Sing Sing

Or: And Now Time doth Waste Me

A bright spark in a enclosed world, Divine G (Colman Domingo) a prisoner in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility, helps run the Rehabilitation Through Arts Program, providing a group of actors, and the general population of the prison, with moments of spiritual liberation. While prepping for the troupes first comedy, Breakin’ The Mummy’s Code, and working on his own case for release, Divine also coaches with a fearsome but theatrical inmate Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (Himself) into the family of the RTA.

Though a fictionalized tale, Sing Sing is primarily cast with actual members of the actual RTA playing themselves and reliving their days of incarceration. The film has a dream-like quality focused on hazy horizons and odd angles, the men in the shots often seconded to their surroundings. Which is precisely the point. What pervades is a sense of helplessness, where talented actors are stripped of their autonomy and personhood. Their time, their space, their very bodies are, in myriad, casual ways, pruned from them, making them helpless and insignificant even to themselves. A particularly heartrending example is when Domingo, speaking with excitement for his program is verbally thrown during an official meeting, and sees more years piled upon his sentence.

The most beautiful parts of the film are when the inmates immerse themselves in their art. Claiming their time and intention in quiet shots of practice, building purpose for themselves and communities for each other. While the injustices allow Devine to crack (causing Domingo’s powerful feeling to weep out of him), it gives artists like Maclin (or Sean “Dino Johnson, a notable passionate performance) the chance to stand up and bare their souls in comedy, and in defiance.