Granted, I have seen only one other Oscar documentary nominee, Summer of Soul, which is excellent, but in no way can it compare to Attica and its cutting force of the uprising and deaths by law enforcement at the prison in New York, Sept. 9 - 13, 1971.
On the 50th anniversary of the rebellion last fall, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and aired on Showtime.
It presents archived film, first-person interviews with those who were there, and new documentation and video about the deaths of inmates and hostages. Except for one guard and three inmates, law enforcement killed 29 prisoners and 10 hostages.
Two inmates were convicted in the guard's death. No one else was charged.
The prisoners said they wanted to be treated like people; not like beasts, a refrain which echoes throughout the film.
Stanley Nelson at the Motion Picture Association screening of his film, Attica/Photo by Patricia Leslie
After law enforcement stopped shooting, the prisoners were stripped naked and made to crawl on all fours through human excrement which had accumulated in a makeshift drain the inmates made during the riot. I could only think of Dachau.
Outside prison walls, some law enforcement members smiled and congratulated themselves on "white power."
If you ever thought anything positive about New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, your opinion will change after you see Attica. Not that his presence would have saved lives, but...
For his own ego, to improve his standing in the Republican Party, to grease his route to the White House (never achieved), Rockefeller ignored the plight of prisoners and the townspeople and did not go to Attica as requested, but, instead, he consulted with President Richard Nixon whose secret tapes revealed their conversation.
That will show "the Angela Davis crowd," Nixon crowed, "just like Kent State."
After the uprising, Rockefeller claimed the prisoners "carried out the cold-blood killings they had threatened from the outset." He, of course, was wrong.
After Attica was screened last week at offices of the Motion Picture Association in Washington, former Attica inmate James Asbury joined CBS newsman Major Garrett and the filmmakers, Stanley Nelson and Traci Curry, for a discussion of the making of the film and what it was like to be there.
Director Nelson said he realized he had better go ahead and make the film now, to "get these guys on film" since the 20-somethings then were in their 70-somethings now.
He and Ms. Curry said they were surprised by the cooperation they received from local citizens and the newscasters who were willing to talk for cameras.
The many first person accounts by prisoners, hostage family members, attorneys, and law enforcement flesh out the horror.
A historian was interviewed but that segment didn't fit the event's flow, and was not included, the filmmakers said.
Major Garrett was passionate about the film which he said he's seen three times, twice last Thursday.
It's a brutal telling, with archival materials and new video the producer and director discovered while reviewing documents gathered by law enforcement which they thought would portray themselves in a positive way.
Ms. Curry said the film is not only about the prisoners, but the working class residents of the small town whose wellbeing was not even an afterthought by authorities who ignore society's lower rungs.
Attica is another sad chapter in American history where the number of deaths remain the most recorded at a U.S. prison rebellion.
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