The most famous and definitely one of a kind film “The Green Mile” is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by the American “King of Horrors” – Stephen King. This film has a hidden philosophical meaning, which not everyone can find, but first things first. So, what is the film Green Soap about and what is its meaning?
What is The Green Mile about?
The entire narrative (both in the film and in the original book) comes from the face of the warden of the prison, who had a difficult life test that jeopardized his career, family happiness and moral values and beliefs. The duties of Paul (namely, that is the name of our narrator) include the responsible supervision of prisoners sentenced to death in the electric chair. Such a mysterious and mysterious title of the book comes from a small detail of the plot: the floor of the corridor along which the prisoners are led directly to the execution is painted green, and fellow caretakers agreed to call this place “the green mile”.
In this film, people’s personalities are presented in completely different ways and each person is literally a kind of collective image of a certain type of people, due to which a feeling of a “book” illustration of characters with their brightness and originality is created. Take even the protagonist of both the book and the film – John Coffey: an incredible, completely inhuman size dark-skinned man with a frank character of a child, which makes it difficult for all caretakers to believe in the veracity of the prisoner’s accusation. Later it turns out that this huge eccentric is not such a simple defendant: his huge hands are endowed with a strange supernatural power that can heal any ailment and even bring the poor mouse back to life, which Coffey successfully managed to do during his time on the Green Mile.
But the nuance of this “magical” power of John is the place where all the absorbed ailment and all the exorbitant pain go – it is absorbed by the healer himself. Throughout his relatively short life, Coffey managed to see a sea of evil, pain, resentment, hatred and other vices of life, and he absorbed half of all this in order to heal those around him. Unable to cope with such a heavy burden anymore, the giant agrees with his false verdict, although even the caretakers tried to persuade him to run away and were ready to help him in this. The result of the picture is that Paul and the rest of his colleagues, literally through tears, overpowering themselves, execute an innocent, execute a falsely convicted savior and healer, a true well-wisher.
Meaning of The Green Mile
If someone starts to claim that this book and this film are just another mysterious and mystical story from King, you can safely challenge your opponent to a debate, because we have a lot of arguments to counter this opinion. Both the book and the film have a hidden (moreover, deep enough!) philosophical meaning, which is not so easy to understand. The author’s goal was to reveal the true side of the state, official law on paper, which is often not so fair.
Ordinary citizens feel safe in the presence of a “fair” (alas, we do not live in a utopia) law and real justice. In those days (the 1990s), the question of the necessity and importance of the death penalty was very fiercely and vigorously discussed. The author, obviously, does not quite sympathize with this kind of punishment, demonstrating its absurdity and feigned justice through the involvement of ordinary citizens in the execution – the necrosis procedure takes place in the public domain with real viewers. The idea was to show an equivalent end for both executioners and suicide bombers. The law is not a guarantee of justice, which is why false accusations are often made (as in our case) and the most honest, kind and helpful people are literally punished in the most severe way.
Those who, perhaps, outwardly fully instill fear in others, cause panic and exude a threat in appearance, in fact turn out to be the only “beam of light, warmth and kindness” in the whole dark corner of an unfair life. The absurdity of the law system was supposed to be the key message of the whole work (and, congratulations to director Frank Darabont and writer Stephen King, because the idea was realized in full and in all its manifestations). This historically famous painting became a turning point in society and, of course, left its indelible mark!
