Word: midnights
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Although based on the outlines of a true story, "Midnight Express" is more akin to fantasy, albert a nightmarish one. How else can one explain the wholesale brutality of the Turkish characters, the unreal prison conditions, and the imaginary arbitrariness of the Turkish judicial system, not to mention Billy Hayes' unbelievably easy escape? Not one technique is spared to impress on the audience the repulsiveness of Turkey. Violent scenes are accompanied by Turkish folk music as if to show the necessary relationship between the two. Even the normally beautiful Istanbul skyline is transformed by the camera into somber and gloomy...
...type hero coping with the erosion of his identity in a nether world of sadism, greed, and madness." As abstract as Mr. Contrer as makes it sound, this world is one where "sadism, greed, and madness" are clearly portrayed as the intrinsic characteristics of a country and its people. "Midnight Express" may be a compelling story of personal struggle, but this comes at the expense of dehumanizing an entire nation...
...Midnight Express" is nothing less than the continuation of the centuries-old misconception of the "terrible Turk...
...outraged with Richard Schickel's review of the movie Midnight Express [Oct. 16]. I just saw the film and thought it was fantastic. Obviously he has no sympathy for Billy Hayes or for the thousands of other prisoners scattered in horrible jails throughout the world...
Rightly or wrongly, there are many young Americans in foreign jails. This film was instrumental in starting negotiations between the U.S. and Turkey for the exchange of prisoners. On that basis alone. I consider Midnight Express to be the movie of the year...