Hollywood Films Tackle the Death Penalty

Article Tools Print This Page | Comments(0) | Suggest a Story

By Associated Press

Published: 03/20/2003

A current film about an activist against capital punishment who winds up on death row comes at a time of heightened national debate over the death penalty. In 'The Life of David Gale' and a long line of films before it, Hollywood's opposition to capital punishment seems clear-cut.
'Maybe there are films out there that I'm blanking on that actually say the death penalty is a good thing, but I don't know of any,' said Richard B. Jewell, who holds the Hugh Hefner Chair for the study of America film at the University of Southern California.
But some scholars say movies about capital punishment often send mixed messages.
And Jewell notes that Hollywood also has a tradition of 'vigilante films,' which indirectly serve as 'pro-death penalty' films.
'The best of them all of course is 'Dirty Harry,' where the cops were trying to work within the system, the system doesn't take care of the problem, the killer is allowed to go free because of technicalities, and so Dirty Harry winds up dealing with the situation,' he said.
And everyone in the audience cheers.
'It presents the problem in a way that you come out of there, even if you're Mr. Liberal, kind of cheering for what Clint Eastwood was able to accomplish in the movie,' Jewell said.
Recent headlines have brought new scrutiny to the death penalty. Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered federal prosecutors in New York to seek the death penalty for a murder suspect, even though he had agreed to a plea deal. A federal appeals court ruled that Arkansas can force inmates to take anti-psychotic drugs to make them sane enough to execute. And two days before he left office in January, Gov. George Ryan emptied Illinois' death row, commuting all 167 condemned convicts' sentences.
In a Gallup Poll released in October, 70 percent of Americans said they support the death penalty. Some 53 percent of those polled said they think it is applied fairly. Worldwide, Amnesty International says the number of countries that impose the death penalty fell from 40 in 1997 to 27 in 2001.
Over the years, various films have driven home the idea that there's never a justification for taking a life. Movies such as 'Fury' (1936), in which Spencer Tracy is almost lynched for something he didn't do, and 'The Ox-Box Incident' (1943) aren't directly about the death penalty, but they condemn mob rule and the rush to judgment.
'I Want to Live' (1958), in which Susan Hayward gave an Oscar-winning performance in the true story of a woman (Barbara Graham) falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to die, 'is designed to make you feel bad about people being put to death,' says Jewell.
He considers 'the most sophisticated treatment of this whole subject' to be 'Dead Man Walking,' in which Susan Sarandon also gave an Oscar-winning performance based on a real person (Sister Helen Prejean). The 1995 film - directed by Tim Robbins - shows the emotional pain of the victim's relatives as well as that of the guilty man. Still, Sean Penn is put in a Christlike position as he's executed by lethal injection.
'The Green Mile' went even further in its anti-death penalty message in 1999 by offering a Christ figure who's outright miraculous - and innocent.
Kenneth Mentor, a professor for New Mexico State University's criminal justice department, maintains that even movies seemingly against the death penalty often reinforce pro-death penalty views.
Offenders in such movies usually are forced to take sole responsibility for their crime. And the films often focus only on whether justice has been served - not on whether the state should be able to execute criminals, says the law professor, who teaches a course titled Justice and the Media.
Mentor said such films are 'presented in a way that conservatives can say, 'See, it's that damn liberal media,' when in reality there are undertones in these films that are very supportive of conservative views.'
Jewell said there aren't necessarily more liberals in the film industry but 'it's the liberal folks who seem more committed to using whatever power and entertainment capital that they've built up through the years to make these kinds of statement films than the conservatives.'
In the case of 'David Gale,' director Alan Parker said he hoped he had made a suspenseful entertainment, not a soapbox diatribe.
'By making it as a thriller, you reach a wider audience and the thriller is the locomotive that pulls the issue behind it,' said the director of such politically driven films as 'Mississippi Burning' and 'Midnight Express.'
The movie's stars expressed similar sentiments, saying they were drawn to the story's human qualities, not any polemics.
'I didn't do the movie because I had some political position I was trying to proselytize. In fact, I find the issue decidedly difficult,' said Kevin Spacey, who plays the title character.
Many critics, however, savaged the film as a heavy-handed potboiler. It has not fared well at the box office.
With the economy lagging and war seemingly imminent, audiences probably aren't very interested in message movies, Jewell suggested.
As during the Depression, he said, moviegoers seem to be in the mood for escapist fare, which accounted for most of top attractions at cineplexes last week.

Comments:

No comments have been posted for this article.

Login to let us know what you think

MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search