Harsh and you can blame it on the Hashish
This is based on a true story from Billy Hayes (take it for what you will — we’ll come back to that in the next section).
When Billy Hayes tries to smuggle Hashish out of Turkey back to the USA, he runs into some trouble. A young college kid only wanting to deal to his friends, Hayes soon finds out that his innocent intent is a serious crime. Sentenced to four years in prison, Hayes has to deal with unbearable circumstances in a Turkish prison that isn’t so kind to drug dealers (even if Hayes didn’t think he was a cartel). Beaten mentally and physically, he must keep his health and sanity together to find a way home before he ends up like most men in the prison; dead.
I first saw this film as a young lad in the early 80s. I thought the content of Midnight Express was brutal back then as I do now. Oliver Stone was a young screenwriter in 1978 who put together one of the most brutal and harsh visual experiences for that time. He helped Alan Parker visualize what Billy Hayes went through to get home. He didn’t hold anything back, which is something we’ve all come to expect from Stone now, and help recreate frightfully perfectly such a predicament. Stone made each and every character memorable and deep; not deep as in philosophical, rather deep as in individualized and noticeable. It didn’t matter the role, if you had a character onscreen for more than 15-20 seconds, he was established as a certain personality (and could be identified that way). That’s the magic of Oliver Stone’s writing ability; he could always establish individual characters that were like no one else. For example, John Hurt’s Max is a hippy, who has given up on his situation and accepted it with a relaxed attitude thanks to his own drug habits. Max has been in prison so long that he can successfully give advice in how to get out; ironic as it seems his will has been shattered because of long stay. He is the end result if you let the Turkish prison get to you; Stone established him as such in 5-10 minutes of onscreen time. That’s a well-shaped character in a small amount of time. If you look back on all of Stone’s films (sans the most recent), you’ll find this emerging pattern of character development consistently.
Outside of Stone, the cast that Parker and crew put together is strong. I never thought I would see a film with Randy Quaid in it that I considered thought provoking. I’m not sure where Quaid fell off the acting train into such memorable roles as Eddie from the Vacation series, but he added some powerful performance in Midnight Express; and he was a minor character. The real star of the show was unknown actor Brad Davis, who portrayed Billy Hayes. His progression from irresponsible teenager to worn down, desperate human being is nothing less than brilliant. How a man can go through this chain of events without becoming mush is beyond me, but Davis really put on a performance in a role that was clearly bigger than he was at the time. As the booklet that comes with the film explains, Davis got himself ready for humiliation and abuse by simply doing things that Hayes did. For example, he stood naked in front of Parker (at Parker’s office) to show the humiliation that Hayes went through at the Turkish police station. I can only imagination how much Davis put himself through to capture Hayes perfectly. He takes Stone’s Hayes and follows his downward spiral brilliantly, so much so that by the end you’ll be just as relieved as he was. John Hurt is another actor who should be praised for his efforts. Hurt’s Max is broken, beaten and just going with the flow until he dies. It is a convincing performance for Hurt as he plays Max perfectly.
This film is tough no matter how you appreciate it. It’s long, it’s terrible to watch at times and there’s almost no peace of mind; that’s the journey that you would expect. Parker admits in the Blu-ray booklet that this story might be overdramatized (or possibly under) because it basically went through two different writers before it made it to screen. The first writer is William Hoffer who sat down with Hayes to pen the original book/story. Stone took that story and developed it into a screenplay and took creative liberties as well. It would be frightening to think that the story told wasn’t the entire brutal story that Hayes went through. It’s certainly more comforting think that Hayes went through what was shown, but that is scary venture even at that level. Most people, especially those new to this movie, may not take to this well. That might be the downfall of Midnight Express. The other downfall might be that Oliver Stone’s name is attached to it. I’d rather take the ‘glass is half-full approach’ and say that this is when Stone was when he was at his zenith. Regardless of how you feel about it, or what stance you take on this, it is a story that needs to be told (especially for future filmmakers out there).
Black and blu brilliance
After you watch Midnight Express on a 1080p or 720p set you’ll agree, you’ll probably want to go drink some water because of the way it looks. The picture is so perfect that the dust that gets kicked up in the movie, the dryness of the location will make you cringe. That’s the beauty of HD; it actually puts you there in the environment. Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures transferred this 1978 film beautifully and it will only reinforce how tough everything was for Hayes. The audio also helps, as it’s remastered to a frightfully proper format for your ears. Simply put, they treated this movie right.
As a bonus for this blu-ray, taking a page from Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures put this classic in a hardback case that features an insightful booklet (it’s basically a small diary with a movie in the back). Alan Parker writes about the film from concept to conclusion and gives you details about his feelings through the process. It’s amazingly informative and entertaining. You get information about location, Richard Gere (thank God that didn’t happen) and his feelings about Oliver Stone (quite funny). It’s respectful to the film and to the Blu-ray release.
Now for the actual features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Commentary from Alan Parker
– The Making of Midnight Express
– The Producers, The Production and The Finished Film Featurettes
– Photo Gallery
This may not be the most special features I’ve seen, but they’re very solid.