The book Dead Man Walking written by Sister Helen Prejean is her true account about the beginning of her pursuit to get rid of the death penalty.She is still working towards this goal, to keep up on her efforts visit her site here. The book follows Prejean as she is spiritual adviser for two different men sentenced to die by the electric chair, Patrick Sonnier and Robert Willie. Sonnier was charged with the kidnapping and murder of two teenagers along side his brother who received life in prison. Willie was charged with the rape and murder of a teenage girl with an accomplice.
The film adaption of these events combine these two men into one, Matthew Poncelet. Poncelet is charged with the murders of a teenage couple and rape of the girl sentenced to die by lethal injection. Many aspects of both Willie and Sonnier are thrown together to make Poncelet from the crimes themselves, to the victims families, to the convict's character and comments in certain situations.
When the movie began I assumed Poncelet represented Sonnier and another man would be along later to represent Willie but as the story began to unfold I noticed the combination of the two men down to one. This large change didn't bother me however; I actually found it kind of fun being able to sit and watch the movie while being able to pick out which traits of Poncelet's story belonged to which real man. Plus I acknowledged that to have the men's stories separately would have made the film much longer and seem a little repetitive to viewers. In my opinion the adaptions and changes they made for the film worked fine and kept the important points from the real life stories. I have no problem having read the book and then watched the film with liking both versions. I think it is an excellent adaptation.
Here is the trailer for the film:
Enjoy!
(I take no credit for the picture or video featured in this post.)
I read this book and then saw the movie last fall. I really enjoyed the book, it had a deep impact on the way I thought about the death penalty, compassion, forgiveness, etc., but I was truly disappointed in the movie. For me, the book was very poignant and the combining of characters in the movie caused the story to lose some of its effect. I think they could have focused on just Patrick Sonnier's story and what Sister Helen did after he was put to death, if they didn't want the film to be too long. I suppose that this is just one case where the movie didn't live up to the emotion of the book, in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteI recently read the true story of Darrel Mease who commited a triple homicide in Stone County in Branson back in the mid 70s, he gets caught and is marked with the death penalty. He has a jail house conversion to Christianity and his death sentence is later stayed my the Pope. Your post resonated with the just finished book. Pretty cool, thank you for da post!
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the book but I will add it to my reading list. After I read the book I'd like to watch the movie and compare. I'm intrigue to know how the writer portrays such a theme like death penalty. it's very difficult not to sound preachy when you are handling such a sensitive topic.
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