Monday 4 November 2013

Concrete Mama : Prison Profiles from the Walla Walla


Scarce. Brutal and intimate portrait of screws, cons, visitors, prison wives at Washington State Penitentiary, considered at the time to be the worst prison in the U.S. Inside Concrete Mama, as McCoy and Hoffman showed without editorial comment or first-person intrusion, some men worked on and rode motorcycles, kept pets, dressed as women, negotiated shaky arrangements with prison officials and roamed the yards in total leisure. "They went inside the walls, they looked, they listened, they learned, they sought to understand ... ." A real classic in the vein of Danny Lyon. Highly recommended.