Movies - Prison Song

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	Movies - Prison Song

For the song by System of a Down, see Prison Song''

Prison Song is a 2001 United States prison musical film about a boy brought up in group homes with a gift of art. He does beautiful drawings and is an excellent photographer. He is accepted to college and at first his gets a full scholarship but then something changes and it is taken away. This is one of the many times our principle character is let down. He gives up on his dream and gets angry. He ends up picking a fight with one of the boys from the group home and kills him. He ends up in jail for a term of fifteen years to life.

The movie is a musical relief to some people. Actors do break out into song or rap throughout the movie but fortunately this break from spoken word to words of rhythm and melody has a smooth transition.

Rapper Q-Tip plays the principal character. Though he is quiet most of the time, the viewer will feel almost every emotion he does, even when his face is plain as a blank piece of paper. Through the film you grow to love the character and feel bad that things worked out the way they did. He is, like many black men {and like many men period) talented but locked in jail.

A popular Hong Kong counterpart to Prison Song is Prison on Fire starring the Chinese martial artist and martial arts actor Chow Yun Fat.

Overview

The film centres around a character named Elijah (Q-Tip), who is an adolescent at the story’s outset. His mother (played by Mary J. Blige) is a hard-working woman who’s spent the last several years attending night school – with the eventual goal of becoming a lawyer. But given that she’s from a lower class area, she’s having a tough time finding employment as a legal secretary. Her boyfriend, Steve (Harold Perrineau), is supportive and has a genuine bond with Elijah – which makes his drug-related incarceration even tougher on the small family. The film picks up years later, and Elijah is now a sensitive adult with dreams of becoming an artist. He’s offered a spot at a prestigious art school, but is unable to afford the tuition. Much to the chagrin of Steve, who’s still in prison, Elijah considers a foray into the world of drug dealing. Though he eventually decides against that route, he winds up in jail for accidentally killing one of his foster brothers (played by Fat Joe) by pushing him on to the subway tracks. It’s there that Elijah is faced with a decision over which path to take – a life of crime versus his art.

Prison Song is kind of a cautionary tale for urban youths. One of the many positive aspects of the movie is groundbreaking music, which is far more creative than in most other films of the 20th century. There’s one particularly impressive tracking shot that starts outside Elijah’s house, enters through the second floor, follows a character throughout the home, and finally winds up outside again. Prison Song surely destined to break bigger and better ground and cause much change in the film industry and the urban cities.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Prison Song ]

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