Ghosts… of the Civil Dead

Infobox Film | name = Ghosts... of the Civil Dead


caption = Poster for "Ghosts... of the Civil Dead'
director = John Hillcoat
producer = Evan English
writer = Nick Cave, John Hillcoat, Hugo Race, Gene Conkie and Evan English
starring = David Field
Chris DeRose
Nick Cave
music = Nick Cave
Blixa Bargeld
Mick Harvey
cinematography =
editing = Stewart Young
distributor =
released = December 1988 (Europe)
runtime = 93 min.
language = English
budget =
amg_id = 1:119587
imdb_id = 0095217

"Ghosts... of the Civil Dead" is a 1988 Australian movie directed by John Hillcoat. The script was written by Hillcoat, producer Evan English, Gene Conkie, and musicians Nick Cave and Hugo Race. It is in part based on the true story of Jack Henry Abbott.

Plot summary

"Ghosts..." is set in Central Industrial Prison, a maximum security prison in the middle of the desert. An outbreak of violence within the prison has resulted in a total lockdown. A committee is appointed by the prison's governors to investigate the cause of the outbreak, but their findings are in stark contrast to the facts behind the riot. As the viewers see, both the prisoners and the guards are slowly and deliberately brutalised, manipulated and provoked into the forthcoming eruption of violence, to justify the construction of a new and more "secure" facility.

Origin of title

In Roman law, a person convicted of a crime where the punishment included loss their legal rights as a person was "civiliter mortuus", a person without civil rights, a civil dead.

Trivia

*John Hillcoat and Nick Cave would later collaborate on the 2005 film "The Proposition".
*The film's score was written by Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld and Mick Harvey, all members of Cave's band, The Bad Seeds. Former band member Hugo Race also wrote part of the script, and Cave has an acting role in the film.

External links

* [http://ghostsofthecivildead.com/ Official website]
*imdb title|id=0095217|title=Ghosts... of the Civil Dead
* [http://colsearch.nfsa.afc.gov.au/nfsa/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;group=;groupequals=;holdingType=;page=0;parentid=;query=Number%3A235011;querytype=;rec=0;resCount=10 Ghosts... of The Civil Dead at the National Film and Sound Archive]

References

Fuchs, Christian [1996] (2002). "Bad Blood". Creation Books.