The Green Mile: of mice and men
In keeping with blockbusters like Titanic and Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile is a story told by a participant now in the golden years of life. Aside from the dramatic frame, (weepy prologue, nostalgic epilogue . . .) this set-up has two narrative functions: A) by making the story 'told,' i.e. unreliable, it allows for the introduction of, say, supernatural events, on the grounds that maybe they were just supernatural to the narrator, or maybe that's just how he's remembering it (or maybe he's sophisticated enough to use the supernatural as a device, etc.); and, B) by setting the action in the past, the supernatural is once again 'normalized,' because the past is, after all, where the magic has always happened. Look to the Old Testament as compared to the New, or to primitive societies, where three generations back there's always a mythical ancestor, a figure now legendary. In American terms, these figures are the stuff of tall tales. Iron John, Paul Bunyon, etc. And now Stephen King has given us another: John Coffey, (Michael Duncan) a depression-era gentle giant both afraid of the dark and imbued with the supernatural abilities Green Mile goes to such great lengths to get us to accept.
Too, though--and unlike Dead Zone, Firestarter and the rest--the one with the supernatural abilities here isn't the main character. Instead that falls to prison guard Paul Edgecomb, (Tom Hanks, with yet another award-worthy script) who's evidently never seen Murder in the First, doesn't know how prison guards are supposed to have acted in the early part of the twentieth century. Not only is he extraordinarily compassionate, but he's gathered around him a crew of similarly kind guards. In fact, only one of them, Percy, (Dough Hutchison) fits the stereotype, which allows the movie the reversal of placing the real criminal on the wrong side of the bars. And, when that's the case, then of course their sentences have to be meted out in alternative manners, just to maintain some sense of justice.
Conversely, though, when the one behind the bars is in fact wrongly accused, misunderstood, etc, as John Coffey obviously is, then similarly alternative means have to be found to both permit his unearned punishment (voluntary sacrifice is the usual tack) and do so in a dramatically acceptable way. Which is no easy thing. Without King behind the pen, too, it likely would have proved too difficult. Since he is there, though, the 'Green Mile' (E block, death row) quickly becomes a closed little system, capable not only of permitting John Coffey's punishment in an acceptable way, but requiring it. Think Iron Giant; The Green Mile is simply an unanimated version. And The Iron Giant was excellent. So is The Green Mile, even going so far as to have John Coffey--the character too 'pure' for this world--be drawn as he must to the idealized humanity presented in the movies. It's a very nice touch, sets The Green Mile miles ahead of the other death-row dramas, (Dead Man Walking, Last Dance, etc) and right up there with King's other non-horror successes--Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption. The Green Mile is every bit as good.
(c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones, http://www.cinemuck.com
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