Sister Helen Prejean first meets Matthew Poncelet on death row, when he is desperate for someone to talk to about his sentence. However, Helen already knew a bit about Matthew from the letter that he wrote her. During the build up to their first face to face meeting, while Helen is walking into death row, we see some more scene skipping. The director keeps skipping from her walking to the incident where the murders took place. Helen’s face, while walking through the gates, looked very nervous. The camera uses a medium-close shot, and tracking Sister Helen as she walked. The flashback scenes are what Helen knows about the murders. From these flashbacks, I notice that the killers’ faces were not revealed. This shows that Helen was not at all sure whether Matthew had committed the murders or not. Helen does not talk to any of the guards while walking to meet Matthew Poncelet. Instead, when they talk to her, she simply nods. This is a way in which Tim Robbins emphasises her nerves at this point. Matthew is very cocky towards Helen Prejean in their first meeting. He tries to act manly, and pretend he isn’t at all scared about what will happen to him if his appeals are unsuccessful. Poncelet, at first, didn’t want to let Helen know anything about his part in the murders. All he said about it was ‘I didn’t kill nobody’, and blames everything on Carl. Also, he seems very tense around her, possibly because she was the only women he had seen, and was going to see for quite a long time, about six years. While she is leaving death row, you still hear Matthews voice playing over, it carries on even whilst Helen is in her car driving home. Later on, still during the phase when he is putting on an act around her, Matthew tries to come on to Sister Helen. He realises his mistake almost instantly and after this event, Helen is soon able to appeal to his emotional side.
The reactions and emotions of Matthew Poncelet’s family sway us against the death penalty, as we see how they are suffering, even though they are innocent. When we first see Mrs. Poncelet, she seems very timid, and was reluctant to answer the door to Helen. This was because she was used to being bombarded by the press. She seemed as if she had not been out of the house for a long time, and she pretended not to be in, in case the press had come again. When she finally let Helen in and they got talking, she seemed very stressed, and it was as if she was on the verge of crying. She seems very angry about what Matthew had done. Straight away, she assumed the reason that Helen came was negative. “So what do you want? Mattie send you for money for cigarettes?” she asked. By the way she is dressed, you can tell she is quite poor, but earlier, you see a shot of two of her other children, and they are dressed slightly better. The medium camera shot used when Sister Helen is talking to Mrs. Poncelet makes sure you can see the difference in clothing between them. This shows that she loves her children and does what she can for them. She also talks about how Matthew’s actions have affected her other kids. She sounds very upset when talking about how other boys from school pick on them. Overall, she is portrayed as a caring person. She accepts Helen’s invitation to attend the appeal.
The courtroom scene at first influences us against the death penalty, both when we see Mrs. Poncelet leaving the room in tears and with Hilton Barber’s arguments. However, the prosecution lawyer evens out the balance with his arguments. The appeal scene begins with Mrs. Poncelet speaking about her son. Immediately she begins crying, whilst talking about what a nice person her son is. She does exactly what Hilton Barber expected, and he wanted her to do this to portray Matthew as a human being, rather than a monster. Poncelet’s lawyer straight away starts in a negative way. He puts himself down by saying Matthew Poncelet couldn’t afford a good lawyer and could only take what the state gave him. Also, when he is talking, he remains seated behind a desk, which shows signs of him being nervous. He has not argued a case for a long time, as he had retired and only returned for this one case. Hilton tries to get the sympathy vote from the panel, by pleading that everyone deserves to live and explaining in detail how lethal injection works. When he starts talking, Tim Robbins uses the voiceover technique to show how upset Matthew’s mother was, but also let us hear Hilton Barber’s argument. The prosecution lawyer however, was a well trained professional. You could tell this by the smart way in which he dressed, and the way in which he walked around the room confidently whilst he spoke, and also spoke convincingly. He had the arrogance of youth, and was able to directly accuse Matthew of the crimes. He says “This man shot Walter Delacroix two times in the back of the head.” He mainly emphasises the pain of the bereaved families, and stresses on everything they will be missing out on. Throughout the scene, the distance of framing was varied. When the lawyers are talking, normally medium close ups were used but a long camera shot was used to show the reactions of everyone in the courtroom when Mrs. Poncelet started crying during her speech. A lot of the time, the camera was panning along the line of the panel, facing the lawyers. This let us see the case from the panels’ point of view. Both arguments however, are very strong, and it is still hard for us to come to a decision as to whether the death penalty should or should not still exist.
Matthew Ponclet’s appeal was unsuccessful. His death was still set to happen as scheduled. Later on, on the day of his execution, Matthew was allowed some time with his family. This scene starts of very happy. The first sounds we hear are the laughs of all the family. They manage to avoid the fact that Matthew would be executed that day. This was possible because they all found it too awkward to talk about in front of him, or because they simply want their last moments together as a family to be happy. However, they reminisce about how things were before the murders. This would seem like a sad, emotional thing to be talking about, but they managed to just focus on the good times. Sister Helen is very much left out of this conversation, because she did not know Matthew until a very short time ago. Also, from her face, she looks too emotional to be asking questions. We can tell that she had developed feelings for Matthew, and even though she didn’t like him at first, she has managed to bond with him and realise he is a good person. She likes the way that Matthew is very close to the rest of his family, especially when he is able to get a confession from his little brother just by asking. She finds this funny, just as the rest of the family do. Straight after this, Matthew’s mother talks about his funeral, and completely kills off the happy atmosphere. She realises that what she said was inappropriate immediately, as her face drops and there is a long silence. Tim Robbins shows how inappropriate this was by letting us see exactly how long the silence lasted. We see a shot of the clock when the silence starts, and also when it is broken by a guard telling them visiting time was over. However, the guard comes early, and Matthew argues that his family can stay longer. This shows how much he loves his family, because even though they were not saying anything, he still wants them there for as long as possible. Because this portrays Matthew as a good human being, we are inclined to think it would be morally wrong to kill him. This swings the balance of the death penalty to against.
Throughout this scene, many media techniques were used to heavily emphasise the importance of it. For example, starting with the whole family laughing automatically set a happy atmosphere. Also, a medium long shot was used whenever the camera was on Matthew. This let us see the guards staring closely at him and his family, as if he could not be trusted alone with them. The most effective however, was the long silence, with just the sound of squeaking shoes as Troy walked around the room. We got the full effect of the twenty minute silence without having to watch the whole thing. Tim Robbins did this by showing two shots of the clock, at the start and end. The emphasis on time partly shows Matthews nerves and also builds tension as we see how close the execution is.
After this scene is when Matthew is told his appeals were unsuccessful, and there is a long, detailed build up to Matthew’s death, now that it is for certain. His death had already been recorded, even though he was still alive. This build up was very emotional, especially for Matthew and Helen, as this is when Matthew confesses that he murdered Walter Delacroix and raped Hope Percy. Helen, even though she too was crying, was happy that Matthew had confessed, as she thinks he has earned dignity by confessing. Matthew is very grateful towards Helen for standing by him in the built up to his death, and he shows his gratefulness to Helen by saying “Thank you for loving me.”
You can tell that Matthew Poncelet is very scared during the build up to his execution. He tries to distract himself from the fear in different ways, for example, by making a big fuss about his boots and arguing for them. He keeps talking about them for while even though he knew he was not going to get them back. Another way he distracted his fear was by showing his love towards Sister Helen Prejean.
The music while Matthew is walking to execution is also quite interesting. It is the complete opposite to the music we heard at the start of the film. This music is very sad, and sounds like its being played in a major key. The only vocal you can hear in this piece is the sounds of someone whining, which also adds to the sadness effect. This music continues right through the death scene.
The death scene is the most important scene in the film, as it is the main point where you are likely to gain a belief regarding the death penalty. The fact that Matthew is crying, and literally shaking with fear through this scene makes us feel sympathetic towards him. When Matthew says his last words, he is held up on the bed with his arms spread out. This is reminiscent of Jesus being crucified. A connection is made between the two, and this leads us to believe Matthew’s execution was also wrong. However, just as we begin thinking the death penalty is wrong and immoral, we see disturbing flashbacks of Matthew Poncelet and Carl Vitello raping and murdering the two teenagers. This reminds us of why Matthew is in this position. While the liquids are being injected into Matthew, there is plenty of cutting between the two scenes of death, the execution and the murders of Hope and Walter. The scene ends on Matthew Poncelet’s death, which leaves it in our mind last. Straight away, we hear the voice of the priest speaking, as a voiceover at the very end of the execution scene. It carries through to the scene of Ponclet’s funeral.
Because the last things we see are the dead body of Matthew Poncelet, and people grieving at his funeral, the last thing we think of is how much pain the death penalty has caused. This leaves us thinking the death penalty is wrong. Although Tim Robins tries to even out the arguments for and against, the arguments against come over stronger, and overall, this film portrays the death penalty as immoral. The vast amounts of media techniques and character choices allow Tim Robbins to make us see exactly what he wants us to and this film is a very good example of how media is used effectively in films to get the right final impression.
