The Green Mile Characterisation H/W due THURS 7TH

[daniellemckay]

In the First scene Darabont reverses the characters roles by making Percy an evil, heartless police officer and John Coffey (a prisoner) a good character, but because we don’t expect this it makes the film more interesting. John Coffey the prisoner is huge, strong and tough but in fact he is very kind and polite as he is not reselling for freedom, shaking the guards’ hand. The camera also slowly moves upwards to show the real height of John (a tilt shot) this also shows that John might be scary and violent although... He also has a child like mind “Can you keep the light on at night, because I am scared of the dark?" At this point we relies something is not right and make us wonder if John is really capable of doing such a cruel thing. When Percy is bringing John into the prison there is a medium shot on Percy and John and it shows how small Percy is compare to John. Percy has an attitude of a strong man yet this is only because ‘he knows people’. With Percy shouting "dead man, dead man walking" repeatedly we immediately don’t get a good feeling from him. And further into the scene Percy is violent towards two of the characters, these characters we like as they are kind Del- ( looks after his pet mouse who he loves! makes us think he’s caring and harmless.) Del cry's when Percy stands on the mouse which is odd for a grown man (child-like) yet another reason not too like Percy.

John Coffey and Jesus Christ have a lot of similarities- they both have unnatural powers, both got executed by friends, healing powers, feels others pain, honest and kind, rather him suffer than others. Normally if you are on death row you have done violent unforgivable crimes, but all the prisoner's were kind and all had an understanding of each other with the police guards except Wildbill and Percy.

[missmcgrory]

Well done, folks.

[lesleytrataris]

when we are first introduced to percy our immediate reaction to him is that we do not like him. The reason we dont get a good feeling towards percy is bcause when he is guiding John Coffey into the block he's shouting "dead man, dead man walking" repeatedly and he is also violent towards the other inmates. We get a sence that John Coffey is a big character because when he is coming out of the police van we get a close up on his arm and we also see percys head so this shows us that he is a tall character. John Coffey is also a timmid character as when he first meets Paul ( an officer), he askes paul if he could leave the light on at night. John is also childlike as he can only spell his name and from knowing this we immediately begin to think that he wouldnt commit such a horrific crime. John aslo resembles as a jesus like figure as the both can heal people and put people before thenselves.

[missmcgrory]

Thank you Lesley - very eloquently expressed as well!

[billyyoung13]

John Coffey has been put in jail for rape & murder, but he didnt actually murder the two little girls he was trying to save them but it was too late. John is a very tall & bulky character. When hes going into the jail percy starts shouting "dead man walking" & you can see the height difference between them. We find out later in the film that John has super powers & he healed Paul that had a urine infection & a women with cancer