{"id":6779,"date":"2026-06-08T12:29:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=6779"},"modified":"2026-06-08T12:29:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:29:06","slug":"a-poetic-short-film-animates-the-counterproductive-forces-of-incarceration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=6779","title":{"rendered":"A Poetic Short Film Animates the Counterproductive Forces of Incarceration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

What is prison for? Touted as both a means of punishment and correction, the U.S. carceral system rarely succeeds at the latter. According to the Department of Justice<\/a>, more than 650,000 people are released from prison annually, with two-thirds being arrested again within three years. Rehabilitation is the purported justification for locking away more of our residents than most other nations, but clearly, the punitive system seldom accomplishes this goal.<\/p>\n

A new film by writer Marvin Wade<\/a> and animator Evan Bode<\/a> juxtaposes the counterproductive forces of the carceral system with the programs, resources, and true determination that make change possible. Presented by The New York Times<\/em>\u2018 Opinion section, \u201cPrison and Time\u201d details Wade\u2019s experience while incarcerated and how, despite the system\u2019s rules and the whims of correctional officers, he was able to obtain his GED, learn to facilitate conflict resolution, and discover his love for writing. Time, for Wade, was the critical support he needed to gain perspective, while the system he found himself ensnared by focused on dehumanization and retribution.<\/p>\n

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For his part, Bode animated a dark, dizzying visualization that evokes the bleak and claustrophobic conditions of a prison cell and the lives it both conceals and actively thwarts. The scenes rendered in watercolor and marker appear as blips within the larger narrative, an apt material metaphor that moves the viewer throughout the film like a ticking clock. A making-of video<\/a> highlights this painstaking process.<\/p>\n

Bode and Wade met through Project Mend<\/a><\/em>, a journal featuring the work of creatives impacted by the carceral system published through Syracuse University. \u201cMend<\/em> is a very small, tight-knit group doing extraordinary things with a lot of love,\u201d Bode says. \u201cLast year, [the project\u2019s founder] Patrick W. Barry presented me with some texts published in Mend<\/em> for me to consider animating, one of which was Marvin Wade\u2019s brilliant essay, \u2018Time and Prison: Are They Mutually Exclusive?<\/a>\u2018\u201d<\/p>\n

The two teamed up, with Wade narrating and Bode animating. Together, they create a captivating portal into Wade\u2019s life at a particularly vulnerable and transformative time. \u201cI believe the purpose of an artist is to move the crowd,\u201d he writes about the film<\/a>. \u201cAnd my hope is that everyone watching our film will be moved in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project Mend<\/em> has tapped Bode for further collaborations, including an animated film paired with the poem \u201cMan Skin Boy Mask\u201d by\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Angel Perez. Keep an eye out for its release on Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article A Poetic Short Film Animates the Counterproductive Forces of Incarceration<\/a> appeared first on Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is prison for? Touted as both a means of punishment and correction, the U.S. carceral system rarely succeeds at the latter. According to the Department of Justice, more than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}