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Meanwhile, a violent prisoner named William Wharton ([[Sam Rockwell]]) arrives, due to be executed for multiple murders he committed during a robbery. At one point he seizes Coffey's arm, and Coffey senses that Wharton is the true killer of the two girls, the crime for which Coffey was falsely convicted and sent to death row. Coffey then uses his powers to compel Wetmore to empty his handgun into Wharton, after which Wetmore falls into a permanent [[Catatonia|catatonic]] state. Stunned by these events, Edgecomb queries Coffey, who says he "punished them bad men", then takes Edgecomb's hand and imparts the vision that he saw of what really happened to the girls, a vision that Edgecomb finds nearly unbearable to endure. Wharton is dead at Wetmore's hand, and Wetmore ends up as a patient at the very asylum to which he promised Edgecomb he would transfer.
Meanwhile, a violent prisoner named William Wharton ([[Sam Rockwell]]) arrives, due to be executed for multiple murders he committed during a robbery. At one point he seizes Coffey's arm, and Coffey senses that Wharton is the true killer of the two girls, the crime for which Coffey was falsely convicted and sent to death row. Coffey then uses his powers to compel Wetmore to empty his handgun into Wharton, after which Wetmore falls into a permanent [[Catatonia|catatonic]] state. Stunned by these events, Edgecomb queries Coffey, who says he "punished them bad men", then takes Edgecomb's hand and imparts the vision that he saw of what really happened to the girls, a vision that Edgecomb finds nearly unbearable to endure. Wharton is dead at Wetmore's hand, and Wetmore ends up as a patient at the very asylum to which he promised Edgecomb he would transfer.


Notwithstanding Coffey's incredible abilities and the wrongness of his conviction, he ends up being executed, due in large part to geographically based [[Racism|racial]] overtones (the movie was set in the [[Southern United States|American South]]). The proper story ends there, and Edgecomb says he subsequently transferred from Death Row to a [[youth detention center]], where he spent the remainder of his career. The story then returns to the present, where Edgecomb explains to his friend why he is able to remember the events of 1935: he is in fact [[108 (number)|108]] years old and still in excellent health. This is apparently a side effect of the life-giving power of Coffey's touch: a significantly lengthened lifespan. Mr. Jingles, the mouse resurrected by Coffey, is also still alive — but Paul believes his outliving all of his relatives and friends to be a punishment from [[God]] for not stopping Coffey's execution. Mr. Jingles, being a mouse, should only have had a maximum lifespan of 1 or 2 years, yet he has lived for over half a century, so Paul dreads to think how long he himself has left to live, being a human. As he puts it, he has deep thoughts about how "We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green mile is so long."
Notwithstanding Coffey's incredible abilities and the wrongness of his conviction, he ends up being executed, due in large part to the racism prevalant at the time and place of the story (the movie was set in the Depression-era [[Southern United States|American South]]). The proper story ends there, and Edgecomb says he subsequently transferred from Death Row to a [[youth detention center]], where he spent the remainder of his career. The story then returns to the present, where Edgecomb explains to his friend why he is able to remember the events of 1935: he is in fact [[108 (number)|108]] years old and still in excellent health. This is apparently a side effect of the life-giving power of Coffey's touch: a significantly lengthened lifespan. Mr. Jingles, the mouse resurrected by Coffey, is also still alive — but Paul believes his outliving all of his relatives and friends to be a punishment from [[God]] for not stopping Coffey's execution. Mr. Jingles, being a mouse, should only have had a maximum lifespan of 1 or 2 years, yet he has lived for over half a century, so Paul dreads to think how long he himself has left to live, being a human. As he puts it, he has deep thoughts about how "We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green mile is so long."


==Cast==
==Cast==

Revision as of 16:44, 29 January 2008

The Green Mile
Promotional poster for The Green Mile
Directed byFrank Darabont
Written byNovel:
Stephen King
Screenplay:
Frank Darabont
Produced byFrank Darabont
David Valdes
StarringTom Hanks
David Morse
Bonnie Hunt
Michael Clarke Duncan
Barry Pepper
James Cromwell
Doug Hutchison
Sam Rockwell
Patricia Clarkson
Harry Dean Stanton
CinematographyDavid Tattersall
Edited byRichard Francis-Bruce
Music byThomas Newman
Distributed byWarner Bros.
(U.S. Theatrical & worldwide DVD)
UIP / Universal
(International)
Release dates
December 10, 1999
Running time
188 min.
LanguagesEnglish
French
Budget$60 million

The Green Mile is an Academy Award-nominated 1999 drama film, directed by Frank Darabont and adapted by him from the 1996 Stephen King novel The Green Mile. The film stars Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecomb and Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey.

The movie is primarily about Edgecomb and his life as a corrections officer on Death Row in the 1930s. The movie is told in flashback by the protagonist in a nursing home and follows a string of supernatural and metaphysical events upon the arrival of Coffey, a convicted murderer.

In the 2000 Academy Awards, the movie was nominated for four awards (Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Picture, Best Sound, and Best Writing: Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published).

Plot

The Green Mile is a story told in flashback by an elderly Paul Edgecomb in a nursing home. He tells a friend about the summer of 1935 when he was a corrections officer in charge of Death Row inmates in Louisiana's Cold Mountain Penitentiary. His domain was called "The Green Mile" because the condemned prisoners walking to their execution are said to be walking "the last mile" here, on a stretch of green linoleum. The main feature of the cellblock was "Old Sparky", the electric chair.

One day, a new inmate arrives. He is 7 feet tall (about 2.13 meters) John Coffey, a black man convicted of raping and killing two young white girls. Upon being escorted to his cell, he immediately demonstrates a "gentle giant" character--keeping to himself, afraid of the dark and being moved to tears on occasion. Soon enough, Coffey reveals his extraordinary healing powers by healing Edgecomb's urinary tract infection and resurrecting a mouse. Later, he would heal the terminally ill wife of Warden Hal Moores (James Cromwell). Although it is clear that Coffey has a degree of control over his power, when asked to explain it, he merely says that he "took it back."

At the same time, Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), a violent, sadistic, and potentially mentally ill guard who takes pleasure in intimidating and injuring inmates, exasperates everyone else in the cellblock. He "knows people in high places" (he was the nephew of the governor's wife), in effect preventing Edgecomb or anybody else from doing anything significant to curb his deviant behavior. Wetmore recognizes that the other officers greatly dislike him, and uses that to demand being promoted on managing the next execution. After that, he promises, he will have himself transferred to an administrative post in the Briar Ridge mental hospital, and Edgecomb will never hear from him again. A reluctant agreement is made, but Edgecomb comes to regret it after Wetmore deliberately sabotages the electrocution, inflicting as much pain as possible on Eduard Delacroix (Michael Jeter), a Cajun inmate who had previously embarrassed him.

File:The green mile 2q.jpg
John Coffey (Duncan) being escorted to his execution by Edgecomb (Hanks) and Brutus Howell (David Morse).

Meanwhile, a violent prisoner named William Wharton (Sam Rockwell) arrives, due to be executed for multiple murders he committed during a robbery. At one point he seizes Coffey's arm, and Coffey senses that Wharton is the true killer of the two girls, the crime for which Coffey was falsely convicted and sent to death row. Coffey then uses his powers to compel Wetmore to empty his handgun into Wharton, after which Wetmore falls into a permanent catatonic state. Stunned by these events, Edgecomb queries Coffey, who says he "punished them bad men", then takes Edgecomb's hand and imparts the vision that he saw of what really happened to the girls, a vision that Edgecomb finds nearly unbearable to endure. Wharton is dead at Wetmore's hand, and Wetmore ends up as a patient at the very asylum to which he promised Edgecomb he would transfer.

Notwithstanding Coffey's incredible abilities and the wrongness of his conviction, he ends up being executed, due in large part to the racism prevalant at the time and place of the story (the movie was set in the Depression-era American South). The proper story ends there, and Edgecomb says he subsequently transferred from Death Row to a youth detention center, where he spent the remainder of his career. The story then returns to the present, where Edgecomb explains to his friend why he is able to remember the events of 1935: he is in fact 108 years old and still in excellent health. This is apparently a side effect of the life-giving power of Coffey's touch: a significantly lengthened lifespan. Mr. Jingles, the mouse resurrected by Coffey, is also still alive — but Paul believes his outliving all of his relatives and friends to be a punishment from God for not stopping Coffey's execution. Mr. Jingles, being a mouse, should only have had a maximum lifespan of 1 or 2 years, yet he has lived for over half a century, so Paul dreads to think how long he himself has left to live, being a human. As he puts it, he has deep thoughts about how "We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green mile is so long."

Cast

Actor Role
Eve Brent Elaine Connelly
Brent Briscoe Bill Dodge
Patricia Clarkson Melinda Moores
James Cromwell Warden Hal Moores
Jeffrey DeMunn Harry Terwilliger
Michael Clarke Duncan John Coffey
Graham Greene Arlen Bitterbuck
Dabbs Greer Old Paul Edgecomb
Tom Hanks Paul Edgecomb
Bonnie Hunt Jan Edgecomb
Doug Hutchison Percy Wetmore
Michael Jeter Eduard "Del" Delacroix
David Morse Brutus "Brutal" Howell
Barry Pepper Dean Stanton
Sam Rockwell "Wild Bill" Wharton
William Sadler Klaus Detterick
Gary Sinise Burt Hammersmith
Harry Dean Stanton Toot-Toot
Bill McKinney Jack Van Hay
Brian Libby Sheriff McGee

Characters

John Coffey

Coffey is an enormous black prisoner on Death Row for raping and killing two small girls. It is later revealed that he was innocent and that Wharton, on Death Row for another crime was the girls' rapist/murderer. Coffey is favored by officers and inmates of the prison. He is scared of the dark, and his character is akin to one of an innocent child, making the crime he is accused of very unbelievable. He chooses to be executed partly due to the cruelty he feels in the world. Coffey has the ability to heal, which he used to cure Paul's Urinary Tract infection amongst other things.

Paul Edgecomb

The first of the two protagonists, Edgecomb is the head corrections officer of a Louisiana Death Row during the 1930s. He narrates the story of his on the Green Mile in flashbacks. Paul is cured of his urinary infection by John Coffey. Later Coffey shows Paul who the real killer of the girls is and as a result Paul is given the gift of life. He is at his wits' ends with the conniving and abusive officer Percy Wetmore, along with the vexatious "Wild Bill" Wharton.

Brutus "Brutal" Howell

Second-in-charge of Cold Mountain's Death Row, Brutus Howell, often referred to as "Brutal" by the others, is Paul Edgecombe's closest friend. Despite his intimidating name and imposingly large frame, Brutal is a calm, affable individual, but he does have a temper, which he mostly displays towards Wetmore.

William "Wild Bill" Wharton

William Wharton, who prefers to be known as "Billy the Kid", but is known to the inmates and officers as "Wild Bill", is an extremely hyperactive, mischievous and intidimating inmate -- described by the warden as "a problem child." He serves as an antagonist, and later revealed to be a deranged killer and rapist. According to John Coffey's vision when he made physical contact with Wharton, he worked the farm where the two girls lived. Wharton abducts and rapes them, then murders them -- whom were later discovered by Coffey, to which he was convicted for Wharton's crime. It is also implied Wharton is racist, as during the film he repeatedly uses the racial slur "nigger". Near the end, he is shot to death by Percy, to whom a disease was passed by Coffey.

Eduard Delacroix

Eduard Delacroix, better known as "Del", is a fairly well-adjusted inmate who becomes a friend of John Coffey. Del discovers a mouse whom he names Mr. Jingles, who becomes his closest friend on death row. He and Wetmore despise each other. Del even laughs at Percy after he is attacked by Wharton. Wetmore later stomps on Mr. Jingles, severely injuring it, but the mouse is healed by Coffey. Finally, Del's execution is sabotaged by Wetmore in order to inflict maximum pain on him. The electrocution becomes so extreme and inhumane that even the family of Delacroix's victims are horrified.

Arlen Bitterbuck

Arlen Bitterbuck is a Native American who was in prison when John Coffey arrived at Cold Mountain. Repentant of what he has done, on the night of his execution he confides in Paul Edgecomb about his belief that, if a person were truly sorry for his sins, he would go to heaven upon his death.

Percy Wetmore

Wetmore is an abusive, cynical and sadistic corrections officer inside the prison who assaults the inmates. He flaunts the fact that his aunt is married to the state governor, giving him the authority to justify his unruly behavior. He often uses this to his advantage whenever he is assigned a lousy task by having the state governor call the warden's office to chastise the rest of the staff. At one point, he wickedly crushes Mr. Jingles with his foot, who was later brought back to health by Coffey. Wetmore is tormented by Wild Bill, a serial killer in the prison whom Wetmore later kills. The other officers later throw Wetmore into the restraining room, bound in a straitjacket to confine him from witnessing their covert operation of temporarily bringing Coffey out of prison to have him heal the warden's wife, and at the same time, to punish him for sabotaging Eduard Delacroix's execution. They later release Wetmore, coercing him to accept his punishment and not make further trouble by reporting the incident. Minutes later, he is grabbed by Coffey, whom passes the sickness he absorbed from Moores' wife into Wetmore. Now cursed with the disease, he empties his pistol and kills "Wild Bill" Wharton. Wetmore then goes into a permanent, catatonic state. He is placed into a mental health institution which, ironically, is Briar Ridge Mental Hospital, the institution he was applying at for a good job.

Harold "Hal" Moores

The warden of Cold Mountain Prison, Hal Moores is a friend of the Edgecombes, and his personal life provides much of the drama of the movie. Early on, it was revealed that his wife Melinda had an inoperable brain tumor which was cured when Coffey "took it back" when they snuck him out of E-Block. This sickness was later passed into Percy which caused him to kill Wild Bill. Moores represent the Judas figure in the Christ parallel. He signs Coffey's execution papers after witnessing his healing power.

Mr. Jingles

A mouse that initially caused a deal of trouble among the inmates and caretakers of E-Block, but was later adopted by Delacroix as a pet. Mr. Jingles nearly died when Percy stepped on him, but was later resurrected by Coffey. The mouse's lifespan was extended as a side-effect of being in Coffeys hand while he was taking in the pain of Del's execution. At Del's execution day the caretakers conviced him that Mr. Jingles was promoted at a Mouse Circus in Souriville, Florida. The mouse was still alive at the time of Edgecombe's telling of the story, but visibly senile with extremely limited mobility.

Deviations from source material

File:0452278902.01. AA240 SCLZZ .jpg
The book cover

The Green Mile is, for the most part, faithful to Stephen King's original novel. There are, however, a few slight alterations.

  • The novel is a written story, delivered by the elderly Edgecomb to his fellow nursing home patient, Elaine. Each of the six volumes includes both an entry in the Green Mile story, as well as brief bookend scenes taking place in a modern day nursing home. These scenes included not only Edgecomb's relationship with Elaine, but also his interaction with a sadistic employee, Brad Dolan, who reminds him of Percy Wetmore, his Green Mile co-worker. It is these interactions that cause him to remember 1935, his last year on the Mile. In the film, Brad Dolan is left out completely, and the bookend sequences only take place at the very beginning and end of the movie. Instead of Dolan, it is watching the 1935 film Top Hat that provokes the flashback, and this film is added to the main storyline as well, in which John Coffey's last request is to be able to see a "flicker show" (motion picture) before he is executed.
  • In the book, Hal Moores has an assistant named Curtis Anderson. He does not appear in the film, and his lines and scenes are given to Moores instead. Other inmates on the Green Mile in the book who did not have speaking roles, and are inconsequential to the plot, are also omitted.
  • The first and second volumes of the book are told out of chronological order. The first book begins with the arrival of Coffey, and provides details of the murder for which he was convicted. At this point in time, inmate Eduard Delacroix already has his pet mouse, Mr. Jingles, and another inmate, Arlen Bitterbuck, has already been executed. The second book goes back in time, to before Coffey is brought in, to explain where Mr. Jingles came from, and who Bitterbuck was. The film re-arranges these events so that Coffey's arrival is the first event to take place, and all others follow it.
  • In the book, strong evidence — ignored by the authorities — is presented to the reader of Coffey's innocence in Edgecomb's eyes: for example, the tracking dogs' confusion at the site of the girls' murder, resulting from the murderer and the girls' bodies leaving in different directions. In the movie, however, Coffey grabs Edgecomb's hand and, along with transferring "life" to him, also shows Edgecomb who really killed the two girls.

Soundtrack listing

Untitled

The Green Mile soundtrack contains mostly instrumental pieces scored by Thomas Newman. Below is a listing of the songs (and their track numbers on the CD) that weren't composed by Newman.

  1. Old Alabama - B.B. and Group
  2. Monstrous Big
  3. The Two Dead Girls
  4. The Mouse On The Mile
  5. Foolishment
  6. Billy-Be-Frigged
  7. Coffey's Hands
  8. Cheek To Cheek - Fred Astaire
  9. Condemned Man
  10. Limp Noodle
  11. Scared Of The Dark
  12. Wild Bill
  13. Cigar Box
  14. Circus Mouse
  15. The Bad Death Of Eduard Delacroix
  16. Boy's Eye
  17. Two Run-Throughs
  18. Red Over Green
  19. I Can't Give You Anything But Love - Billie Holiday
  20. That's The Deal
  21. L'Homme Mauvais
  22. An Offense To The Heart
  23. Morphine & Cola
  24. Night Journey
  25. Danger Of Hell
  26. Done Tom Turkey
  27. Did You Ever See A Dream Walking - Gene Austin
  28. Trapingus Parish
  29. Boogeyman
  30. Shine My Knob
  31. Briar Ridge
  32. Coffey On The Mile
  33. Punishment
  34. Charmaine - Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians
  35. Now Long Gone
  36. No Exceptions
  37. The Green Mile

Awards and nominations

1999 Academy Awards (Oscars)

2000 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)

2000 BMI Film & TV Awards

2000 Black Reel Awards

2000 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards

2000 Bram Stoker Awards

2000 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards

2000 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

2000 Directors Guild of America

  • Nominated - Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures — Frank Darabont

2000 Golden Globe Awards

2000 Image Awards

2000 MTV Movie Awards

2000 Motion Picture Sound Editors (Golden Reel Award)

  • Nominated - Best Sound Editing - Dialogue and ADR — Mark A. Mangini, Julia Evershade
  • Nominated - Best Sound Editing - Effects and Foley — Mark A. Mangini, Aaron Glascock, Howell Gibbens, David E. Stone, Solange S. Schwalbe

2000 People's Choice Awards

  • Won - Favorite All-Around Motion Picture
  • Won - Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture

2001 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (Nebula Award)

2000 Screen Actors Guild Awards

  • Nominated - Outstanding Performance by a Cast
  • Nominated - Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role — Michael Clarke Duncan


References