“The Green Mile” directed by Frank Darabont is based in modern day and 1930's Louisiana during the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a time that had devastating effects in virtually every country in the world, rich and poor. During this time entire crops failed due to the the farmers not being able to keep their crop nourished, rich and successful people were living on the street in complete poverty and people all around the USA were going on journeys looking for work anywhere in the country (as seen in “Of Mice And Men”). The film got very high critical acclaim when it came out with 13 awards and 23 nominations. Now 10 years on it is still very much recognised as an excellent film with it being number 83 on IMDB's top 250 films list, between “Once Upon a Time in America” and “Amadeus”.
From the very second that the film starts we can hear very tranquil music. This is used to set the scene of a very open area. It does this by slowly entering the film with the picture then fading in also, it helps set the scene of vast open fields and marshland by echoing with what is happening on screen. Another thing that this music does is contradict with what is happening on screen. It does this by letting the viewer hear a very chilled out and relaxing piece of non-diegetic music whilst being accompanied with a large group of men with pitchforks, guns and sniffer dogs trying to find a man who has murdered two small girls. This is called contrapuntal sound, it is where what is being shown conflicts with what is being heard. The reason why they would have done this is to give the viewer a sense of mystery as to what is going on (at this point the audience wouldn't have known that they were looking for a killer), and therefore keep them interested in what is going to happen, the way that the contrapuntal music has this effect is because it also distorts the other sounds as well, such as the the dogs barking and the stallion shouting for his two daughters, Katie and Cora.
After this very small introduction it fades to black revealing the title card. The title card reveals the name of the film in a smart white on black style that a lot of films also do. The reason as to why it's white on black rather than black on white is to show the tone of the film. For example the film is about death and prison meaning that it isn't going to be very positive and happy. This is why black would be used as the primary colour because the colour black is used to symbolise darkness, darkness being a common fear in children and therefore it subconsciously brings up memories of those childhood fears. This is also reflected with in the film, where John Coffey asks “Do you leave the light on after bed time?”.
After the title card fades to black again you hear some mysterious words uttered and then it jump cuts to the protagonist Paul Edgecomb in the modern day with a big close up if his eyes jerking open from his sleep. This shows tension because of how frantically and suddenly his eyes open. The ambient music stops right before the words are muttered and then the audience is greeted with a very fast cut to his eyes, this makes the audience know that there is a change in tone because they are no longer hearing the music. The reason why I think that Darabont chose to do this is to show that Paul Edgecomb is a character that has picked up a lot of haunting memories from the past, therefore giving him a deeper back story along with a stronger connection with the audience.
The film then continues to show Paul Edgecomb go about his morning routine in the old peoples home in which he lives. The reason why we see him do these mundane things is to show that he is a character that the audience can relate to and that by seeing him do these things that most ponies would do brings them closer to the character. The reason for this is to show us that although he has experienced a frightening past he is also a normal human being.
After he washes his face and combs his hair he walks out into the hall of the old peoples home where some non-diegetic classical music is playing, and where he greets a couple of other inhabitants of the old foalks home. The classical music is used to show that they are old and that it's the music of their generation. The reason why the director made him greet people when he was walking down the hall was so that he would be more likeable by the audience and seem like a loving and kind character.
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