Midnight Express Revisited

The jail where the events in the 1978 film "Midnight Express" were supposed to have taken place may today be an elegant Four Seasons hotel, but the movie remains a sore spot for many Turks, who feel it portrayed their country in an unfair light. In pop culture terms, "Midnight Express" certainly remains one of the leading references for Turkey. Now, in an online interview and in an upcoming episode of the National Geographic Channel's "Locked Up Abroad" (a show about Americans who have done prison time overseas), Billy Hayes, the man who's story "Midnight Express" tells, is providing some more details about his experience and his views on the film's impact.

From the interview on the Crave Online website:

The biggest problem I had with the film is the fact that you don't see any good Turks at all in the movie. It creates an overall impression that Turkey is this terrible place and Turks are a terrible people. Which is not valid or true, both to my own experience and to reality. I actually loved Istanbul. I got along great with the Turks until I was arrested.

I don't like Turkish prisons and I certainly don't like the Turkish legal system. But you know, you could fill in the blank with any country in the world and you're not going to like their prison. And if you get arrested, you're not going to like their legal system. So, my problem with the film is that it created this overall impression that all Turks are like that; even though I have said in every interview I have done over the last thirty years — just what I'm telling you now — that that's not true. My little words get lost up against the images on the screen because Alan Parker, Brad Davis and the rest made an incredibly powerful film.

Things like the courtroom scene, after the sentencing where they've got me (or Brad) saying "This is a nation of pigs and I f*** you all. And I f*** your mothers." The Turks hated that scene and rightfully so. What I actually said (which is in the Turkish records and in my book) was something about "You know, I've been in your jail for four years now. And if you're going to send me to more prison, I can't agree with you. All I can do is forgive you." That is what I said. That's the diametric opposite of what was said in the film.

Changes like that bothered me. The fact that the escape in the movie is like an afterthought. He kills the guard, which I didn't do. I didn't have too much of a problem with the guard's portrayal because he was a brute and he was a sadist. Most guards were not like that, this guy was. This guy was actually shot by a fellow prisoner, who he had a beaten a year or two earlier. This prisoner shot him outside of the prison one morning while he was sitting and drinking his tea. The prisoner shot him eight times because he had disgraced this prisoner's family while he was beating him. But I didn't kill the guard and I actually escaped in a very different way than was shown in the film.