Dead Man Walking (1996)

Dead Man Walking (1996)

The film dead man walking was released in 1996 by MRM and directed by

Tim Robbins (Husband of the starring female actor Susan Sarandon; It

is a tale of a murderer and a rapist Mathew Poncelet, Poncelet is soon

to be put to death, alone and afraid he writes to a nun Sister

Prejean, despite the warnings for various people, she organises a

visit to the prison to visit him, from the moment they meet she has

mixed feelings as is the film it is saying that Poncelets death is a

waste of life, however he brutally murdered two people. Most films of

this genre are one handed, either for or against the death penalty,

this is an exception for it does not aim to enforce one side of the

argument, it was produced to educate and entertain, rather than to

make decisions for the audience.

The most emotive part of the film is definitely the execution scene,

Poncelet's appeal has failed and when Sister Prejean tells him the

news, the hope fails from his eyes, he knows that he is quite

literally a "Dead man walking."

"Its easy to kill a monster, its hard to kill a man, we must make sure

they see you as a man" This quote sums up the film, Mathew Poncelet is

an evil man, however, he is not a monster because a man has two faces,

a good and an evil where a monster has but one face - which is evil.

During the execution scene, the idea of Man, Monster is shown

amazingly well, the flashbacks show the crime, however Mathew Poncelet

is crying, he is a coward and cannot face up to what he has done, this

makes us feel empathy for him- perhaps he isn't as tough as he's made

out to be. Poncelet wanted a hymn to be played at his execution, this

wont be allowed, the audience gets the impression that he is being

unfairly treated here, again we feel sympathy and empathy for him. The

next scene is slow motion, we see his feet, he's wearing slippers and