![]() ![]() Siegel takes a quieter, simpler approach to the political protest of his earlier film Riot in Cell Block 11, but the moral equation is easy to decipher. However, as stoic and broad-shouldered as Eastwood is, he knows how to bring subtle emotions into play early and often. His backstory is a complete blank as Dave Kehr noted in the Chicago Reader, he is “the Man With No Past.” From the outset, he’s nothing more or less than a man determined to do something he’s been told can’t be done. Unlike the heroes of other escape films, Eastwood’s Morris isn’t trying to balance the scales after being framed. Perhaps even more now than when it first came out in 1979, the film reveals the pleasures of analog ingenuity - an effective ruse staged with the use of nothing but the most basic tools. In many ways a spiritual descendant of Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped, Escape from Alcatraz likewise attains much of its thrust by the detailed depiction of process. There have not been any movies made about him.įrom beginning to end, Escape from Alcatraz is devoted to the romance of freedom, even while displaying the no-frills, getting-down-to-business predilections of director Don Siegel and star Clint Eastwood. Just look at John Paul Scott, who is known to have made it to shore six months after the Morris-Anglin escape, only to be quickly recaptured. ![]() Conversely, that story would not hold as much fascination if indisputable photographic evidence turned up. But why not imagine the best for these men? It makes a better story. The fact that their bodies were never recovered is not enough of a coincidence on which to hang one’s hopes. In all likelihood, Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers drowned in San Francisco Bay after successfully springing themselves out of prison. ![]() So often viewed with either fear or contempt, criminals gain a very different reputation when they disappear, something of a fairy tale quality - the person who somehow managed to get out of the system entirely. When there’s no definitive evidence either way, the romance of the situation is free to blossom. ![]()
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