There are two sides to every story. The right side and the wrong side. The good side and the bad side. The true side and the false side.
And then there’s the real world.
But this guy is a scumbag and what he did is despicable. And Robbins shows us just how despicable. Personally, I think the state did the right thing. My real qualms with execution revolve around what can happen to the innocent in a criminal justice system that can be at times nothing less then criminal itself. But that really wasn’t applicable here.
Though both Robbins and Sarandan are known political activists on the left [and opposed to the death penalty] you can’t say they didn’t bend over backwards here to show both sides of the issue. Towards the end, just when you think the whole focus is going to shift to Poncelet’s narrative [his suffering, his redemption], the actual execution itself is interspersed with a depiction of what these two men did to the victums the night of the crime—the rape and the murders.
Basically, they show us that both sides are right. We simply view the events from a conflicting set of value judgments embedded in a conflicting understanding of what is good.
Of course God and Jesus are practically Marxist revolutionaries here.
IMDb
[b]After being told that she would be played in the film by “a famous actress from Thelma & Louise”, Sister Helen Prejean was introduced to Susan Sarandon and said “Thank God, she’s Louise.”
True story?
Yes. Sister Helen Prejean (played by (Susan Sarandon) is a Catholic nun who has become a leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty. The character of Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn), however, is a fictional composite of several prisoners counseled by Prejean, including Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie.
Why Dead Man Walking?
‘Dead man walking’ is a phrase once used in American prisons when a man on death row was being led down the hallway to the execution room. It’s believed that the term was used to warn others to get out of the way, because a person on their way to the death chamber has nothing else to lose.[/b]
DEAD MAN WALKING
Written and directed by Tim Robbins
From the book by Helen Prejean
[b]Sister Helen: What about you?
Matthew: l live here.
Sister Helen: You were brought up poor?
Matthew: Ain’t nobody with money on death row.
Sister Helen: You and l have something in common then.
Matthew: What’s that?
Sister Helen: We both live with the poor.
…
Matthew: l don’t trust nobody in here. But you don’t kiss my ass or preach that hellfire brimstone crap. I respect that. You got guts. You live in a neighborhood with every nigger carrying a gun.
…
Matthew: We have to prove l’m innocent.
Hilton: We’ll file appeals with the federal and supreme courts for that but this is a pardon board. They won’t care if you shot the gun. They’ll be thinking of the crime. And of you as a monster. lt’s easy to kill a monster but hard to kill a human being.
…
Matthew: l like being alone with you. You’re looking real good to me.
Sister Helen: Look at you. Death is breathing down your neck, and you’re playing your little male come-on games. l’m not here for your amusement, Matthew. Show some respect.
Matthew: Why, cause you’re a nun?
Sister Helen: Because I’m a person. Every person deserves respect.
…
Hilton: Ladies and gentlemen, let’s be honest. You’re not gonna find many rich people on death row. Matthew Poncelet’s here today because he’s poor. Didn’t have money so he had to take what the State gave him. He got a tax lawyer who’d never tried a capital case before. An amateur. The lawyer raised one objection the entire trial.
…
Hilton: The death penalty. lt’s nothing new, been with us for centuries. We’ve buried people alive, lopped off their heads, burned them alive in public, gruesome spectacles. In this century, we kept searching for more and more humane ways of killing people we didn’t like. We’ve shot them with firing squads, suffocated them in gas chambers. But now…now we have developed a device that is the most humane of all: Lethal injection. We strap the guy up. We anesthetize him with shot number one. Then we give him shot number two which implodes his lungs. And shot number three stops his heart. We put him to death just like an old horse. His face just goes to sleep while inside, his organs are going through Armageddon. His facial muscles would contort, but shot number one relaxes those muscles. So we don’t have to see any horror show. We don’t have to taste the blood of revenge while this human being’s organs writhe, twist, contort. We just sit there quietly, nod our heads and say: ‘‘Justice has been done.’’[/b]
Of course there are those who want to see all these things. Folks who think that is just what he deserves.
[b]State’s attorney: There’s been no doubt in the court’s mind about who did the murder. Matthew Poncelet is not a good boy. He is a heartless killer. These murders were calculated, disgusting and cruel. This man shot Walter Delacroix two times in the back of his head. And raped Hope Percy and stabbed her 17 times before shooting this sweet girl two times in the back of the head. These families will never see their children graduate from college. They will never attend their wedding. They will never have Christmas with them again. There will be no grandchildren. All they ask of you is simple justice for their unbearable loss. l ask you to take a breath, steel your spine and proceed with the execution of Matthew Poncelet.
…
Earl Delacroix: Excuse me, Sister, l’m Walter Delacroix’s father.
Sister Helen: Mr. Delacroix, l’m sorry about–
Earl Delacroix: Sister, l’m a Catholic. How can you sit by Poncelet’s side without ever having come to visit with me and my wife or the Percys to hear our side? How can you spend all your time worrying about Poncelet and not think that maybe we needed you too?
Sister Helen: Mr. Delacroix, l didn’t think that you wanted to talk to me.
Earl Delacroix: This is Mary Beth and Clyde Percy.
Sister Helen: l’m sorry about your daughter.
Clyde Percy: Yeah, so are we. Excuse us.
Earl Delacroix: Listen, Sister, l’m sure you’ve seen a side of Matt Poncelet that none of us has seen. l’m sure he’s on his best behavior, must be pretty sympathetic to you. But, Sister, this is an evil man. This is a man who abducted teenage kids and raped and killed them. That scum robbed me of my only son. My name, my family name dies with me. There will be no more Delacroixs, Sister. No more.
…
Sister Helen: Do you ever read the Bible?
Matthew: l ain’t much of a Bible reader, but l pick it up from time to time.
Sister Helen: Like W.C. Fields read his Bible.
Matthew: Who?
Sister Helen: W.C. Fields. He used to play this drunken character in the movies. He’s dying and a friend comes and sees him reading the Bible. The friend says, ‘‘W.C., you don’t believe in God. Why are you reading the Bible?’’ And Fields says, ‘‘l’m looking for a loophole.’’
…
Matthew: I like rebels. Some blacks is ok. Martin Luther King, he led his people all the way to DC and kicked the white man’s butt.
Sister Helen: You respect Martin Luther King?
Matthew: He put up a fight. He wasn’t lazy.
Sister Helen: What about lazy whites?
Matthew: Don’t like 'em.
Sister Helen: So it’s lazy people you don’t like?
…
Clyde Percy: l just couldn’t bear the thought of them burying that body without making absolutely and positively sure that that was Hope. l called my brother, he’s a dentist. l asked him to go to the funeral home and make an l.D. from dental records. Before he’d stuck his hand into that bag with all that lime in it and fished Hope’s jaw out he’d been against the death penalty. And after that, he was all for it.
…
Mary Beth Percy: So, what made you change your mind?
Sister Helen: Change my mind?
Mary Beth Percy:What made you come around to our side?
Sister Helen: l wanted to come and see if l could help y’all and pray with you. But he asked me to be his spiritual adviser, to be with him when he dies.
Mary Beth Percy:: And what did you say?
Sister Helen: That l would.
Mary Beth Percy: We thought you’d changed your mind. We thought that’s why you were here.
Sister Helen: No.
Clyde Percy: How can you come here? How can you do that? How can you sit with that scum?
Sister Helen: Mr. Percy, l’ve never done this before. l’m trying…l’m trying to follow the example of Jesus who said that every person is worth more than their worst act.
Clyde Percy: This is not a person. This is an animal. No, l take that back. Animals don’t rape and murder their own kind! Matthew Poncelet is God’s mistake. And you want to hold the poor murderer’s hand? You want to comfort him when he dies? There wasn’t anybody in the woods to comfort Hope when those two animals pushed her face into the grass!
Sister Helen: l just want to help him take responsibility for what he did.
Mary Beth Percy: Does he admit to what he did? ls he sorry?
Sister Helen: He says he didn’t kill anybody.
Clyde Percy: Sister, you’re in waters way over your head.
Mary Beth Percy: You don’t know what it’s like to carry a child in your womb and give birth and get up with a sick child in the middle of the night. You just pray and get a good night’s sleep don’t you.
Clyde Percy: My parents raised me to respect the religious. But Sister, I think you need to leave this house right now.
Sister Helen: l’m sorry.
[she turns to leave the house]
Clyde Percy: Wait a minute! lf you really are sorry and do care about this family you’ll want to see justice done for our murdered child! Now, you can’t have it both ways! You can’t befriend that murderer and expect to be our friend too.
Mary Beth Percy: You brought the enemy into our house. You gotta go.
…
Matthew being interviewed on TV: I had two families. Both of them I’d love and die for.
Interviewer: Your other family is… ?
Matthew: The family of man. Of men in prison. My white family, the Aryan Brotherhood.
Interviewer: You’re a white supremacist? A follower of Hitler?
Matthew: He was a leader. I admire him for getting things done. Like Castro, he got things done. Hitler might have gone overboard on the killing but he was on the right track about the Aryans being the master race.
Interviewer: The right track? The murder of 6 million Jews?
Matthew: That’s never been proven.
Sister Helen [listening at home]: What am l doing with this guy? l must be nuts.
…
Sister Helen: Think about it. Their kids are shot, stabbed, raped left in the woods to die alone. How’d you feel if somebody did that to your family? What would you do to them?
Matthew: l’d sure as hell want to kill them.
…
Earl Delacroix: My wife filed for divorce this afternoon. We just have different ways to deal with our son’s death. We’re nothing special though. Most folks that lose a kid split up. Seventy percent or something.
…
Sister helen: You in the room when they do it?
Sergeant Trapp: l’m on the strap-down team, left leg. That’s my job. The left leg. l take the prisoner from his cell to the execution chamber.
Sister Helen: Wow, that’s gotta be tough.
Sergeant Trapp: lt’s hard. l didn’t sleep that night.
Sister Helen: l think it’s gotta affect everybody that sees it whether they’re for it or against.
Sergeant Trapp: lt’s just part of the job. These prisoners get what’s coming to them.
…
Prison guard: Tell me something sister, what is nun doing in a place like this. Shouldn’t you be teaching children? Didn’t you know what this man has done? How he killed them kids?
Sister Helen: What he was involved with was evil. I don’t condone it. I just don’t see the sense of killing people to say that killing people’s wrong.
Prison guard: You know what the Bible say, ‘An eye for an eye’.
Sister Helen: You know what else the Bible ask for death as a punishment? For adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, trespass upon sacred grounds, profane in a sabbath and contempt to parents.
Prison guard: I ain’t gonna get into no Bible quoting with no nun cause I’m gonna lose.
…
Matthew: lf only l knew l’d die right away with the first shot. l mean, will l feel it?
…
Sister Helen: Let’s talk about what happened. Let’s talk about that night.
Matthew: l don’t want to talk about that.
…
Matthew: …and l got a thing or two to say to the Percys and the Delacroixs.
Sister Helen: You want your last words to be words of hatred?
Matthew: Clyde Percy wants to inject me hisself!
Sister Helen: Well, think of how angry he must be. He’s never gonna see his daughter again. He’s never gonna hold her, love her, laugh with her. You have robbed these parents. They have nothing in their lives but sorrow, no joy. That is what you gave them. Why were you in the woods?
Matthew: l told you, l was stoned out of my head!
Sister Helen: Don’t blame the drugs. You were harassing couples for weeks…for months before this happened.
…
Sister Helen: You could have walked away.
Matthew: Vitello went psycho on me.
Sister Helen: Don’t blame him! You blame him, the government, drugs, blacks, the Percys. You blame the kids for being there. What about Matthew Poncelet?!
…
Matthew: Walter?
Sister Helen: Yeah? What?
Matthew: l killed him.
Sister Helen: And Hope?
Matthew: No, ma’am.
Sister Helen: Did you rape her?
Matthew: Yes, ma’am.
Sister Helen: Do you take responsibility for both of their deaths?
Matthew: Yes, ma’am. When the lights dimmed last night l kneeled and prayed for them kids. I never done that before.
Sister Helen: Oh, Matt. There are spaces of sorrow only God can touch. You did a terrible thing, Matt, a terrible thing. But you have a dignity now. Nobody can take that from you.[/b]
Huh? Still: what else is there but this reliegious bullshit?
To wit:
Matthew: You know l never had no real love myself. Never loved a woman or anybody else.
Well, it figures l’d have to die to find love. Thank you for loving me.
The only thing that makes this something good is the part she insist God plays here. Take that away and Sister Helen makes the execution all that much more unbearable for him. He finds love with less than an hour to live!
[b]Prison guard: Do you have any last words, Poncelet?
Matthew: Yes, I do.
[pauses]
Matthew: Mr. Delacroix, I don’t wanna leave this world with any hate in my heart. I ask your forgiveness for what I done. It was a terrible thing I done, taking your son away from you.
Clyde: [Softly to his wife] How about us?
Matthew: Mr. and Mrs. Percy, I hope my death gives you some relief.
…
Sister Helen: I want the last face you see in this world to be the face of love, so you look at me when they do this thing. I’ll be the face of love for you.[/b]