Religion plays a big role in the lives of many people all over the world. In some parts of the world (like ours) the number of people who identify themselves as religious is decreasing. In America, they have the so called “Bible belt” where a big part of the population commit themselves to Christianity. Religion has thus always had a big role in America. When I was on exchange in Florida last summer I got to live with a Christian woman. The main point of Christianity in her and her friends' opinion is love and Christian charity. The point about love and the Christian Charity is a big part of the movies “Dead Man Walking” and “The Green Mile”. In the movie “Dead Man Walking” the Christian values are very obvious since the main character, Sister Helen, is a nun. When she receives the letter from the inmate on the death row Matthew Poncelet asking if she wants to help him with his final appeal, Helen decides to visit Matthew Poncelet with the expectation that he is a sexist, racist and is also arrogant. But when Helen visits him, he claims that he didn’t kill the two teenagers. When Helen in addition hears that Matthew thinks that he ended up on the death row only because he couldn’t afford a good lawyer, it triggers a feeling of injustice in Helen. Matthew gets hope that his death sentence will maybe get commuted. That hope is not something Sister Helen can just turn her back to. She herself is also against the death penalty so that is just strengthening her decision of trying to help Matthew Poncelet. Even though she gets more and more uncertain about Matthew’s innocence throughout the movie she still helps him. It becomes a matter of principle to her. She doesn’t think that humans no matter who they are – criminals or the state – should have the right or power to decide whether people should live or die. Helen and Matthew develop a relationship. Since Helen is a nun she believes that you should love your neighbor and enemies. So even though she is terrified by the crimes that were committed against the two teenagers and she sympathizes with their parents she still doesn’t think that death penalty is ok. When Helen realizes that Matthew isn’t going to be commuted she is determined to make Matthew’s last days and hours as good as possible. She stays with Matthew for several hours every day and encourages him to read the Bible. By doing that Helen shows Matthew that there will always be at least one person who will love him unconditionally: God. So through religion Helen shows Matthew love which makes him realize what he did to those teenagers, take responsibility and seek forgiveness.
In the movie “The Green Mile” the main character Paul embraces the death penalty. Paul is Christian. He believes in justice and that his inmates on “his” death row “The Green Mile” deserve the penalty because of what they have done. Paul is very empathetic. One day this giant of an inmate called John Coffey arrives to the green mile for raping and killing two innocent girls. When Wild Bill arrives to the green mile the empathetic and calm Paul disappears as he realizes that some people are just pure evil and some deserves more than others to die. Paul has read through John’s files and find out what horrible crime he is convicted for. So Paul is very puzzled and surprised when John magically cures his bladder infection. This makes Paul realize that there maybe is more to the story about John’s murder. Paul doesn’t believe that a person who God has given such great and wonderful powers can commit such a terrible crime. So when John resuscitates Del’s mouse he gets the thought that John maybe can cure Hal’s wife’s brain tumor. So when John cures the tumor and the other guards including Hal realizes that John has magical powers, Paul is certain that John didn’t do what he was convicted for. So through their belief in justice and because of their religious beliefs all the guards - and Paul especially - develop some kind of love for John because they believe that God gave him something unique which could help other people. Because of Paul’s religious beliefs he starts to question whether he should be the one to take away an innocent person from this world. He asks himself whether God will understand that that was his job and let him through to heaven or say that it was Paul who did it and send him to hell. Because John is such a nice person and John has so much empathy, the only thing that makes him fulfill the execution is because John told him to.
God is a big part of both movies. In The Green Mile you can see John as a symbol of Jesus. Jesus has great powers and uses them to help other people rather than use them to harm people. That is exactly what John does. He resuscitates Del’s mouse and he tries to do the same to the two girls whom Wild Bill has killed. In the end John sacrifices himself like Jesus sacrificed himself in the Bible. In “Dead Man Walking” Sister Helen is the godly symbol in the movie. She is showing the Christian Charity as Jesus did. In both movies there are also some contrasts. Especially the hate versus love and the evil versus good contrasts are represented in the movies. In both movies it is the crimes committed and those who committed them versus the godly and the families left back.
Both movies have quite a similar yet different message: The risk of killing innocent people with death penalty is very high but justice is very important. That is the main message in The Green Mile and somewhat also in Dead Man Walking. But in Dead Man Walking the message is also, that the truth sets you free.