Humanity and the death penalty is something I think I've written about on this blog and talked about all too often. Inhuman, evil and monster are words that I've extricated from my vocabulary when describing other people and their actions.
The whole question of humanity and the death penalty was raised again when I watched the movie Monster's Ball, starring Halle Berry, Billy Bob Thornton and Heath Ledger. I don't quite know how this film stayed under my radar for so long, but I had never really gone out of my way to see it.
Without giving away too much of the plot, it's the story of a family of three men from different generations who have grown up working as prison wardens on death row.
What really surprised me while I was watching the film was the moment Halle Berry arrives at the prison to see her husband on death row. To my surprise she pulled up to the all to familiar boom gates of Louisiana State Penitentiary, AKA Angola or The Farm. I felt like I'd been ambushed by a memory and a place that felt so familiar that I felt something akin to homesickness. It feels a bit absurd to say that I would be homesick for the entrance to a prison, but it has a way of bringing up very personal and vivid memories, which makes you immediately feel a sort of affinity with whatever you are engaging with, in this case, the film. I had spent so many hours at those front gates, waiting for the prison guard to arrive in his truck and take us on the long drive through the prison grounds to Camp D - Death Row. The wait was usually quite sombre. Surrounded by tall cyclone fences crowned with thick and menacing razor wire. The prison guards were always less than friendly, although our foreign accents sometimes elicited a smile from a usually taciturn demeanor. When I saw this place in the film, even though it was simply a scenic tracking shot that lasted a 20 seconds, it still made me sit bolt upright, my head swimming with memories.
The scene that followed was a visit between Halle Berry, her young son and her baby's daddy, as they say in the states, who was the condemned man. He was due to be executed the next morning and this was a farewell. The young boy asks why his father has to go, to which he responds, "Because I'm a bad man." The young boy asks him, "Who says?" to which he replies, "I do."
I've always believed that the death penalty destroys more lives than just the man who is executed. It ripples through society with corrupting after effects. This is beautifully portrayed in the film as the family of prison guards find their lives falling apart in the wake of this mans execution. The eldest, a retired prison guard, is an embittered, racist and generally cruel man who quite clearly takes great pleasure in the execution of criminals judging by the scrap book into which he lovingly pastes articles to do with executions. Billy Bob Thornton, the son of the eldest and the father of the youngest, is clearly heavily influenced by his father in terms of his racist beliefs, but it's unclear whether he truly harbours the same beliefs, or is simply dissembling to please his aging contemporary. Halle Berry as the wife of the condemned man, turns to alcohol while her morbidly obese son eats chocolate excessively. He hides this from his mother, who beats him when she eventually catches him with chocolate on his face.
None of the characters in the film have any redeeming qualities, with the exception of two. The condemned man, and the youngest generation of the prison guards, Heath Ledger. Both have extremely brief roles in the film, but their actions and personal stories have an impact on every other character in the film. In a way, their tragic stories engender a change in all of the other characters.
When the condemned man is waiting in his cell for the morning of his execution to dawn, the viewer is taken through a sort of intimate moment of shared suffering. He grabs the youngest prison guard and holds on to him through the bars of the prison cell. It's the most heartbreaking scene and you can't help but be filled with compassion. The father pulls his son away from the bars because he can see the compassion weakening the resolve of his son.
The condemned man, who enjoys sketching, begins to sketch both father and son as they sit outside his cell, keeping vigil. He tells the two of them, as he sketches the fathers face, "It truly takes a human being to see a human being."
These scenes of a mans last few hours are where the title of the film is most relevant. The monster's ball is the name given to a party held on the eve of a man execution, as was tradition in England before they abolished the death penalty. A similar tradition is represented in the film in the form of a mans last supper, which is still the norm in U.S. states that still use the death penalty. The condemned man orders whatever he wants for his last meal and, interestingly enough, in this scene it become clear that he never touches his food.
These three men share an intense and tragically intimate experience as they walk the condemned man to the electric chair. The cold, callous nature of a state sanctioned execution hits you so powerfully that when Heath Ledger, the youngest of the family, drops to his knees during the "last walk" and throws up, you are struck by just how terrible an impact this has on the guards, let alone the condemned man himself.
The tragedy of the Monster's Ball is that these people's lives disintegrate in the aftermath of the execution. I would say more but I would risk ruining the end of the film. Whether or not the ending has any redemption for the main characters is worth seeing for yourself. I think you'll find that the ending of the film speaks for itself.
The whole question of humanity and the death penalty was raised again when I watched the movie Monster's Ball, starring Halle Berry, Billy Bob Thornton and Heath Ledger. I don't quite know how this film stayed under my radar for so long, but I had never really gone out of my way to see it.
Without giving away too much of the plot, it's the story of a family of three men from different generations who have grown up working as prison wardens on death row.
What really surprised me while I was watching the film was the moment Halle Berry arrives at the prison to see her husband on death row. To my surprise she pulled up to the all to familiar boom gates of Louisiana State Penitentiary, AKA Angola or The Farm. I felt like I'd been ambushed by a memory and a place that felt so familiar that I felt something akin to homesickness. It feels a bit absurd to say that I would be homesick for the entrance to a prison, but it has a way of bringing up very personal and vivid memories, which makes you immediately feel a sort of affinity with whatever you are engaging with, in this case, the film. I had spent so many hours at those front gates, waiting for the prison guard to arrive in his truck and take us on the long drive through the prison grounds to Camp D - Death Row. The wait was usually quite sombre. Surrounded by tall cyclone fences crowned with thick and menacing razor wire. The prison guards were always less than friendly, although our foreign accents sometimes elicited a smile from a usually taciturn demeanor. When I saw this place in the film, even though it was simply a scenic tracking shot that lasted a 20 seconds, it still made me sit bolt upright, my head swimming with memories.
The scene that followed was a visit between Halle Berry, her young son and her baby's daddy, as they say in the states, who was the condemned man. He was due to be executed the next morning and this was a farewell. The young boy asks why his father has to go, to which he responds, "Because I'm a bad man." The young boy asks him, "Who says?" to which he replies, "I do."
I've always believed that the death penalty destroys more lives than just the man who is executed. It ripples through society with corrupting after effects. This is beautifully portrayed in the film as the family of prison guards find their lives falling apart in the wake of this mans execution. The eldest, a retired prison guard, is an embittered, racist and generally cruel man who quite clearly takes great pleasure in the execution of criminals judging by the scrap book into which he lovingly pastes articles to do with executions. Billy Bob Thornton, the son of the eldest and the father of the youngest, is clearly heavily influenced by his father in terms of his racist beliefs, but it's unclear whether he truly harbours the same beliefs, or is simply dissembling to please his aging contemporary. Halle Berry as the wife of the condemned man, turns to alcohol while her morbidly obese son eats chocolate excessively. He hides this from his mother, who beats him when she eventually catches him with chocolate on his face.
None of the characters in the film have any redeeming qualities, with the exception of two. The condemned man, and the youngest generation of the prison guards, Heath Ledger. Both have extremely brief roles in the film, but their actions and personal stories have an impact on every other character in the film. In a way, their tragic stories engender a change in all of the other characters.
When the condemned man is waiting in his cell for the morning of his execution to dawn, the viewer is taken through a sort of intimate moment of shared suffering. He grabs the youngest prison guard and holds on to him through the bars of the prison cell. It's the most heartbreaking scene and you can't help but be filled with compassion. The father pulls his son away from the bars because he can see the compassion weakening the resolve of his son.
The condemned man, who enjoys sketching, begins to sketch both father and son as they sit outside his cell, keeping vigil. He tells the two of them, as he sketches the fathers face, "It truly takes a human being to see a human being."
These scenes of a mans last few hours are where the title of the film is most relevant. The monster's ball is the name given to a party held on the eve of a man execution, as was tradition in England before they abolished the death penalty. A similar tradition is represented in the film in the form of a mans last supper, which is still the norm in U.S. states that still use the death penalty. The condemned man orders whatever he wants for his last meal and, interestingly enough, in this scene it become clear that he never touches his food.
These three men share an intense and tragically intimate experience as they walk the condemned man to the electric chair. The cold, callous nature of a state sanctioned execution hits you so powerfully that when Heath Ledger, the youngest of the family, drops to his knees during the "last walk" and throws up, you are struck by just how terrible an impact this has on the guards, let alone the condemned man himself.
The tragedy of the Monster's Ball is that these people's lives disintegrate in the aftermath of the execution. I would say more but I would risk ruining the end of the film. Whether or not the ending has any redemption for the main characters is worth seeing for yourself. I think you'll find that the ending of the film speaks for itself.
Quote of the day:
"It truly takes a human being to see a human being."
- Monster's Ball (2001)
sounds fascinating, I've just added it to my list..
ReplyDeleteI guess you've already seen "Dead man walking"?
ReplyDelete