The filmmakers hesitate at going deeper into the dark places of the prisoners' biographies and the storied prison itself. The one wouldn't exist without the other, and Ms. Chiarelli's rambling platitudes are no substitute.
Music from the Big House
Canada, United States · 2010
1h 27m
Director Bruce McDonald
Starring Rita Chiarelli
Genre Documentary, Music
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Rita Chiarelli, an award-winning recording artist, has decided to take a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the blues—Louisiana State Maximum Security Penitentiary a.k.a Angola Prison. She never imagined that her love of the blues would lead her to play with inmates serving life sentences for murder, rape and armed robbery. In what was once the bloodiest prison in America, inmates relatives will be invited to listen alongside other prisoners, to hear remarkable voices singing stories of hope and redemption. Let yourself be swept away by one of Blues’ most soulful pilgrim daughters who is finding out if music really is an escape.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
The proceedings have a certain haunted quality, thanks to the dramatic setting and the stark black-and-white cinematography by Steve Cosens that fully conveys its bleakness.
Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele
Even with a gripping subject like blues-singing convicts, the documentary Music from the Big House has a disconcerting emotional distance.
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