Week 22 – The Green Mile (1999)

• The Green Mile
• Released: 12/10/1999
• Starring: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Jeffrey DeMunn, Barry Pepper, Doug Hutchison, James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Bonnie Hunt, Graham Greene, Sam Rockwell, Patricia Clarkson, Harry Dean Stanton, Dabbs Greer, Eve Brent
• Director: Frank Darabont
• IMDB Page

Welcome to Week 22 here at 52 Films, 52 Portraits! Thanks for joining me! This week’s film was chosen by one of my good friends and my desk buddy at work, Lauren. In addition to working with me, Lauren is a former Marine who served our country overseas. She now lives in Maryland with her husband and commutes to DC every day for work. She is also one of the strongest people I know, and is always keeping me updated on the most important, ridiculous and upsetting current events. She also has a deep and profound love for all things sloth-related.

Me, our friend and co-worker Beka (see: Week 4), and Lauren at our company Holiday Party.

Lauren was one of the easier people to get to name a movie. Whereas some of the participants spent quite a while mulling over options, Lauren immediately narrowed it down to two.

When I asked Lauren about what movies have meant to her in her life, she told me that she doesn’t consider herself to be a very big movie person. She enjoys watching them every now and then, but she’s not one to rush out to see the newest hit or keep up with the latest releases unless it’s something that really calls out to her. She said that she often finds herself in the position of having not seen a movie that everyone else is talking about, often feeling “out of the loop.” Still, there are movies that mean something special to her, and she still remembers what some of the first movies she ever saw were. Like many children in the early 90s, she grew up with Disney movies. She also namedE.T. as being one of her first films, and still remembers the impact it had on her as a child. She remembers crying as E.T. got on his spaceship to leave Earth until her mom would rewind the movie and “make him come back!”

In terms of the types of movies that usually draw her in now, Lauren said that she usually prefers more serious films. She loves documentaries and finds that she is really engaged by the complexity of dramas and political movies. She also has many actors and actresses whose names will immediately trigger her interest in a film. She named Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Viola Davis and Morgan Freeman as just a handful of the performers whose works always succeed in inspiring and captivating her. She said that for her, these are all actors who have an amazing presence and consistently turn in amazing performances. She also said that for the action genre, she really enjoys Michael Bay films, adding that she really thinks he is a talented director.

When it came down to choose a film, Lauren says that she was immediately torn between two choices: The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. She said that these were both films that really touched her and that she felt were amazing stories about humanity. She also said that she feels like the world today has so much fluff and increasingly limited human interaction, and she thinks that it is incredibly important that we remember the things that make humans different from other species: our capacity to interact with each other on an emotional level. To her, both of these films were perfect representations of that fact.

In the end she decided to go with The Green Mile in a random decision between the two, since they were so close. She loved the Tom Hanks character, Paul, and really enjoyed the fact that he took so much pride in his job and that he was able to maintain how caring he was and how respectful he was to the inmates. Her earliest – and favorite – memory of the film is Coffey telling Paul that although he is innocent, he still wants to die because he’s tired of the way people treat each other. Even as she thought of it for this project, she said that that moment gave her chills. She felt then and now that it really speaks to how many people feel about the state of the world and how people treat each other poorly. She added that the film has always meant a lot from her because even from an early age, it showed her that just because someone is in prison or any other type of compromising situation, it doesn’t always mean that they are guilty. And either way you should treat them with compassion. Lauren’s final thought was just to simply say that if you haven’t seen The Green Mile, then you definitely should.

I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect going in to this film. Unlike Lauren, I tend to shy away from more serious films (although there are a few that I truly love) in favor or lighter fare. I also didn’t really have any idea what the film was about. I think that I knew it was set in a prison, but I’m not sure that I knew much beyond that. I was also wary of the daunting run-time. At just around 3 hours, it’s one of the longest films on the list for this project. Still, I was optimistic, and a friend even came over to watch it with me.

Ultimately, my optimism was warranted. I thought that the film was really great. Like Lauren, I love Tom Hanks and thought that he was perfect in the role. He brought just the right amounts of authority, compassion, confusion, etc. that the character needed and he did so beautifully. Michael Clarke Duncan was also fantastic as John Coffey, the mysterious man accused of murdering two young girls. One of the biggest surprises to me was the supernatural elements around Coffey’s character. I truly did not see them coming. I thought The Green Mile was a straight drama, but it was really so much more than that. It had so many different elements and overtones, from fantastical to religious, which I found to be really fascinating. I really felt like the film had so much more to say about the state of humanity and our beliefs and how we treat each other than I had expected. I really enjoyed that.

The rest of the performances were great as well, and both Doug Hutchison and Sam Rockwell were SO good at being despicable. I truly loathed both of them by the end of the film. One character that I did not loathe was Mr. Jingles. He was awesome.

I won’t be too spoilery but I also did not see the twist coming at the end of Paul’s story but it definitely made some things fall into place.

Another fun thing that I enjoyed was how they made Paul’s present-day assisted living home reflect the prison and the ‘green mile’ with the tile on the floor and a lot of the architecture. It was cool call back and an interesting way to sort of show where Paul is now both physically and mentally and how it connects to his past.

I would not have guessed that it was based on a Stephen King novel had I not known it, but with it in mind, I could definitely see his fingerprints in the story. It also made me interested in seeing some other movies based on his works other than the obvious, more horror-based, films.

As a side note, I have been watching Netflix’s The OA (which everyone should go watch) and while completely different in almost every way, I really felt like there were some connections between this film and that series and almost felt like the film inspired some of the show. That could be totally false, but I’d be interested to hear other peoples’ thoughts on it.

I’m sure there are so many things I wanted to say about the film that I can’t remember now. I actually watched this one a week ago instead of this weekend like I usually do because of some scheduling issues, and it’s therefore not as fresh in my mind. So, I will end this here. I hope everyone enjoyed this blog and you should definitely make time to watch this film if you haven’t. Please feel free to comment and follow below, as always I love hearing from everyone.

Next Up: Jurassic Park