Cinema and the Death Penalty

"A Short Film about Killing"

Thou Shalt Not Kill

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s fifth installment of his Dekalog series, Dekalog 5: “Thou shalt not kill.”, is an intense, at times unbearable, depiction of the horror of killing.

The story follows three characters who are initially separate but whose paths not unexpectedly cross as the film develops. 

Piotr is a young lawyer who is telling the story in connection with an interview for a prominent law firm. He is clean-cut, intelligent, sensitive, and committed to the highest ideals of justice. Early on in his storytelling, he reveals his strongly-held convictions opposing capital punishment.

The taxi driver is a middle-aged man who lives in the housing complex that links all the episodes of “Dekalog”. As he goes about his daily activities, he is seen to be a mean-spirited, unsympathetic character, who refuses to pick up fares who might inconvenience him, leers at pretty young girls, and finds amusement in scaring little dogs by honking his horn at them.

Jacek is an angry and alienated twenty-year-old who is aimlessly wandering about the city looking for and causing trouble wherever he goes. He throws rocks through car windshields on the freeway, scares away birds from bird-feeders, and roughs up weaker individuals when noone else is looking.

It doesn’t take long for the viewer to suspect that Jacek is going to commit a murder, and he soon chooses the hapless taxi driver as his victim. The murder scene is not brief, as it is in most films, but excruciatingly long and brutal, and it takes some time for the bludgeoned taxi driver to die. Jacek is inhuman and remorseless throughout. But we are still only halfway through the film, and another murder will occupy the second half.

"A Short Film about Killing"

Soon enough, Jacek is duly arrested and convicted of the crime, and despite the efforts of his earnest defense attorney, Piotr, Jacek is sentenced to death. The rest of the film depicts the equally inhuman machinations of the government legal and punitive system as it prepares for and executes the second murder: the execution of Jacek.

The brutality of the execution sequences has led many reviewers to view the film as primarily a statement against capital punishment. But Kieslowski has objected to this characterisation: it’s not against capital punishment, he says, it’s against killing, itself.

And to emphasize this distinction, scenarists Piesiewicz and Kieslowski have departed from the usual depiction of murder, which focuses on the victim – the injury, the suffering, the death. In this film, instead, the focus is on the brutality of the killer and the killing, irrespective of the alleged innocence of the victim.

To emphasize this focus, the victim of each of the two killings is far from being a sympathetic character. In the first half of the film, a repugnant character, the taxi driver, is killed by Jacek. We are forced to face up to the wrongfulness of this act, no matter how unlikable the victim. 

Jacek

In the second half of the film, the focus is on the societal killing-machine that carries out capital punishment. But unlike many films opposed to capital punishment which depict the victimization and wrongful execution of an essentially innocent man who was the victim of circumstances, there is absolutely no doubt or qualification about the guilt of Jacek. He is infinitely more objectionable than the taxi driver. And yet he is a human being, just as the taxi driver was. 

Piotr is granted a final half hour in Jacek’s cell just prior to his execution, and he learns a little more about Jacek. There is some suggestion revealed in this scene that Jacek’s recollections of his beloved younger sister, who had been run over and killed five years earlier, set him off in a murderous rage when he happened to see the taxi driver leering at a young woman. But this is neither an explanation nor a justification of Jacek’s heinous act – it only reminds us of the pervasiveness of human weakness and vulnerability. (Source: The Film Sufi)

Thou shalt not kill (Poland, 1988)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Cast: Miroslaw Baka (Jacek), Krzysztof Globisz (Piotr), Jan Tesarz (Taxi-driver), Zbigniew Zapasiewicz (Police Inspector), Barbara Dziekan-Wajda (Cashier), Aleksander Bednarz, Jerzy Zass, Zdzislaw Tobiasz, Artur Barcis, Krystyna Janda, Olgierd Lukaszewicz
Extended version released as "A Short Film about Killing"
Running time:  84 minutes

Dead Man Walking

Dead Man Walking is a 1995 American film based on the book of the same name, which tells the story of Sister Helen Prejean (played by Susan Sarandon), who establishes a special relationship with Matthew Poncelet (played by Sean Penn), a prisoner on death row in Louisiana.

Matthew Poncelet has been in prison six years, awaiting his execution by lethal injection for killing a teenage couple. Poncelet, located in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, committed the crimes with a man named Carl Vitello (Michael Cullen), who received life imprisonment. As the day of his execution comes closer and closer, Poncelet asks Sister Helen (Susan Sarandon) to help him with a final appeal.

She decides to visit him, and he comes across as arrogant, sexist, and racist, not even pretending to feel any kind of remorse. Instead he affirms his innocence, insisting it was Vitello who killed the two teenagers.

Convincing an experienced attorney to take on Poncelet's case pro bono, Sister Helen tries to obtain life imprisonment for Poncelet. Over time, after many visits, she establishes a special relationship with him. At the same time, she gets to know Poncelet’s mother (Roberta Maxwell) and the victims’ families. The families don’t understand Sister Helen's efforts to help Poncelet, claiming she is "taking his side." Instead they desire "absolute justice," namely his life for the lives of their children.

Sister Helen’s application for a pardon is declined. Poncelet asks Sister Helen to be his spiritual advisor through the day of execution, and she agrees. Sister Helen tells Poncelet that his redemption is possible only if he takes responsibility for what he did.

Just before he is taken from his cell, Poncelet admits to Sister Helen that he killed the boy and raped the girl. During his execution, he appeals to the boy's parents for forgiveness and tells the girl's parents he hopes his death brings them peace. Poncelet is then executed and later given a proper burial. The murdered boy's father attends the ceremony and begins to pray with Sister Helen, ending the film. (Source: Wikipedia)

Dead Man Walking (USA, 1995)
Directed by Tim Robbins
Produced by Tim Robbins, Jon Kilik, Rudd Simmon
Written by Tim Robbins
Based on Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean C.S.J.
Cast: Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Robert Prosky, Lois Smith, Jack Black, Celia Weston
Running time: 122 minutes

Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture

Raymond Eames, a small-time drug dealer, has been sentenced to death for the shooting death of a policeman. After seven years of appeals are exhausted, the date of his execution arrives. His last request is that his execution in the electric chair be photographed.

Eames selects Paul Marish (Roy Scheider), a jaded Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, who is convinced by his agent to visit the small town in Georgia. Sensing a big story, Marish's agent sends in a reporter from Time magazine, and together they begin to investigate the events surrounding the murder, in a small town where emotions are high and opinions are fixed. 

When the execution is temporarily delayed, the photographer becomes investigator and uncovers some startling evidence which may prove the drug dealer innocent. 

Despite its archetypal plot -- an innocent man on death row and a reporter turned detective attempting to save the doomed convict at the eleventh hour -- "Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture" provides a very factual and highly plausible rendering of the psychological agony that death row inmates endure day after day prior to their execution. If physical torture is (almost) no longer tolerated in the U.S., psychological torture is. The film is a gripping whodunit with a political twist, yet it is first and foremost a vibrant condemnation of capital punishment and a successful demonstration of the inherent cruelty and degrading nature of the death penalty.

Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture (USA, Television film, 1990)
Directed by Frank Pierson
Written by photojournalist Doug Magee (based on his interviews with and photos of death row prisoners)

Cast: Roy Scheider as Paul Marish, Photographer, Bonnie Bedelia as Hannah McGrath, Robert Carradine as Police Sgt. Jerry Brown, Andre Braugher as Dan Weston, Time Magazine Reporter, Arliss Howard as Raymond Eames,Jay Glick as Prison chaplain, John Polce as Executioner

Running time: 104 minutes

Monster's Ball

Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), a widower, and his son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), are corrections officers in the local prison. They reside in Georgia with Hank's ailing father, Buck (Peter Boyle), an unwavering racist whose wife committed suicide. Hank's hateful attitude toward others, strongly influenced by his father, extends to his father, his son, and members of the neighboring community.

As Hank and Sonny assist in the execution of convicted murderer Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs), the proceedings prove too intense for Sonny, who collapses and then begins to vomit as he is leading Lawrence to the electric chair. Hank beats Sonny up in the jail's bathroom afterwards. Some time later, Hank drags Sonny out of bed and tells him to get out of the house. Unable to cope with the estrangement, Sonny grabs a gun. The confrontation ends in their living room with Hank at gunpoint, lying on the carpet, and Sonny in Buck's customary chair. Sonny asks his father, "You hate me, don't you?" After his father calmly confirms that he does and always has, Sonny responds, "Well, I always loved you," and then shoots himself.

Hank subsequently buries Sonny in the back garden, quits his job at the prison, burns his uniform in the backyard, and locks the door of Sonny's room up tightly. Buck calls him a quitter.

Monster's Ball - The execution scene

During the years of Lawrence's imprisonment, his wife Leticia (Halle Berry) has been struggling while raising their son Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun), who has inherited his father's artistic talent, but is also morbidly obese. 

Along with her domestic problems, Leticia struggles financially, leading to the loss of the family car and, worse, an eviction notice on her house. In desperate need of money, Leticia takes a job at a diner frequented by Hank. One rainy night, Leticia and Tyrell are walking down a soaked highway when Tyrell is struck by a car. Leticia is left helpless on the side of the road, grasping her son and calling out to passing motorists, all of whom drive past. Hank happens to be driving along and sees Leticia cradling her mortally injured son. He initially drives past, like the cars before him, but then turns around, picks Leticia and Tyrell up, and takes them to a hospital, but Tyrell dies upon arrival and Hank lends his shoulder for Leticia to cry on. 

At the suggestion of the authorities at the hospital, he drives her home. A few days later, Hank gives Leticia a ride home from the diner and after they begin talking in the car and discover their common loss of their sons, she invites him in and they drown their grief with alcohol. They begin a relationship initially based on sex and relief from loneliness but which later becomes emotionally supportive. Hank finds out that Leticia is Lawrence's widow, but he does not tell her that he participated in her husband's execution.

The film received generally positive reviews. The review website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 120 of the 141 reviews they tallied were positive. This resulted in a score of 85% and a certification of "Fresh".Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and stated that, "The movie has the complexity of great fiction", listing it as the best film of 2001. (Source: Wikipedia)

Monster's Ball (USA, 2001)
Directed by Marc Forster
Written by Milo Addica, Will Rokos

Cast: Billy Bob Thornton as Hank Grotowski, Halle Berry as Leticia Musgrove, Heath Ledger as Sonny Grotowski, Peter Boyle as Buck Grotowski, Mos Def as Ryrus Cooper, Sean Combs as Lawrence Musgrove, Coronji Calhoun as Tyrell Musgrove, Charles Cowan, Jr. as Willie Cooper

Running time: 112 minutes

The Life of David Gale

David Gale (Kevin Spacey) is a prisoner on death row in Texas. With only a few days to his execution, his lawyer negotiates a half million-dollar fee to tell his story to Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet), a journalist from a major news magazine known for her ability to keep secrets and protect her sources. He tells her the story of how he ended up on death row, revealed to the movie audience through a series of lengthy flashbacks.

Gale is head of the philosophy department at the (fictional) University of Austin, an author, and also an active member of Deathwatch, a group campaigning against capital punishment. He loses a televised debate with the Governor of Texas, when he is unable to point to an example of a demonstrably innocent man being executed.

Gale is married, with a small son he dotes on, but his wife, who is having an affair, spends a lot of time away, in Spain. At a graduation party, he encounters Berlin, an attractive female graduate student who had previously tried to entice him into raising her failing grade, and had later been expelled from the school. Berlin now corners the inebriated Gale and succeeds in getting him to have rough sex with her. She then falsely accuses Gale of rape. Later, she drops the charges and flees, but the negative publicity costs Gale his career and marriage and his reputation as a rapist dogs him for the rest of his life.

David Gale tells his story to reporter  Bitsey Bloom

Constance Harraway (Linney), a fellow Deathwatch activist, is a close friend, especially after Gale's wife leaves with their son. Gale's wife moves to Spain where the custody laws favor the child's mother, and her father is the American ambassador in Madrid. Gale is effectively shut out of his child's life. He has also been forced to take menial jobs, and under the stresses of it all has become an alcoholic.

Harraway is found raped and murdered. She has been suffocated by a plastic bag taped over her head and her hands have been handcuffed behind her back. An autopsy reveals that she had been forced to swallow the handcuffs' key, a psychological torture technique supposedly used by the Romanian Securitate which Gale and Harraway had both protested against. The physical evidence at the crime scene points to Gale, who is convicted of her rape and murder and is, ironically, sentenced to death.

In 2003 the film was nominated for the Golden Bear in Berlin, and for the Political Film Society Award for Human Rights. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Life of David Gale (USA, 2003)
Directed by Alan Parker
Written by Charles Randolph
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney, Gabriel Mann, Matt Craven, Melissa McCarthy
Running time: 130 minutes