The Prisoner

The Prisoner is a 1955 British black and white psychological thriller film directed by Peter Glenville and based on the play of the same name by Bridget Boland. It stars Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins. Although controversial at the time of its release, the film received five nominations at the 9th British Academy Film Awards: Best Film From Any Source, Best British Film, Best British Screenplay, and Best British Actor (for both Guinness and Hawkins). Plot In the aftermath of World War II, in an unnamed European country where communist tyranny has recently replaced Nazi tyranny (possibly Hungary or Poland), the government falsely accuses a popular Cardinal of treason. His Interrogator, an old associate of the Cardinal in the resistance to the Nazi occupation who is now a loyal Communist, is given the task of persuading the Cardinal to make a public confession. Because the Cardinal had withstood torture when he opposed the Nazis, the Interrogator knows he will not be able to use force to get him to make a false confession, so he intends to do it by utilizing more psychological means and attempting to undermine the Cardinal's certainty in the righteousness of his resistance to the state. At first, the Interrogator makes no progress with his interviews. This leads government authorities to grow impatient and try to trick the Cardinal with fake evidence, but the Cardinal is easily able to deal with these clumsy attempts, which leave the state prosecutors humiliated. The Interrogator uses sleep deprivation, relentless questioning, and the deliberate upsetting of the Cardinal's eating and sleep/wake patterns to weaken him. Between his interviews with the Interrogator, the Cardinal and the lowly Jailer who brings him food philosophize about religion and politics. The Interrogator eventually breaks the Cardinal's will by using extended solitary confinement, and is able to use the Cardinal's innate humility to make him "realize" that he became a priest out of selfishness and vanity and to escape his childhood poverty, not out of goodness, virtue, or benevolence, as everyone (including the Cardinal himself) has always believed. To purge himself of his perceived sin, in the show trial that follows, the Cardinal confesses to every lie of which he is accused, including collaborating with the Nazis, though, privately, he looks to God, rather than the court, for forgiveness.