Blues singer Rita Chiarelli considered putting on a concert in 2010 for the inmates of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Then she decided instead to collaborate with musicians among the prison’s population. The results of this idea form the basis of a new movie, “Music from the Big House.”
After one rehearsal session with the convicts, Chiarelli says, “When you’re playing music, it’s easy to forget where you are.” It could serve as the tag line for the whole movie, although it would work even better if she had said that it’s easy to forget who you are.
Over the course of a mere 87 minutes, we get to know some of the prisoners well enough to find some of them — especially the oldest ones — certainly rehabilitated. Most of them are in for long sentences, though, and we know they’re in there for terrible crimes. The film ends up much more than a music documentary; it examines guilt and redemption in very moving ways.
“When they’re performing, they’re not angry. At that moment, they’re not inmates,” Chiarelli says by telephone from Modesto, Calif. “In that moment, they haven’t committed a crime.”
Chiarelli plays with three musical groups inside Angola: the Jazzmen, the Pure Heart Messengers and the Little Country Band. At the end, there’s a big concert with performances from each one, and there are several scenes of rehearsals, where Chiarelli and the convicts work on her material.
In one sequence, she teaches a vocal quartet her minor-key gospel-tinged blues song “Rest My Bones.” At first, the men are tentative, unsure where they should chime in. Within two minutes, they’ve worked out a harmony that could pass for the Blind Boys of Alabama. Chiarelli says that some blues radio programs have already started airing the “Rest My Bones” scene as a stand-alone clip, because just listening to the process is so fascinating.
The movie, directed by Bruce McDonald, ends up asking more questions than it answers. The viewer is left wondering what the main focus really is. Is it about her? Is it about the prisoners? Is it about music? Is it about grim circumstances and bad decisions? It’s actually about all of those things.
Saturday, Chiarelli appears for a performance and a question-and-answer session when the film screens at the Vickers Theatre in Three Oaks.
Chiarelli came to the blues when she was growing up in a poor family of Italian immigrants in Canada. Although she didn’t have it as rough as most of the inmates did, her youth was still traumatic, and the blues appealed to her naturally.
“The music was a total escape for me, emotionally, spiritually,” she says.
Plenty of famous musicians have served time at Angola over the years. Leadbelly is the biggest name. None of the “Big House” performers is quite on that level, but the movie is about much more than good music.
In one scene, an inmate tells of how he bungled an appearance before the parole board, squandering his chance of early release. His account is so full of conflicting emotions — mostly frustration and regret — that the scene resonates long after the movie has ended.
By the time of the final concert, the inmates are quite comfortable with Chiarelli. The finale features a transcendent group rendition of the traditional “Glory Glory (Hallelujah)” with singers telling how they have laid their burdens down. It may forge a place among the great moments in any music documentary.
Afterwards, just before the credits roll, we finally learn what crimes sent each man to Angola. Somehow, it still comes as a surprise to learn that most of them have committed rape or murder.
“You know they’ve done something, because they’re in the penitentiary, maximum security,” Chiarelli says. “But we want you to meet them first, get to know them, hear them talk about their lives. You start liking them, and your judgment of them is gone.”