The Green Mile - I read this AGES ago!

In a rare case of me actually having read a book before seeing the film, I saw The Green Mile a few weeks back.  I know this is a film that was made quite a lot of years ago, and I doubt I ever would have watched it had it not turned up on one of the IMDB's top lists during one of my semi-regular attempts to complete the entire list.  But there it was, a thorn in my IMDB completionist side.  It was time to watch.

Made almost 20 years ago, Tom Hanks looks considerably more youthful as our main protagonist - death row prison guard Paul Edgecomb.  Edgecomb's philosophy is simple: society has deemed the men under his watch to die for their crimes, his job is simply to make the entire process as hassle free and painless as possible.  That means understanding, compassion and avoiding confrontation.  Into this environment is brought the man mountain John Coffey (Michael Duncan), convicted of a double murder of two small girls and destined to die.  Edgecomb's initial fears of dealing with Coffey are soon put to one side, as Coffey is found to not only be a gentle giant, but a man of seemingly supernatural abilities apparently unable to have committed the crimes for which he is guilty.

It hardly requires a degree in narrative analysis to understand that John Coffey represents Jesus Christ.  Being condemned to death for a crime he did not commit, possessing of miraculous powers of healing, living in a society that holds deep structural prejudices against him and - of course - holding the initials JC, things are more overt than the allusions for Paul Newman's character in Cool Hand Luke.  It's a simple story that's rather powerful, says something about the history of 20th century America and very much worth the commitment to enjoy.

For a story that is set on death row, it is surprisingly neutral on the morality of the punishment.  Though of course the death of John Coffey is undoubtedly a tragic event, his death is paralleled with the death of Christ.  Since Christian doctrine celebrates the death of Jesus as a moment in which humanity is saved, it is unclear whether ultimately even Coffey's death is considered a sin.  We have the death of fellow inmate Delacroix that hints at the horrors of the death penalty, but even this horror is perpetrated by sadistic guard Percy Wetmore rather than at the system itself.  In fact Delacroix's journey to death on the Green Mile is portrayed as a noble act, that in accepting his fate gracefully he achieves some kind of repentance.  Perhaps the point is to simply make us think about these issues, which the film undoubtedly does.  One to go back into the annals of film and catch up on.