Ryan McNeil
For every movie lover, there comes a point in their life when they realize movies can be…well…more. They can be more than distraction, more than entertainment, more than escapism. In those two hours of intensity, the movie goer realizes that they aren’t escaping the troubles of the world; they are staring them right in the eye.
For me, that moment came in the early months of 1996.
Tim Robbins’ DEAD MAN WALKING was the first film to affect me emotionally. If you haven’t seen it, the story is based on true events surrounding convicted killer Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn). As he waits on death row for his execution, he reaches out via mail to a Catholic nun for support. The nun is named Sr. Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon), and to Poncelet’s mild surprise she responds in his time of need and becomes a confidant to him. The film explores the emotional difficulties all involved face as the hour of Poncelet’s execution draws near.
I know for certain that DEAD MAN WALKING was a turning point for me because it was the first film to make me cry. The moment of its impact wasn’t the hour of Poncelot’s fate – that part I endured unscathed. No, the moment of emotional wallop came just before the film starts its walk down the last mile (figuratively and literally). In this moment, Sr. Prejean sings a verse of a hymn called “Be Not Afraid” to Poncelet. Sarandon didn’t even get two lines in before I felt the tears come on. There I sat, not quite eighteen years old, next to my first serious girlfriend, doing all I could not to melt into a snotty puddle of weep.
You see I went to Catholic school until grade eight, and that particular hymn was one I knew well. It was one we sang at assembly masses all the time, and one I’d known every lyric to for as long as I could remember. In all that time, I’d never thought about it in the context of death…so hearing it in that context for the first time allowed the film to hit me right in the jaw.
The movie would stick with me in the weeks and months to come, as would its message. I suddenly found myself thinking not just about people who are killed and the killers convicted, but of the families of all involved. I was quietly fixated on where we were as a society, and how I would handle such deeds and consequences.
A movie made me think about all of that. Not what I was learning in school, not what was happening in the news – a story told to me by flickering lights.
In rewatching the film last night, I began to wonder if it would still carry the same sort of resonance. This time around, I wasn’t pushed to tears, but I was still deeply fascinated by the story and the way the story is told. For instance, what I never noticed in the first viewing back in ’96 was the way the physical barrier between Prejean and Poncelet drops away as their relationship develops. During their first meeting, Tim Robbins shoots the scene in a way that the wire barricade between them is almost impossible to see through; their facial features barely discernible through the wire lattice. From scene to scene though, both the shooting style and the actual set-up is changed…echoing how much of each other’s character they are truly seeing.
As for the story, I somehow found myself most drawn to Poncelet’s mother this time around (played by Roberta Maxwell). In a way, she has arrived at the gate of The Delecroixs and the Perceys – the families whose children Poncelet was convicted of killing. She too is a parent who is about to outlive her child, but under the circumstances her walk down this path feel less tragic. The truth is that no parent deserves to be dealt this sort of hand; be it through bad luck or bad decision-making. At first blush, Watson might seem like a cliched white trash mother mumbling her way through the situation…but the truth is, her role in this movie is truly a tragic one.
Rewatching this film – and reminding myself of “my first time” – was something I found myself needing to do this week.
Every once in a while, I have done something or said something that makes me wonder why I watch, and why I write. I wonder if I’m looking for a certain style of title because I’m trying to feel smarter than the next person, or if I am genuinely looking for a new experience. Going back to DEAD MAN WALKING reminded me that I keep watching in the hopes something will unexpectedly pick me up by the collar and shake me senseless. It will allow me to think about something new and see real life in a different way. Subsequently, I share these thoughts with anybody who comes to read them as a way of reaching out…finding others who might think the same way, or even better not think the same way at all and might challenge my position even further.
More than to entertain, more than to escape, that’s the reason I watch – and the reason I write.
As I just told you on twitter I really liked this post since because it’s personal. But twitter only lasts ever so long so I’d better put it in a comment as a reminder of what you can write when your heart is in it.
And again, I thank you for that. I actually struggled with this one a bit to find the right balance between what I saw and what I felt: I was afraid that it was getting a bit too touch-feely.
Glad to know it connected.
That was one helluva leap of faith to take your girlfriend to a movie like this. It doesn’t exactly scream ‘date movie,’ you know? How did she react to it?
I had half a mind to flip that comment to her (not that we still talk, but she’s easy enough to find online).
Near as I can recall, she quite liked the film as well – she was very receptive to this type of cinema. She actually went to a Catholic high school, so I’d wager the crisis of faith that Prejean goes through in the film was apropos for some of the discussions she was having in school.
Happily we’d been seeing each other for several weeks (and known each other for longer) before we arrived at this crucial “Wanna see the execution movie?” stage in our relationship.
There are a number of outstanding facets to this film for me (of course the way it blurs the lines between “right and wrong” is paramount as is its plea not necessarily for an immediate renouncement of the death penalty but its urging for a complete look at all it portends). What always impresses me first, though, is its simplicity. It’s rarely, if ever, histrionic, deliberately serene – even in its most jarring moments – and astoundingly moving.
Kudos for shining a light on it. (That final walk to his death is truly one of the most devastating film scenes I can recall.)
That walk is intense isn’t it? One of the things I noticed on this watch was how long that entire sequence takes. When Prejean starts singing, there’s still a full 30 minutes to go…and yet it seems to breeze by.
“Going back to DEAD MAN WALKING reminded me that I keep watching in the hopes something will unexpectedly pick me up by the collar and shake me senseless.” Amen. What a truly fantastic post – straight from the heart, and those are always my favorite. Thanks for writing it.
I’m curious about one thing, however. What took you so long to re-visit it? I only ask because the films that affected me that profoundly at that age are ones I have often gone back to.
I might have mislead a little bit. I’ve seen it probably half a dozen times or so since that first watch…it was even amongst the very first dvd’s I bought for myself. However, it’s not a title I reach for often so I’ve probably gone a good four or five years since my last proper watch.
When I watch something with the intention of writing about it, I’m a bit more zeroed in…so in that respect this was the most attention I’d paid it since that first look.
Awesome stuff. I kind of wish there was that first film that really made me think of dramas as anything other than that boring shit used to waste time in between “OOOOOOO LOOK AT THE SHINY BOOM BOOM” scenes. For me it was more of a progressive movement. I got tired of all the – vaguely similar – action scenes from my youth and started getting annoyed when I went back on subsequent viewings and found all the characters were jerks. From there I took the long road around Action-Dramas and Drama-Thrillers before I finally settled onto the odd drama that called upon me to invest myself emotionally in the intrigue of the characters.
That said, excuse me while I shuffle off and add Dead Man Walking to my Netflix queue as it’s a film I actually haven’t seen.
Once you’ve watched it, do come back and let me know what you thought. I do believe it has held up quite nicely, but of course I’m biased.
As for the film that flipped the switch, I’ll bet you probably could nail it down. Think about when that dissatisfaction with the old action movies began – try to think of the year. Then think about the dramas you saw that year that you started to gravitate towards. Somewhere in the, a switch was thrown. You might have to put pen to paper (who wants to do that)…but I wager you could figure out the turning point.
I had never seen this before and hadn’t thought much about doing so until I read this post. Anything that could inspire such words should not go unseen.
In some ways DMW has sorta been shuffled back into the deck with the passing of time. I think for me, it just arrived at that right moment when my taste was ready to change. If I’d been turning 18 this year, that film might have been something like TAKE SHELTER or CAFE DE FLORE.
Dig it up, it’s a good watch.