Dead Man Walking—into Truth
Kelly Monroe
July 1, 1996
Dead Man Walking, directed by Tim Robbins (Gramercy/PolyGram, 1995), 122mins. ABSORBING BIBLICAL THEMES poverty, sin, justice, and redemption, Dead Man Walking is about much more than the death penalty. The widely reviewed film is a lesson in the relationship between truth and love that yields hope, even when hell emerges strong on earth. And the story is a study in the seemingly irreconcilable tension between justice and mercy. Can justice and mercy embrace without contradiction? What might this look like? Meet Sister Helen Prejean (played by Susan Sarandon), a nun who befriends a death row prisoner—Matthew Poncelet (played by Sean Penn). Sister Helen becomes Poncelet's only hope for retrial, and more importantly, dignity and redemption. She seeks a way of the heart for healing—both for the criminal and for the victimized families. This is a woman with the eyes and the will to see the image of God in human beings despite the often tragic distortion of that image in us. One could not effectively explain Sister Helen's choices apart from the Holy Spirit. Her calling is costly as she becomes Poncelet's death-row spiritual advisor. She is at first insulted by Poncelet. And, as she is identified with him, she is publically misunderstood at different times to be a communist, a white supremacist, and a bleeding-heart obstructer of justice who lacks compassion for the families victimized by a rapist and murderer. She is befriended neither by the world nor by religion (symbolized by the penitentiary's priest). "Matthew Poncelet is God's mistake, Sister, and you want to hold his hand?" says the bereaved mother of the murdered woman to Helen. "Get out. You can't be his friend and ours. The devil has come to our house today." In Helen's ...
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