Why didn’t the prisoners on death row wear uniforms? They showed the guards putting one on Wild Bill, but after that he was wearing white pants and a t-shirt. In shots of other prisoners, they were wearing the black and white wide-stripe uniform. I’m guessing for John Coffey, they wouldn’t have had one big enough, but why didn’t the others wear them? Why did they “dress up” for the executions…the tan pants and blue shirt?
The character played by David Morse was supposed to be a big guy. In long shots, it showed him towering over Paul (Tom Hanks’s character) by several inches. I always thought Tom Hanks was at least 6 feet tall. Is David Morse really that tall?
The mouse was shown to have lived for what, 70 years? Say his expected life span is about a year. Going by the idea that the mouse had already lived 70 times his expected lifespan, was Paul going to live for at least 70 times his expected lifespan?
David Morse (I’m assuming he was the guy playing John Coffey) isn’t actually that tall. He stood on a platform for much of the filming, to make his character appear much taller than everyone else. He’s a big guy in his own right – I think he’s more than six feet tall – but not as tall as Coffey was supposed to be.
The mouse had either died or was on the verge of dying, so one could assume that Coffey had to give his healing a little more “oomph” than he did in treating the Hanks character’s urinary infection.
Michael Clark Duncan played Coffey, and yes, I had heard he stood on a box for the “head & shoulders” shots.
In the beginning, Morse’s character sees Coffey get out of the van and comments that he’s huge. Tom Hanks replies that he can’t be much bigger than Morse (or something to that effect).
The “oomph” that Hanks’ character got wasn’t from the healing of the UTI, but from the handshake he had with Coffey during which he “saw” the incident with the little girls unfolding. Coffey passed some of his energy onto Hanks so that he would be able to see what Coffey saw.
The movie ended with Hanks’ character questioning how long he would have to live, accepting that it’s going to be an extremely long time (based on how long the mouse lived) and accepting that as his punishment for putting Coffey, an innocent man, to death.
I don’t know what the story is with the prisoner’s uniforms, but there was a little thing Showtime did after the airing of the movie that explained that the prison guards at that time did not actually wear uniforms. The people making the movie, however, decided to have them wearing uniforms in order to make them seem more authoritative.
Also, the “oomph” the mouse got wasn’t from being brought back to life. It was from when Coffey held him during Del’s execution. At that point, the energy from Coffey passed into the mouse, sending him flying.
I think that this indicates that maybe Hanks’ character did get more energy and might live even longer than 70 times his normal lifespan. My reasoning is that the mouse only accidentally got the energy, but Coffey purposely funneled the energy into Hanks.
Did anyone read the book? I’m sure it explains all this stuff better than the movie did.
Yes, my question about Hanks’ character was more along the lines of what were we (the viewer) supposed to be left with, that he would live an incredibly long time? Perhaps hundreds of years?
gotta go to work, thanks for all your replies, I’ll check back later…
Well, Hanks’ character was only around 120 I think and he could barely walk, i figured he would be lucky to have another 10 years in him, maybe a little more but definately not 7 or 8 thousand more years or anything :rolleyes:
Well, it could be that he just got older, and older, and older, progressively more decrepit. How much would that suck? Sort of like the poem, eternal life without eternal youth. And once a gift is given, the gods can’t take it back.
For the first question, uniforms are only worn if the inmate is going outside the cell. Otherwise, they pretty much relax in skivvies. That was my experience while working at our local county jail.
For the other questions, there is no definitive answer. But for goodness sakes, read the book! It’s much better than the movie. Explains Percy’s hatred of Del in more detail. And many other things as well.
saw the movie, didn’t read the book. But from what I gather from the 70+year old mouse, an animal which lives up to about 5 years tops, is that the Retired prison guard must endure who knows how many countless centuries, millenia, EONS of life before he may finally rest.
Immortality is the greatest, most terrible hell of them all.
Activgurl, I have the book, but haven’t read it yet. I was flipping the TV around Saturday night, and it was coming on, so I started watching. I had intended to read the book first, but was so engrossed by the movie, I couldn’t turn it off.
It’s next on my list, now that I’ve seen the movie. The book always goes in depth more than a movie can. I’ve heard that the movie stays quite faithful to the book.
Contrary to what Cisco said, I though Paul was walking just fine. He was going for those walks each day to see the mouse. I got the impression that the shack was far away, so he was in relatively good health, considering his age. That’s why I figured he was going to be around for a good looooong while.
Are you serious? This is already on TV? Wow! That had got to be a record! I thought this movie was only like a year old or something! Thats pretty impressive. I can’t imagine the $$$ that the network had to pay to secure this flick!
I read the book first; the dialog is almost identical in the movie. In the book:
[ul]
[li]the “field trip” is longer[/li][li]the nursing home emloys a “Percy” type[/li][li]Paul’s ladyfriend is a bit more significant[/li][li]the ending is slightly different[/li][li]the demise of Paul’s wife is explained[/li][li]the mouse shows up before Del[/li][li]there’s a better explination as to how Paul figures out Coffey is innocent[/li][/ul]