The Green Mile
“We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.”
I suppose it’s odd to write about a Stephen King novel that is not necessarily scary on Halloween. But The Green Mile is far and away my favorite King work.
I saw the movie first and was blown away enough to buy the book not long after. It was then that I realized the obvious common factor in the greatness of the two: King’s writing. It’s so quietly powerful and genuine that readers or viewers are too busy admiring it to notice the story’s more unrealistic, supernatural occurrences.
If you have not yet read the book or seen the movie, the story is this: Four men working on a death row unit called the green mile (due to the green tile that lines the floor) have their lives changed by one inmate, a hulking man named John Coffey (“like the drink, only not spelled the same”).
In the movie, this mysterious prisoner is played by the late Michael Clarke Duncan, and I distinctly remember being in awe of his performance. I was only 12 or 13 years old, not yet old enough to truly appreciate Tom Hanks’ powerfully reserved performance as lead guard Paul Edgecomb or the exceptional directing of Frank Darabont — two things that would happen quickly upon a second viewing — so Duncan was the one who stood out to me. I can’t picture anyone more physically perfect for the role (Duncan was 6 feet 5 and absolutely jacked) who could also match the depth and heart the character has in the novel. Whenever I think of The Green Mile, I think about the beautiful writing (both on the pages of the novel and the lines of the script) but I first think about John Coffey at the movies, about Michael Clarke Duncan thriving in the perfect role.
I’ve certainly had books ruin movies for me, but I remember thinking that, in this case, the opposite would be true. I loved the movie so much that I was afraid the book would be a disappointment, a rough draft of something that had been whittled down into a great film. Instead, it was like finding a treasure trove of all my favorite moments of the film. The great writing packed into the script that had affected me as a viewer was joined by even deeper, more complex passages and dialogue I cherished as a reader. This book and King are the reasons I often read the books of movies I want to see or movies I love. Often, the quality is not as equal as in this case, but that can simply be attributed to King’s genius.
As I mentioned earlier, The Green Mile is not your average King spine-tingler, making its strength all the more impressive. I’m not saying King completely abandons his wheelhouse here, but he takes larger swings at emotion than in some other works I’ve read. Luckily, the characters in the book are fleshed out and the actors in the movie are skilled enough to pull this off, forming a narrative with something real at its core.
While the stuff of nightmares doesn’t make it into the narrative, it does contain other scary things: death, guilt, time and alienation.
The Green Mile certainly has more heart and hope than a lot of King’s stories, but it’s still a work based around fear — it’s just fear of a different kind. The only evil present is the kind that exists in real people, whether they are prisoners or guards. There are no monsters in the story, just men. Scary, huh?
