Attica

1/1/2025

This is a rather standard documentary telling of the revolt by prisoners of New York State's eponymous maximum security prison. Using a combination of newsreel archive footage and modern-day interviews, Stanley Nelson endeavours to explain just why this happened and what led to a final solution that shocked a nation. It's clear that tensions were running high between the inmates and those who were guarding them. A toxic environment of racism, bigotry and bullying set amidst some fairly abject squalor and, as just about everyone agreed, some inhuman conditions in which they were expected to live and work. The thrust of the piece deals with the attempts to negotiate a settlement that would see improvements made, amnesties given and 39 hostages released. It does have access to some of the now