MovieChat Forums > Papillon (1973) Discussion > The Obvious Question About the Penal Col...

The Obvious Question About the Penal Colony of French Guiana:

posted 14 years ago by HijodelCid
13 replies | jump to latest

why did it have to be so brutal? It seems that its ultimate mission was: It doesn't matter that you weren't condemned to death by guillotine; we'll make sure to kill you very soon, either by disease, overwork, starvation, ill treatment and/or constant relentless humiliation.

God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)

[–] harmgb 14 years ago

One of the reasons is that I'm sure there were sadists
involved in running the place. Also, the prisoners were
not nice people, mostly. I think conditions have to be
somewhat 'severe' to prevent the prisoners from taking over.....
or all escaping.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] HijodelCid 13 years ago

The general 1930's mind set:
the 30's, the low dishonest decade of the gulag archipelago and the concentration camps.

God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)

[–] marktayloruk 13 years ago

I wonder how Papillon would have got on in Alcatraz?

[–] Rockhound6165 13 years ago

I'm a corrections officer and it makes me laugh at how inmates today cry at my prison because they want the Cartoon Network(I really wish I were exaggerating).

[–] DeepFriedJello 13 years ago

Prisons in the US weren't much diferent at the time. This movie remided me of "Cool Hand Luke", which was also in the 1930's.
I doubt there was anything like the ACLU to give them any privilages.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Ironman54 12 years ago

Actually "Cool Hand Luke' was set in circa '49 (just 'for the record', not trying to nitpick).

[–] WyldeGoose 13 years ago

why did it have to be so brutal?

Maintaining prisons is expensive for any nation, and it's one of those expenses that governments, in general, tend to neglect in favor of social programs, militaries and police forces to maintain order. The belief was (and perhaps we should reconsider) that prison is not meant to be a nice time. That it's meant to be a punitive experience. You should suffer, because to commit a crime is to undermine the order that a nation is trying to offer its people. Therefore, if a prison is systematically brutal as we see in the film it is because 1) government officials don't feel they need to spend a whole lot of money for incarcerations, and 2) it needs to be punitive.

[–] psdhart 11 years ago

And let's not forget that Australia started as a penal colony

[–] Jordan_Haelend 12 years ago

The prisoners referred to the place as "the dry guillotine."

I once read a book about the prisons in French Guiana and at one point the writer (who investigated the place in the 1920s) took pains to make it plain that the guards were not on the whole sadists by nature; that they were very ordinary men who could alter their personalities as if they were changing shirts. She quoted one on how much he missed his family and couldn't wait to go on leave and return to Paris.

[–] sonofbeach-sheet 12 years ago

Except for that man who played Mel Sharples on Alice as a nasty guard, most of the rest were reasonable. Back in the day, prison was never about rehabilitation, but as Robert Elliot Burns stated, they were about destroying you and your sense of dignity and self-worth.

I think the solitary confinement part was horrid. 2 fricken years!

[–] Ironman54 12 years ago

"... that man who played Mel Sharples on Alice"

Vic Tayback. He also played 'Pete Ross' in the '68 McQueen movie 'Bullitt' .