Midnight Express

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There is a fleeting reference to The Pudding Shop restaurant in the bazaar. It was/is not there - it is on Divan Yolu. En la cárcel parecía que todos permanecían a la expectativa de algo. Se esperaba que abrieran la celda y que llegara el pan por la mañana; se esperaba la comida a mediodía; se esperaba que llegara el agua, para poder ir al baño o lavarse; se esperaban las visitas; se esperaba el juicio; se esperaba la libertad..." Admittedly there are many better written books on Turkey to peruse, including Istanbul: The Imperial City, Lords of the Horizons A History of the Ottoman Empire, Inside the Seraglio: Private Lives of the Sultans in Istanbul and many others besides, but Billy Hayes story is famous and compelling because of the sheer fascinating horror afforded by life in a foreign jail. It's a weird form of voyeurism after the fact (he gets out - no this is not a spoiler). Also the production of an award winning Hollywood movie, generated from Billy's transcontinental woes and bookish rememberings also helps lodge certain events in the public cinema-going psyche.

A fast paced one sitting read, Midnight Express is definitely not for the faint hearted. Whether it be the torments that are a way of life at Sagmalcilar, or the jaw dropping intransigence of the Turkish legal system, where the word “justice” transcends from being a noble concept to a n impotent misnomer, to the insane escape itself attempted by Hayes, the book is gasp inducing. Beads of sweat automatically form on the brows of the reader as the suspense and anticipation leaves her absolutely poleaxed and stupefied. A new railroad line appears to challenge the Midnight Express. Unfortunately, it's run by a Malfean. Billy goes along with a prison break that Jimmy has masterminded. Billy, Jimmy, and Max try to escape through the catacombs below the prison, but their plans are revealed to the prison authorities by fellow-prisoner Rifki. His stay becomes harsh and brutal: terrifying scenes of physical and mental torture follow one another, and Billy has a breakdown. He beats up and bites out Rifki's tongue and is sent to the prison's ward for the insane, where he wanders in a daze among the other disturbed and catatonic prisoners. These scenes are moving and show Billy's profound pain. In more recent times, Billy has travelled round the world with a one man show Riding the Midnight Express, which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013. He has written two sequels to his original book both published in 2013: Midnight Return (Escaping Midnight Express) and The Midnight Express Letters – from a Turkish Prison, 1970 – 1975, a collection of letters written to his friends and family from prison. In the same year, the story was made in to a ballet, which was the subject of much speculation when the lead dancer, Sergei Polunin, left the show one week before opening. In 2016, the story was the subject of a documentary, Midnight Return: The Story of Billy Hayes and Turkey.Although the story is set largely in Turkey, the movie was filmed almost entirely at Fort Saint Elmo in Valletta, Malta, after permission to film in Istanbul was denied. Ending credits of the movie state: "Made entirely on location in Malta and recorded at EMI Studios, Borehamwood by Columbia Pictures Corporation Limited 19/23 Wells Street, London, W1 England." This is a bit of a formulaic hard prison drama, or at least it's gotten to be, establishing conventions that have gone on to be overexplored, thus rendering this plot a touch dated, to where it's harder to ignore what tropes stood in the '70s for films of this type. If nothing else, the conventions gradually become harder to ignore, because the film is a little too long, taking its time to flesh out certain aspects, if not get repetitious with excessive material which slows down a sense of momentum that is further retarded by an overly thoughtful directorial atmosphere. If anything is subtle about the storytelling, it's the often effective, yet also often dry thoughtfulness to Alan Parker's direction, which bonds with the dragging and leads into a number of slow spells, which prove to be the biggest problem deriving from the lengthiness, but not the only one. The film eventually divides attention between the lead and his peers a little too thoroughly, providing a few side plots which feel sort of episodic in their relative inconsequentiality, and a pinch over in their supplementing the film's thematic aspects. The film can get excessive with more than just its narrative structure, for although I think that too many people are making a bit too big of a deal about the portrayal of the Turks, the antagonists are thinly written, just as the disturbing content gets a little abrasive, in that they are overemphasized, until a sense of purpose for the content, in addition to a sense of progression to the plot which goes supplemented by the disturbances, is all but lost. The film gradually becomes disjointed, and although it's always compelling, it challenges your patience through its formulaically and often unsubtly dragging along an uneven and repetitious path. Still, the flaws are not as extreme as they could have been, and the ambition of this film is met almost every step of the way by inspiration, even in style. When Barry Sutton fails to stop the suicide of a women suffering with False Memory Syndrome, a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived, his search for the truth is more terrifying than any disease. Neuroscientist Helena Smith, whose mother has Alzheimer’s disease, has dedicated her life to creating a technology that will preserve our most precious memories forever. As their stories collide, Barry and Helena are trapped together in a loop of ever-growing chaos.

Hayes has now written the sequel books, "Midnight Return (Escaping Midnight Express)" and "The Midnight Express Letters--from a Turkish Prison, 1970-1975", a collection of the original letters written home to family and friends during his imprisonment" During his first night in holding at a local jail, a freezing-cold Billy sneaks out of his cell and steals a blanket. Later that night, he is rousted from his cell and brutally beaten by chief guard Hamidou for the theft. Interview with Billy Hayes about 'Midnight Express' on YouTube". Youtube.com. Archived from the original on 2012-09-20 . Retrieved 2010-05-20. Billy τον ρουφάει στην κυριολεξία με αποτέλεσμα να παρατήσει τις σπουδές του και να αρχίσει να ταξιδεύει ώστε να ζήσει στο μέγιστο τα χρόνια της νιότης του που δεν θα ξαναγυρίσουν. Μέσα σε όλα αυτά δοκιμάζει νέες εμπειρίες όπως το να καπνίζει μαριχουάνα και δυστυχώς αυτό είναι που στην ουσία θα του καταστρέψει και τη ζωή αλλά και τα ανέμελα χρόνια της νιότης του που τόσο ήθελε να ζήσει στο έπακρο. A few weeks later, Billy's father (Mike Kellin) arrives and embraces him, forgiving his mistake and introduces him to Stanley Daniels (Michael Ensign) of the American Consulate and his requested lawyer Yesil to defend him. Yesil is a fat, shifty, greasy-haired, chain-smoking, ever-smiling man with gold teeth that promises Billy to get him the right court and judge and not to worry. Their goal is to get bail for Billy and a fake passport to get him across to Greece to leave.Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) was a renowned English poet who is best known for his ballads, The Highwayman and The Barrel-Organ. Midnight Express is an edited version of one of his most famous short stories of the same name. La película es buena sin dudas, PERO no es 100% fiel al libro, incluso llego a perjudicar muchísimo la imagen de Turquía como país (por retratarlos como bárbaros), el mismo autor pidió perdón por el daño causado, otros solo vieron el poder que ejerce el cine sobre la opinión de las personas. Although Billy spent 17 days in the prison's psychiatric hospital in 1972 in the book, he never bit out anyone's tongue, which, in the film, leads to him being committed to the section for the criminally insane. Fellner, Dan (2013). "Catching the Midnight Express in Malta". global-travel-info.com. Archived from the original on 23 June 2015 . Retrieved 23 June 2015. I read Midnight Express years ago and I was quite taken by the graphic descriptions of his awful imprisonment and the terrible conditions existing in Turkey at that time for convicts. There are many tv shows, usually about South American or Asian countries prisons which are just as harsh as the ones in this book. It would be interesting to see statistics about the rate of recidivism from prisons with such grim conditions compared with those of the rather hard, tough ones of the US and also with the much easier ones of Europe and especially the Nordic countries.