I think whether it is for "abolishing death" or against it, those who can stand on the opposite side of public opinion and insist on their choice are true warriors, no matter whether their views are correct or not, it is precisely because of the existence of such people that We look at our choices more carefully. This kind of debate will make us think more carefully about our current judicial system, and it will also make us work hard to improve this huge judicial machine in our country. No matter whether the death penalty survives or abolishes in the end, we will benefit from it.
Kill a beast?
It's easy to kill a monster but hard to kill a human being.
This line has always existed like a daigo empowerment. The whole movie is actually trying to explain whether we are executing a person or a beast. If a cruel murderer is just a beast without a conscience, then the capital punishment is not something worthy of sadness and sympathy. Just like we eat steak on our plate and don't think about the pain of the death of a cow, but if he is a person, like you and me, it is completely different, we will care about his fears, he The pain, we will reflect on whether we are humane or not, and whether there is a better way to solve this problem, such confusion and sympathy will occupy our hearts more or less, whether he is really sinful or not.
I like the director's treatment of the hero Mathew very much. Sean's shot is always separated by a barbed wire or a glass wall, which not only allows us to see him from the perspective of Sister Helen, but also, in my opinion, such Mathew , like a beast waiting to be slaughtered, lost his once sharp fangs and claws, and the only thing left is helplessness and despair. It is true that he always looks like a jerk, with a nonchalant demeanor, with resentment and disdain in his eyes, with a heavy guard, but if you look closely, you will see the cowardice and wavering in his eyes, you will find that he speaks. When the eyes are often wandering. It was a gesture of being trapped and fighting. In fact, it was very embarrassing. I was so embarrassed that I forgot the pain the victim's family had endured. Even though he has always been such a jerk, I still want him to live, even as a beast. At that moment, I felt that I was hypocritical, that I was always at the mercy of my feelings, and that all my pity and sympathy were based on the fact that these pains had nothing to do with me.
In fact, at the beginning, Helen did not regard Matthew as the same person as herself, which made me a little sad. You see, our kindness and compassion may just be because it has nothing to do with us. She said that everyone should be respected, but she didn't really respect him, just like we never really respect a criminal, sometimes I feel like this is really hypocritical, shouting to abolish the death penalty, saying Life is as precious, but in our veins, we still allow the blood of prejudice to be treated differently.
Maybe it's because the movie started from Mathew's meeting with the nun. I didn't see the hideous scene of his brutal murder. The first thing I saw was such a beast dying in a cage, desperate and indifferent. But he couldn't hide the sadness, even if he never understood the value of life, even if he never felt how heinous it was to take someone's life casually, even if he never heard those dead souls singing in his ear every night With Li Ge, I still sympathize with his current weakness and humbleness.
However, I don't understand why he has to be so slutty and frivolous all the time, like a playboy, whether in movies or in reality, he always does. Sean is one of those peculiar types of man who always looks at you arrogantly and resentfully, he's frivolous, and even if you hate him so much, you still find him charming. I don't feel sorry for his death in the movie, he did it all by himself, if he can show a little regret like a human being, if he still has a little conscience like a normal person, I think I will be merciful.
I think Tim is absolutely amazing, Sean's character is not only a murderer, a rapist, not only does he not plead guilty and repent after committing such a serious crime, but he is also the most annoying kind of racist, Anti-governmentists, even he worships Hitler, this kind of person is really hopeless, even if he is allowed to live, what is the point? If he cried and begged for forgiveness from the families of the two children, if his expression was humble and not so frivolous and dissolute, I think there might be a lot of people who sympathize with him, but look at him, he makes a lot of nonsense, racial supremacy, not just a Asshole, but also a fool, a clown.
But, in fact, he was very scared and desperate. In the scene where Sister Helen fainted, when they met later, his emotions were like a flash flood. At that moment, I knew that all the indifferent emotions were just used by him to numb Self, tool to deceive oneself, the truth is that he fears, the imminent death, this predictable death is scarier than anything else, you know when your heart stops beating, even you know how you die, In the process of waiting, you rehearse the situation of the day in your mind over and over again, and then let the fear slowly swallow you. This kind of pressure will overwhelm people. We become irritable and irritable, and the little things will Let's get mad like Matthew's unreasonable rebuke to Sister Helen, really, just because he's scared, that's all.
Waiting to die is the most unbearable thing, he said.
So, on the advice of Sister Helen, he started reading the Bible, and while he was waiting to die, he started reading the Bible. But that wasn't his belief, he just wanted a little comfort, he didn't know Jesus, and he didn't want atonement, he just didn't want to die. He never understands the Bible, but it's not his fault. People always have to grab something to force themselves to persevere at such a moment. He doesn't even have the right to commit suicide. I don't understand. Let him die, let him commit suicide, but why do you have to wait until that specific moment? The result everyone wants is not his death, but the thrill of revenge for him, a desire to make him pay the price , yes, I use the word "desire", my lack of vocabulary, I can't find a better word to describe this emotion, at this moment, we all become beasts, the desire for killing, for blood, The bestiality within us grows into a towering tree in a corner we don't know about, and then, we say to ourselves, justice has finally been done.
Thank God he finally learned to pray, for the dead. Maybe this is not his last redemption, but his eyes are finally no longer full of hostility, he finally took off the mask of indifference, he said to his brother, take good care of his mother, look at his family members, full of tenderness.
When he was about to die, he finally seemed like a man.
So, his death became shocking, because at that moment, you could feel that he was a living person, he was not a beast after all, the affection and innocence that had been lost in him were all returned at that moment, At that moment, I would think, having experienced death, if I give him another chance or have another chance, will he have a compassionate heart?
Mathew is the most typical type of desperado, committing serious crimes, repentant, arrogant, and it still makes us sad if such a person is sentenced to death, if we still treat him as a person just like us, not It's just a beast with no emotions. If so, what reason do we have to stop and wait, and think carefully about the meaning of such a system?
Accompanying the Dead - Sister Helen
The word "accompanying the dead" is a word I saw from Ms. Zhang Juanfen's "The Difficulty of Killing". I felt it was very appropriate to use it here, so I used it. In the last moment of a death row prisoner's life, that is, in the "waiting period" after the execution date of the death penalty, there will be such a person to accompany you and listen to you tell about all your fears, confusion, repentance, all your emotions, this It is a very humane way for a death row prisoner, because anxiety can make people collapse, but for those who accompany the death, it may be an unspeakable and unbearable experience, because the feelings of the death row prisoner are accompanied The dead come to relieve them, but who can appease the uneasy emotions that accompany the dead? Of course, this is not what I want to say now, because to say it is unbearable, those who execute the death penalty are definitely more uncomfortable than those who accompany the dead, but as long as this system exists, there must be someone to bear the pain caused by this kind of death, every time The coming of death will always set off a huge storm, I don't understand, is this way of doing justice by burdening many unrelated people with the shadow of death, is it really worth it?
Back to the topic, I think the director's choice of the social identity of the dead person is very good. First, the heroine was born in the middle class and received a good family education, and is the representative of the backbone of American society; secondly, the heroine's identity is that of a nun. Religious beliefs made her understand the meaning of forgiveness, compassion, compassion, and sympathy better than others; and she now lives in a slum, surrounded by people at the bottom of society, and more of them are blacks. It made her have a deep sympathy for Mathew who was born at the bottom of society, and at the same time she was full of disgust for Mathew as a racist. These two contradictory feelings are intertwined, making it difficult for you to see whether she was in favor of Mathew's death sentence or not in the first place, which is consistent with our audience's point of view, so we can follow in the footsteps of Sister Helen to see such a thing , and even finally got the answer the director wanted - abolition of the death penalty.
You will see, in fact, Sister Helen has been suffering all the time. Like us ordinary people, she has been looking for a balance that can both abolish the death penalty and ease the anger and grief of the victim's family, but you will find that this is difficult, even almost impossible. possible. Of course, this is not to say that there are no reasonable family members, but the chances of meeting the family members of such victims are similar to winning the lottery, and you can't blame them, because they are the ones who lost their loved ones, and their revenge is justifiable and irreproachable. A life for a life, this is the most primitive and simplest fairness and justice.
When listening to the victim's family, what Sister Helen felt was two broken families, and what she saw were two children whose bright future was just about to unfold. The way she grieved, she also felt that the murderer was too cruel, and people's hearts were not made of stone, so no one would be indifferent. However, she couldn't forget the gradually withering life in the prison. Of course, he certainly wanted to atone for his sins, but in the face of such a powerful prosecution ability of the state, he was just a lamb to be slaughtered under this huge legal machine.
Watching Mathew ranting in front of the media, Sister Helen, like every ordinary person, felt that this person was really hopeless. Facing the enormous pressure from her family, friends, family members of the victims and the outside world, she still chose to accompany him to the road. In death, she gave him a kind of Christlike forgiveness and compassion, and she loved him the way Jesus loved all people.
Of course, I don't support the idea of treating repeat offenders like Mathew in a "forgiving" way like Sister Helen. After all, "forgiveness" is a too noble quality, not something that ordinary people like us can do. Do it, and too much sympathy for the criminal is disrespectful to the victim. What I want to say is that our state machine should not just succumb to the simple desire of the victim's family for revenge, but to say that in our legal kingdom what is there? There is no need to exterminate a citizen. Is execution the fundamental and only means of preventing his crime?
What doesn't kill me makes me stronger
"The indiscriminate use of capital punishment has never led to the conversion of evil to good," is the beginning of Sir Beccaria's "On the Death Penalty" in his "On Crime and Punishment." Comparing those countries that have abolished the death penalty and those that still retain the death penalty, it is not difficult to find that the death penalty is not an effective means to reduce the crime rate. Countries in the European Union have generally abolished the death penalty, but I still retain the death penalty in the past, and the execution rate is higher in the world. It is considered high, but it is self-evident which society is more stable.
If a punishment does not function as it should, then I cannot see the meaning of its existence.
In fact, in fact, I am not sure whether I am an "abolitionist" or just a "swinger". On the one hand, I hope that justice can be done, and on the other hand, I hope that anyone's life can be preserved, but If it is said that justice can be done only by imposing the death penalty on criminals, then I think I will choose the former without hesitation, but if we can achieve our goal of crime prevention by using the method of "do not kill the long pass", why should we let one Killing to breed another killing?
In fact, what really saddens me in the film is not the execution of Mathew, but the fact that I see the judiciary being influenced by politics. Some politicians use the execution of death row inmates in exchange for the support of the people and become a tool for them to come to power. This is not only political Rape of a country's judicial system is a desecration of human dignity.
It is true that although the trial needs to listen to the wishes of the people and the victims, it cannot be diverted from the back, and an appropriate distance must be maintained.
Some people might say that at least now that hangings are generally abolished, and even shooting is rarely used, we use the more humane method of lethal injection to carry out the death penalty. Whenever I see this statement, I can't help but want to laugh out of sadness, a more humane way? We have never experienced such a process, we just take it for granted that we have made a better choice, we have no right to say which method is more humane, in fact, any method of execution is very cruel, you have to put me I was executed, and you told me that the way you killed me was humane, isn't it ridiculous? !
The climax of the film may be the execution scene of Mathew, even if it's just on the computer screen, but I think I can hear his heavy breathing, and in a sense I can understand that feeling, and maybe it doesn't Inappropriate, but because I suffer from needle dizziness, every time when the needle hole is about to pierce my flesh, I can clearly hear the sound, and every time, my breathing will become disordered, fear of suffocation With the rhythm of breathing, I think Mathew feels about the same as I did, of course I'm just afraid of the thing itself, and Matthew's fear of death is of course different, but I want to try to understand , that moment, that moment when even breathing becomes a burden. The tension will make you feel the pain doubly, your hearing and touch seem to be clearer than usual, of course, this feeling is most likely a hallucination, because your mind is completely blank, and all you know is that The needle, the slowly advancing piston, injects an unknown liquid into your body, and then, as life goes by, there is nothing you can do about it.
I can see his eyes, so sad, so soft, but there is a low roar lurking in an unknown corner, the call of life.
At that moment, I thought the death penalty was such a bad thing.
Maybe some people lost their lives because of this bad system. Whether they deserved it or were wronged for no reason, time can never be reversed, but for those of us who are alive, what can't kill is our still existing heart of compassion, it will Make us stronger, make our country stronger.
Written at the end: I have finally completed this article. Looking back, it is very much less like a paper, but more like a miscellaneous feeling, because I think the issue of the death penalty is actually more a matter of individual choice. Moreover, the discussion on this issue is actually similar in the academic world, and there is no need for people like me to make rash judgments, so I wrote this kind of messy article from my own perspective. I know that I've never been a model audience (to borrow Eco's concept of a "model reader"), and just as I'm used to reading a book, it's almost impossible for me to confuse myself with a person when watching a movie. The subjective feelings of actors are drawn out of my movie viewing experience. I chose this film, and I did not write this article just as an assignment, and even its content is not very relevant to the law, which is not a problem for me. More importantly, I want to use this article to express my love and respect for an actor who has always been one of my favorite actors, no matter what others say about what he has done over the past forty years. —To my forever bad boy Sean Penn.
Sean, what I'm infatuated with, it's not just your face that has been chased by the years.
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