Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Attica’ on Showtime, a Sadly Still-Relevant Documentary Re-telling of the Historic Prison Riot and Massacre

Showtime documentary Attica recounts the tense and harrowing events of the infamous prison riot, and subsequent massacre, that shocked America 50 years ago. Filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Traci Curry assemble ex-inmates, negotiators, lawyers, family members of hostages and other key participants to revisit the story, and reframe it within the current context of racial reckoning and the ongoing need for prison reform. And you won’t be surprised to learn that the tragedy is still as disturbing and dispiriting as ever.

ATTICA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Attica, in western New York state, is described as a typical American small town where everyone knows everyone else. It was all but built to support the Attica Correctional Facility; most residents lived within sight of the prison walls, and if they didn’t work there, they were probably dairy farmers. We see images from the town of Attica, and pretty much everyone who lives there is white. The prison itself is of the maximum-security type, housing inmates from the hardened streets of New York City boroughs, many of them serving long-term sentences — and the majority of them were Black or Hispanic.

Former prisoners describe the conditions inside the prison: Miniscule food portions, inadequate medical services, unfair disciplinary hearings, no schooling whatsoever. They were given one roll of toilet paper per month. Muslim inmates were forced to eat pork And then there were the beatings — “goon squads” of guards would exact cruel punishment on prisoners, often in the dead of night. A prison break in San Quentin was a signal flare; prison employees could sense the tension. Something was brewing.

On Sept. 9, 1971, the floodgates broke. Inmates overwhelmed guards and took control of the prison, taking numerous staff members hostage and making them dress in prisoner garb. Some organized elections so leaders and spokesmen could be chosen to voice their demands. Others built tents and dug latrines, which we see in archival footage likely taken by members of the press — members of the press who were purposely invited in to give the inmates a worldwide audience. State police and the National Guard gathered on the other side of the wall, donning gas masks and loading shotguns. Inmates lobbied potential allies from the outside to help them negotiate; they wanted basic human-rights necessities to be met, and a promise of amnesty for anyone involved in taking over the prison.

But this was President Richard Nixon’s “law and order” era. Governor Nelson Rockefeller didn’t want to look weak in the eyes of his president. He ignored pleas to visit the prison and soothe growing tensions. Negotiations broke down. Ugly rumors about the state of the hostages swirled. The inmates held the prison for four days before Rockefeller ordered the police to retake the grounds. Archival footage: The horrible sounds of loudspeaker voices saying, “You will not be harmed” as the police fired away, killing prisoners and hostages with impunity. Survivors say that cops sought out specific inmate leaders and killed them, even during the act of surrender. The prisoners they cops didn’t kill were stripped naked and paraded through the grounds, through puddles of blood. They were harassed, beaten, tortured, forced to crawl through human waste in the latrine. They were bombarded with grotesque racial epithets. In the end, 29 prisoners and 10 hostages were killed. One can’t help but conclude, with great sorrow, that these events only proved the inmates’ point.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: File Attica next to other excellent political docs in recent memory, among them MLK/FBI, The Dissident and John Lewis: Good Trouble.

Performance Worth Watching: The bevy of hardened faces belonging to former Attica prisoners — they’re the real star here. But Clarence Jones, a former adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was one of the negotiators — dubbed the “observer committee” — provides the film’s most cutting insight, from a social, political and cultural perspective.

Memorable Dialogue: Jones: “‘Law and order’ does not permit any challenge to its authority whatsoever. God willing, in a few more months, in January, I’ll be 90 years old, and I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever forget Attica. Ever.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Nelson and Curry essentially arrange the interviews and dig up some remarkable archival footage, then get out of the way and let the story tell itself. Attica doesn’t need narrative gimmicks — it’s tragic drama and critical subtext leap to the forefront. The voices we hear carry the weight, have carried the weight, and will continue to carry the weight of Attica — inmates who barely survived the ordeal, adult offspring of hostages who were killed, witnesses who looked on in horror. This isn’t the usual history lesson, from the victors’ perspective. It’s the truth.

The documentary clocks in at two hours, its first 90 minutes slowly building to a final 30 that holds us in a vice-like grip. It isn’t comprehensive in its detail about what happened that day — it skirts around how some inmates killed each other — but the detail it does include, much of it from the former inmates’ accounts, is crucial. There’s a scene at the end of the movie in which uniformed police officers boldly shout “white power” in the aftermath of the massacre, then we read the recent news story about how active police officers in major U.S. cities are affiliated with the far-right paramilitary group the Oath Keepers. In light of such news — one of many such reports — you can’t argue the validity of revisiting the story of Attica, especially from this documentary’s perspective. Old wounds still haven’t healed.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Attica is one of the year’s most powerful documentaries.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Attica on Showtime