The Green Mile: Empowering The Marginalised Perspective

The movie the Shawshank Redemption, based on the book by Steven King, I believe is one of the best movies ever made. The portrayal of prison life in the movie is the best I have seen and a star-studded cast including Morgan Freeman supports the characters and brings to life the everyday struggles of life behind bars. In this paper I will relate topics from class to the movie and discuss information we have learned through out the semester.

The film The Green Mile was originally written by Stephen King and later directed by Frank Darabont. It is based on the guards and inmates of a penitentiary’s Death Row during the great depression. There is a certain monotony that comes with working on Death Row and Paul Edgecomb, played by Tom Hanks, has become numb to the fact that he is paid to take lives; that is until John Coffey gets sentenced to death and is sent to Paul’s “green mile”. John Coffey is a very large black man that was accused of rape and murder of two little girls, and in the 1930’s having charges like that brought upon you was grounds for the death penalty, especially for a black man in the south.

Throughout the term I have begun experiencing movies in a different way. The class has taken ideas of cinematography, theory, and film history and practically applied it to physically watching movies. By breaking down scenes and movies as a whole, the way I look at films in general has developed. A reflection on two of the films from this term, Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942) and North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959) will carry the bulk of the essay. Though, I will also be discussing how this class changed the way I saw a movie just a few weeks ago. Casablanca’s script and acting are of particular caliber, and North by Northwest unfortunately does not deliver with the dialogue and casting of lead actor Cary Grant. Though, overall, they both

Percy begins yelling "dead man walking" as he brings the prisoner into the E Block. In Percy's mind it is his role to be portrayed as a brutal guard. He emulates a violent man with arrogance and believes that he has to demonstrate his power over the prisoners and he says and does as he pleases with little regards to others. On many occasions through the film, Paul initiates Percy's punishments in subtle ways with the other guards

which is the prime mover in the action of the novel which force's Percy to allow

Textual form is an issue which divide many critiques and audiences. Some view texts as a form being superior and more expressive, whereas others may view film as to be losing its credibility of expression. Never the less it is adamant that through a comparative study of two differing forms exploring similar ideas it becomes clear that one form isn’t always superior over another. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) mirror this thesis. Whilst being

Analyse how Nineteen Eighty Four and Pleasantville imaginatively portray individuals who challenge the established values of their time.

Throughout history, many authors have created award-winning novels which have been deemed worthy for a film adaptation. With a variety of these adaptations, the film directors attempt to capture the messages that were portrayed in the book and faithfully develop each of the book’s characters. Moreover, two certain books which were favored for their loving characters and encouraging themes are True Grit by Charles Portis and The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. While the 1968 western novel by Portis follows a young girl, who goes on an adventure in pursuit of avenging her father’s death, the 1967 novel by Hinton, categorized as young adult fiction, encompasses the life of a young boy and his misadventures living in a small town as a “greaser.”

Whenever books are adapted for film, changes inevitably have to be made. The medium of film offers several advantages and disadvantages over the book: it is not as adept at exploring the inner workings of people - it cannot explore their minds so easily; however, the added visual and audio capabilities of film open whole new areas of the imagination which, in the hands of a competent writer-director, can more than compensate.

In contemporary film making, “Hollywood-ization” generally refers to the re-creation of a classic work in a form more vulgar and sexually explicit than the original in an effort to boost movie attendance. After all, sex and violence sell. However, from the mid-1930’s to the 1950’s, “Hollywood-ization” referred to the opposite case where controversial books had to be purified to abide by the Production Code of 1934.[1] This occurred to many of James Cain’s novels as they moved from text to the genre of “film noir.” As has been said about Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, “The property, bought several years ago, was kept in the studio’s archives until now

Gentrification is the term that explains the process of renovating and improving homes, or a district to conform to middle-class preferences. As viewed in the documentary Class Divide, a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York called West Chelsea has already undergone a major shift in their community. The addition of schools such as The Avenues, and tourist attractions like the High Line has generated a new identity for the community. Children who are born in poverty in the United States have a harder time getting out of poverty than those children who come from other developed countries. This is due to various institutions such as The Avenues that have created a gap between social classes, making it harder for the lower class to achieve success. Throughout the documentary, the storyline constantly shifts to represent two different point of views: the upper class and the lower class. Within these different points of views, the central themes become evident: income inequality, opposing views of privileged and underprivileged students, and the gentrification of a community.

Researching Edward Albee’s scandalous play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962), my case study will focus on the adaptation from stage to film, outlining the issues faced with both the original artists and my own group as artists. This specific piece of work from playwright Edward Albee is “arguably the best American play of the 1960s” (Leff 1981, p. 453), which encouraged Warner Brothers’ to gain the screen rights and recreate it as a film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. On Broadway, Albee’s play had been critized for its “lack of clarity” (Leff 1981, p. 456) however, when creating the film adaptation, Ernest Lehman, Jack Warner and Mike Nichols faced other issues regarding the release of the movie due to it’s profanity that would be subjected to the public, and

In the Film Shawshank Redemption (1994) directed by Frank Darabont, Andy was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife and is shipped off to Shawshank prison. The prison is run by Warden Norton who is a corrupt leader. When Andy first arrives at the prison he is very timid and shy. As the film progresses, Andy breaks out of his shell and starts building relationships with Red and the other prisoners. Throughout the film we learn that Andy is an ex banker who Norton enlist to help him with his taxes and balancing the books. Soon enough Andy realizes that Norton was laundering money. The movie displays many of the concepts that we have learned throughout Organizational Behavior textbook written by Cohen Et Al. Throughout the paper I will be talking about how Shawshank Redemption relates to the concepts we have learned in the textbook specifically in chapter 8 and 10.

So I was crossing the street, passing old Percy and waving to him. I felt like a goddam moron as soon as I did. The poor guy could barely see an inch in front of his face. He really couldn't. Instead, I called out, “good morning, Percy!”

Whether you fancy reading a book or watching a film, whether you consider yourself a bookworm or a movie enthusiast, or perhaps both or even something else entirely; there is bound to be something suitable for your tastes and preferences. In our day and age, many books often get adapted into films. This change of discourse undoubtedly affects the way we perceive the piece. An example for a book that has been adapted into a movie is the young adult novel “The Fault in Our Stars” by American author John Green.