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 THE
HURRICANE RECEIVES THE FIRST POLITICAL FILM SOCIETY NOMINATION
FOR 2000
Thanks to two Northwestern University professors,
a substantial number of men have been released from death
row in Illinois because they were wrongfully convicted. In
The Hurricane, director Norman Jewison brings
to the screen the book Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Untold
Story of the Freeing of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (1991),
which is based on a true story about a Black boxer who was
given a life sentence for a triple murder that he did not
commit. Hurricane (played by Denzil Washington) is the former
world's welterweight champion boxer who was deliberately framed
for the murder of three white men on June 17, 1966. When the
film begins, Hurricane is at the apex of his boxing career
in 1963. Next, we find him in prison, the first ninety days
of which are in the hole because he protests that wearing
prison clothes would be an admission of guilt. We next view
a reenactment of the crime scene as well as a police officer
(played by Dan Hedaya) tampering with evidence to frame Hurricane.
As the biography unfolds, we learn that the same police officer
arranged to send him to reform school at the age of 11 for
a knifing in self-defense; after he escapes and joins the
army, the same police officer sends him back to prison when
he returned from military service to serve the remaining years
of his juvenile detention, though as an adult. After his murder
conviction, we view how Hurricane refuses to conform to prison
rules, including sleeping during the day, typewriting his
biography at night, and eating canned rather than prison food.
After a retrial and even an appeal to the New Jersey Supreme
Court because his conviction was based on trumped-up evidence,
both unsuccessful, Hurricane then remains resigned to a life
in prison. Rather than a simple biography, however, the film
focuses on a teenage boy from Brooklyn named Lesra "Lazarus"
Martin (played by Vicellous Reon Shannon), who was adopted
by three adults in Canada because they were so impressed with
his spirit that they volunteered to teach him how to read
so that he could achieve his ambition of going to college.
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At
an auction of discarded books from the Toronto Public Library,
Lesra buys his first book for 25 cents -- Hurricane's autobiography
The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender to #45472
(1974). Moved by the book, Lesra writes and then visits Hurricane
and decides to do whatever he can to free him, and soon he
persuades his adopted family to join in the quest. They then
move to Paterson, New Jersey, review the mountain of evidence,
reinterview witnesses, and Hurricane's lawyers present their
case of gross racist prosecutorial misconduct to a federal
judge (played by Rod Steiger), who in turn frees Rubin on
November 8, 1985. Titles at the end indicate that Hurricane,
Lesra, and the three Canadians then went back to Canada (to
director Norman Jewison's home town of Toronto). Lesra indeed
finished college and is now an attorney in Vancouver, and
Hurricane founded an organization to investigate those who
are wrongfully convicted. However, no person has ever been
charged for the murders for which Hurricane was wrongfully
convicted. As a remarkable story about justice denied and
then redeemed almost miraculously, the Political Film Society
has nominated The Hurricane for three awards
for the year 2000 -- as an exposé and as a film raising consciousness
of the need for greater democracy and for improved human rights.
MH
BOARD
OF DIRECTORS MEETS FEBRUARY 5
The
Board of Directors of the Political Film Society will meet
at 8481 Allenwood Road, Los Angeles, on February 5 at 7:30
p.m. All members of the Society are invited. Refreshments
will be served. The agenda for the meeting will be to count
ballots to determine the final list of nominated films for
1999 to be included in balloting for awards.
NOMINEES
FOR 1999
DEMOCRACY:
East
of Hope Street, Fight
Club, The
Insider,
Naturally
Native, Three
Kings
EXPOSÉ: Bastards, Cabaret
Balkan, East of Hope Street,
The Insider,
Naturally Native, One
Man's Hero, Three
Kings, Three
Seasons
HUMAN RIGHTS:
The
General's Daughter, The Green
Mile, Hard,
Naturally
Native, One
Man's Hero, Three
Kings, Three
Seasons, Xiu Xiu
PEACE: Cabaret
Balkan, Earth, Light
It Up, One Man's Hero,
Three Kings,
West Beirut
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