dead bodies lying around without doing anything about it. And Kilo 40 was cruel!
7 years in solitary. 6 months of which in darkness and half ration. Eating bugs for proteins.
Before that, Charriere was held in the "regular" prison, which had a bed made of concrete that the prisoners were chained to at the ankle. During day time, it was work in the jungle, surrounded by snakes, crocs, mosquitoes, dead bodies and malaria.
His last stint on Devil's Island he had to go through with broken feet, until he finally managed to escape by swimming miles and miles of shark-infested waters on coconut shells.
Shawshank was the Hilton.
Wow no way, it looked like hell to me. I don't think most people would live very long in those conditions, the disease, damp, infection would kill a lot of people. Getting squirted with a fire hose in the same room that you live in all day and sleep in. Roaches everywhere. Guards that can beat a guy to death. Being told to go capture that huge crocodile, etc..etc.. It looked like a nightmare. Shawshank was like a holiday camp in comparison.
shareI'm not sure what kind of person would want to see a depiction of a prison that is worse than this one. A Trump voter I guess.
shareI have to disagree. The penal colony was awful! It would be enough to keep me from doing anything bad in France.
Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar and doesn't.
The number stated in the movie was "40% die within the first 2 years" (I believe it was 2 years)
I think the you're right though, at times, the prison resembled summer camp in the north woods. Patios, etc, .. For example, when McQueen was recovering in the hospital the first go-around, that looked relaxing even. It was the cinematography and the fact that the setting was a tropical paradise. Plus, Dego had a chushy office job, so his scenes were often tame.
But the working and the solitary confinement scenes were absolutely hellish. Wrestling aligators, guys choking themselves to death with sticks, shankings, living on roache, etc...
And, as for Devil's Island goes, yeah, I couldn't help but think that was a pretty sweet set up.
Thank you, this is exactly what I was talking about. I didn't mean all of it, only some scenes.
shareNo problem. Just rewatched this excellent, excellent movie for the first time in years and years.
It was the tropical paradise aspect, and , again, Devil's Island actually looked kind of awesome.
If you want bruttal prison conditions, watch "The Way Back". Very good movie, about a Russian Gulag escape.
Yes, I thought of "The Way Back" when I viewed Papillon again recently. Although the Gulag prison is only a small segment of "The Way Back."
I am surprised that no one has compared Papillon's prison scenes to those in "Escape from Alcatraz."