Cameron Babcock TMA 273 Mix Tape: The Farm: Angola, USA

The Farm: Angola, USA (1998)

If you were sent to prison for life, how would you feel? Would you fight to get a hearing? Do you think you would be successful in leaving prison before you die? These questions float around in the viewer's mind as they watch The Farm: Angola, USA. This film is written by Bob Harris and directed by Liz Garbus, Wilbert Rideau, and Jonathan Stack. I was thinking how relevant this film's issues would be knowing it was made in 1998 and found out these issues, difficulties are still present today. Many of the inmates at Angola are sentenced to prison for 75 years or life and many of them are African American. The viewer is able to know more about specific subjects in the prison and why they are there. I think the filmmakers did an excellent job in representing the subjects in the prison. I didn't feel like they were trying to say look at this person and how they messed up miserably. I felt that the filmmakers were trying to say as people we make mistakes and some mistakes require restrictions on one's agency, yet that doesn't change the fact that people still have emotions and desires. 

As a filmmaker of documentary, one needs to be open for change. Sometimes during preproduction, the film crew will think they mainly focus on one subject and follow them. Surprises come with filmmaking all of the time. Now in production, the film crew could be following that subject but then restrictions are put down in interviewing them or their story isn't as interesting as you thought. However, as you are filming that subject, you have listened and notices other subjects around that would be just as good or even better. I saw this with this film. In the beginning of the film, the main subject is an inmate who has recently arrived at the prison. I thought we would solely be following him yet we don't. We follow other inmates as well and hearing about their stories are very interesting. I thought the filmmakers did well with acquiring a wide range of subjects and their time spent in prison. 

We have discussed in class how your first scene needs to get the viewer's attention. The opening scene in this film did just that. We see this coffin being lowered in the ground on a rainy day. The clouds are broken. The ground is broken. The viewer hears a slave like song as the burial continues. One can think how these men resemble slaves in the past and how they buried their own. Also, the inmates in prison at Angola can be compared to slaves because their agency is drastically changed and even Angola used to be worked on by slaves. The cinematography for the scenes when the inmates are working and farming support the theme and well executed. There are many wide shots of all of the inmates in lines on the farm under the hot sun. With the wide lens, the inmates appear as little figures on this massive land which they are confined to. The land seems to consume them up like the prison does to the inmates' lives.

Some documentaries shove the theme down your throat so much you want to fight against their ideas. When that occurs, the respect for the documentary dies down immensely. Regarding The Farm, I thought the documentary lets the viewer decide what is ethical and what isn't. They do well in showing the visuals and letting the subjects talk so that the viewer can make their own decisions. A specific scene that supports this is when we see an inmate attend the board in trying to receive a hearing. The subject who is African American, expresses his frustration because he believes he is innocent and he shouldn't be in prison. The camera is right on him and he says that there is evidence that proves his innocence. The viewer clearly sees his face and wonders what will happen to his future. He goes before the board and brings all of his papers for the evidence to prove his innocence. The board appears to work only on their schedule. The inmate does well explaining and then leaves the room for the board to make their decision. Now, the camera stays in the board room; we don't follow the subject out. The viewer sees the board talk only for a minute and then they bring the inmate back to tell him he has been denied the hearing. The board doesn't give any time to actually discuss the man's case. I thought the filmmakers did excellent by staying in that room and not leaving. If they would have left and then came back, the viewer could think we didn't see the whole thing and there could have been an ellipses of time. But, we stay in that room the whole time. That was an excellent, conscious choice. 




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