| Weeds | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | John D. Hancock |
| Produced by | Bill Badalato |
| Written by | John D. Hancock Dorothy Tristan |
| Starring | Nick Nolte Ernie Hudson William Forsythe Rita Taggart Mark Rolston Lane Smith Joe Mantegna Anne Ramsey |
| Music by | Angelo Badalamenti Melissa Etheridge Orville Stoeber |
| Cinematography | Jan Weincke |
| Editing by | David Handman Jon Poll Chris Lebenzon |
| Distributed by | De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) |
| Release date(s) | October 16, 1987 |
| Running time | 115 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Weeds is a 1987 American drama film about a prison inmate who writes a play that catches the attention of a visiting reporter. The film was directed by John D. Hancock, and stars Nick Nolte, Ernie Hudson, and Rita Taggart.
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Lee Umstetter (Nick Nolte) is in San Quentin for armed robbery serving "life without possibility" -- that is, with no chance of parole.
After two failed suicide attempts, Lee begins to read books from the prison library. He attends a performance of Waiting for Godot given for the prisoners and is deeply moved. He begins to write plays about imprisonment and then stages them, too.
One is a social-protest musical extravaganza about life in the penitentiary, which attracts visitors and earns Lee the regard of a San Francisco theatre reviewer (Rita Taggart) who persuades the governor to release him.
Lee organises an acting troupe made up of former cons -- a shoplifter (William Forsythe), a murderer (Ernie Hudson), an embezzler (Lane Smith), a smart pimp (John Toles-Bey), a flasher (Mark Rolston), and others.
Lee's work doesn't make the same impact outside the prison as it did inside. Touring in a camper, with no money, the men are torn by impulses to revert to their former criminal behaviour.
"The film is about their efforts to become professional men of the theatre. It's about the ways in which working together changes them and the ways in which it doesn't." [1]
Hancock, who used to be the director of the San Francisco Actors Workshop, did some work with the convict Rick Cluchey and his San Quentin Drama Group (whose late 1960s show The Cage toured the U.S. and Europe). The film grew out of Hancock's contact with Clucheys company and out of his and Dorothy Tristan's research into other prison theatre groups.
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