SLL40380 - Global Prison Film

Module coordinator: Dr Marco Bellardi

Teaching arrangements: Trimester 2, Wednesdays 4.30-6.30pm (core)

The genre of prison film has been one of the most exploited by the film industry since at least the 1930s and 1940s. Classic prison films have established key generic traits through memorable narratives and mediated a specific imagination as well as misconceptions about punishment among their audiences. In recent years, the production has continued to be dominated by US films and tv series; however, European productions have also gained momentum and contributed to discourses about coercive environments. Moreover, recent films and tv series have raised new awareness of the process of identity transformation, or “identity work”, among fictional inmates compared to past representations where more fixed identities were displayed for narrative purposes. Complex narratives open multiple windows on the inmates’ psychology and life backgrounds as well as the transformative process that prison life entails, be it towards re-education, redemption, personal growth, re-introduction in society or, conversely, towards destructive, degenerative experiences, loss of identity, acts of bullying, violence, and murder, while also opening the genre to a wider array of issues related to women and LGBTQ+ subjects. This module offers an overview of these issues and frames the prison film and its subgenres within contemporary visual culture in the US and Europe.