The first scene portrays Sister Helen Prejean as a very Mother Theresa-esque ‘heart of gold’ white woman living in the ‘ghetto’ and helping underprivileged black kids. Juxtaposed with scenes of Prejean’s consecration in sepia tones it creates an atmosphere of childhood innocence and purity. This is wonderfully captured in one of the next scenes when Prejean is first told about Matthew Poncelet in a very distracted fashion, and she seems to be more interested in children’s poetry books. This shows Prejean’s naivety regarding the whole case. The audience’s first impression of Poncelet is his voice reading out the letter which he wrote to Prejean. In it, he talks about his near demise in humorous terms, describing himself as the prison ‘elite’, as he gets to ‘fry.’ This makes the audience warm to him and sympathise with his character, although he seems no have no remorse for his crimes yet.
As Sister Prejean first enters the prison to meet Poncelet, we see grainy photage from the night of the apparent crime compared with shots of the prison. This reminds the audience WHY Poncelet is in jail in the first place, challenging the viewer’s opinion on capital punishment. One of the most symbolic moments comes next as Prejean enters the prison but is stopped by the cross at the metal detectors. This symbolises the ‘goodness’ within her not being able to penetrate into such a place of ‘sin.’ As Prejean sits down and waits for Poncelet to arrive, she first talks to the prison chaplain, who informs her ‘Do you know what you are getting yourself into?’ This open shot of the chaplain address Prejean is almost to the audience, as if the director is telling the audience to embrace yourselves. Here, the chaplain and Prejean ponder over various Bible quotes and tries to out do one another in Bible-quoting one another, and generally fills the audience in on most the arguments for and against capital punishment. The chaplain is almost reminiscent of a Police Chief Inspector from some Beverley Hills Cop movie, and Prejean the ‘rebel trailblazer’ who ‘doesn’t play by the rules.’ The audience is held in suspense upon the arrival of this much fabled about man. And then he arrives. A short, little man with too much hair and a southern accent. His appearance almost comes across as comical at first, making the audience empathise with him. The choice of actors portraying Poncelet is very interesting, as Penn manages to hold an air of hostility and yet still be compassionate. If, for example Tom Hanks had played Poncelet, the audience would have had nothing but sympathy for the poor man. But as Penn is quite notorious and already has a reputation as a bit of a ‘wild man’ manages to sustain his aloofness yet at the same time have empathy with the audience.
As the story progresses, we see the actual crime unfold slowly. The parents of the victims tell their stories very bitterly and passionately to an always-listening Prejean. However, when comparing Poncelet’s family to those of the Delacroix’s and Prejean’s you can see a blatant change in social status. The initial shot of the Poncelet’s family ‘house’ shows a dilapidated trailer with too many people residing inside. Compared to the Delacroix’s houses you can see that Matthew Poncelet and his victims were obviously not subjected to the same kind of upbringings. This raises the issue that how can you blame an individual for their actions when not everyone has had the same privileges in life?
As one by one Poncelet’s appeals are all turned down, things are looking bleaker for poor Mattie. Inside the courts hearings the audience is given more arguments for and against the death penalty, distorting their view of the subject. As Poncelet and Prejean’s relationship intensifies, the ‘barriers’ separating each other get less and less obvious. From the first ‘barbed wire’ type windows to the clear plastic ones there is an obvious decline in things ‘separating’ the two- a metaphor and Prejean grows more closer to Poncelet. During one interesting scene the face of Prejean is reflected on the window of Poncelet’s pane, and you can see the faces of both actors in the shot. Things grow steadily worse, and Poncelet (and the audience) seems to know that his fate is pretty much set.
One of the most poignant scenes is with Poncelet and his mother and family, joking about his brother’s “squirrel” incident. There is a moment of almost black comedy, where his mother suddenly blurts out something about Poncelet’s death in the midst of all the merry-making. This catches the audience off guard, having their defences down and acts as a constant reminder of the fact that Poncelet is going to die in a few days.
After the Supreme Court turns down his case Poncelet loses all hope and breaks down in front of Prejean. This is followed by a very tender moment where Prejean sings for Poncelet in his cell. This slightly Hollywood scene would have looked very cheesy in any other film, but Robbins manages to pull it off just, thanks to Sarandon’s acting abilities. The genius in Sarandon’s role is the subtlety which goes into her parts, which compliment Poncelet’s larger-than-life drawling southern hillbilly.
The execution scene was slightly extravagant, with Prejean sobbing at Poncelet’s arm and the placement of his body in a crucifix shape. The latter part was so brazen and ever tacky that it almost seemed as if Robbins was trying to make an ironic statement against the glorifying of ‘innocent’ victims. As the injections went in very ethereal, choral music came over and you saw Prejean mouth the words “I Love You” to Poncelet (the money shot! Cue floods of tears and sobbing women etc.) Flashbacks of the actual crime are juxtaposed against Poncelet’s death, and only this was very cleverly done, as the camera was panning around the scene of crime. This meant that anything overtly gory was tactfully ‘hidden’ by a tree, not glamorising the brutality and nature of the crimes.
On the whole, I felt that this film managed to portray the death penalty in a fair and unbiased way. It didn’t trivialise or glamorise the subject, not being overtly sentimental or gory. Dead Man Walking won’t completely change your perception of the world, but in its subtleness and gentle handling of the subject does it manage to convey across a message which the audience can interpret themselves. However, this can be viewed as a bit of a cop-out, as the director seems to be undecided upon what stands he is coming from, and it constantly changing stances on the matter.
