THE GREEN MILE

"The Green Mile" definately isn't as nice and pleasant as Fred Astaires song which is in the soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrCsyN-fZ94

The film was directed in 1999 by Frank Darabont. It's a retrospection of retired prison guard, Paul Edgecombe, played by one of my favourite actors - Tom Hanks, who tells his friend story about a prisoner that he met when he worked in prison called Cold Mountain.

This is a story about man who hides the real magic in his heart, so this composition will be perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Lwy3nVg1I

John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) is black, huge, muscular man who is convicted of murder of two nine-year-old girls. Everybody is scared of him because he looks like a beast. But his behaviour in the prison is strange - he cries, he's scared and as gentle as a lamb. He doesn't display any signs of aggression. Another prison guard, Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), who is really mean and sadistic person, is putting John down and maltreating him. In Cold Mountain the penalty of murder is death penalty consists in putting a wet sponge on the prisoners head, then putting on the machine which electrocutes him. Percy always executes this sentence without soaking the sponge and because of that prisoners die in agony.

John Coffey has supernatural skills, he can heal people and other living creatures, he helps Paul with an inflammation of bladder. He tells guard the story of his life and what's the reason of his arrest. It turns out that he didn't kill those girls and they were victims of another man called Wild Bill. John was only trying to help them using his magical skills but it was too late. He was found with dead girls in his arms and that's why he's accused of a murder. Paul believes him but he can't do anything to change the verdict. He knows that John's time is impending and he spends with him as much time as he can. 

The title "green mile" is a metaphor to distance which prisoners had to cover before their Last Judgment. 

There are very important words that John says that I'll probably never forget: "I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin' no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin' from or goin' to or why. I'm tired of people bein' ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein' in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't".

This is exactly how we feel like when we realise that the world is filled with evil and we can't do a lot to fix it. But actually that's not the way we should think. It doesn't matter if we save someone's life or do just a small, good thing - we fight with evil, we don't let it win. John Coffey is a kind of an angel that everyone could be, without magical skills. Noble heart, sensitivity, humanness - this is real magic. Many people think that it's called 'weakness'. They're wrong. Empathy is the biggest power in the world.
Due to this and next film, it is said that people who seemingly administer justice are often worse butchers than those whom they judge.