Green Mile
The Green Mile is based on a 5 part series of the same name from author Stephen King. This is the second collaboration between Darabont and King, the first being the highly popular The Shawshank Redemption (1994). The Green Mile was nominated for 4 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Michael Clarke Duncan), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound, but like the Shawshank Redemption before it, it failed to pick up anything. The Green Mile is an epic, running over three hours, and a powerfully-told story that lays bare the triumphs and tragedies of the human condition. And though the film's intensity occasionally falls from its wandering narrative, The Green Mile remains riveting nonetheless, touching on themes of redemption and justice, while illustrating how, for evil to sustain itself, that it only requires good men to do nothing.It spends the majority of the first hour introducing us to the characters and to who and what they are. The film opens in a nursing home, with a man called Paul Edgecomb, telling his story of his days as head guard at Coal Mountain Louisiana State Penitentiary during the Depression. The young Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) is a righteous man who treats the inmates with the utmost respect
We discover 4 new characters brought into the story who are a representation of good and evil: new guard Percy Whitmore, a sniveling, sadistic man who because of his connections cannot be touched; the new prisoner John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), an imposing giant of a man, who we discover has been sentenced to die after being found with two dead girls in his arms; "Wild Bill", a raving madman; and a mouse called Mr. Instead of releasing his sickness, he gives it to Percy, who grabs his gun, and kills Wild Bill, and himself put into a mental asylum. Soon after, we discover the supernatural gift this man has; after grabbing Paul's crotch through the bars, John heals him of his painful bladder infection, expelling the sickness as a cloud of flies, "I just took it back" is what he says. We see John's amazing gift again after Mr. This adaptation of the Stephen King novel is certain to inspire reflection, exploring matters of redemption, atonement and punishment, justice, and the small miracles that can be found in the most unlikeliest of places. The first discovery we have of John's childlike, simple-minded, gentle nature is after his arrival: he requests to keep the light on "after bed time", because he "gets a little scared in the dark". Jingles is stepped on by the cruel Percy Whitmore, after a prisoner he hates grows a strange, loving relationship with the mouse. The film's slogan was "The most unexpected miracles happen in the most unlikely of places", and in essence this was the main discovery of the movie, of miracles, of the supernatural and the touching portrayal of how simple acts of kindness and dignity can flourish in such a dismal place. Part of the reason the film works so well is its in-depth character study of everyone from Paul and John to Wild Bill and Percy. John is able to heal the mouse in a miracle the rest of the guards also discover. The film ends with the inevitable execution of John Coffey, and reverts back to the present for Paul to say it was his last execution. In an unnecessary footnote, he goes to explain how he must live an incredibly long life, and watch all his friends and family die, that it was his punishment from god for allowing one of god's true angels to die. John wants Paul to see the truth, so he gives part of his powers to him, in a scene where we discover that it was Wild Bill who killed the girls, and John, wanting to help, tried to "take it back", but couldn't. With such a discovery, Paul becomes increasingly apprehensive about carrying out the inevitable endpoint of John's sentence, since he knows in his heart that God would not put such a 'gift' in the hands of someone capable of the evil which John has been accused.
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Acceptance Essays
