Featuring extensive stills from the actual film, the screenplay is a faithful adaptation of King's bestselling story of a death-row block at Cold Mountain Correctional Facility, called "The Green Mile" because the trip to the electric chair is called "Walking the Mile" and the floor leading to the electric chair is made of green tile. Narrated by the elderly Paul Edgecombe (Tom Hanks plays the young Paul Edgecombe), who reminisces about his days as the superintendent of death row during the 1930s. Edgecombe tells of the mysterious John Coffey (played by Armageddon's Michael Clark Duncan), a prisoner with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, who allegedly murdered two young girls. While Coffey awaits his execution, he displays odd supernatural powers that cause the inmates and guards to question their beliefs about everything they hold dear.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Stephen King fans fervently awaited The Green Mile, filmmaker Frank Darabont's second movie adaptation of a King novel (the first being The Shawshank Redemption, another period piece set in prison). The Green Mile: The Screenplay reveals Darabont's deft script style despite nary a character description. The adaptation must be one of the most pure ever written; nearly every character and major scene from the novel is represented in the screenplay, often with verbatim dialogue. Both Darabont and King contribute introductions, illustrating the warm friendship between the two, and detailed film credits, drawings of two storyboarded sequences, and 20 black-and-white photos enrich the script. For those interested in witnessing how a movie changes from screenplay to final product, the shooting script version of The Shawshank Redemption makes for a far more intriguing read--and Darabont's post-production essay on the metamorphosis is fascinating. --Doug Thomas
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"The Green Mile": Blueprint for a Perfect Film,
By
This review is from: The Green Mile: The Screenplay (Paperback)
With "The Green Mile: The Screenplay", writer-director Frank Darabont provides would-be screenwriters with an unprecedented look at how a perfect screen adaptation is written. Stephen King, author of the novel on which the film is based, has called Darabont's screenplay "hands-down, the best film adaptation I've ever read." Tom Hanks, the film's star, said of the screenplay, "It's that rarest thing, that thing you're always looking for, this piece of work that shows up on your desk, ready to shoot, and you look at it and say, 'Wow! We just have to show up and make this thing!'" In most situations, directors come to actors hat in hand, begging actors to work on a film. With "The Green Mile", Darabont had actors lining up to work in the film. Even actors of the stature of Gary Sinise were willing to take virtual cameos to appear in the film. The book contains Darabont's final shooting script, which even in that form, contains minor differences from the finished film. It also features introductions by Stephen King and Darabont, as well as a selection of stills and storyboards which give readers added insight into the production of what is easily this year's best film. Although lacking the in-depth analysis of changes in the screenplay which were present in Darabont's last book, "The Shawshank Redemption: The Shooting Script", this book is well worth reading, and, in copanionship with the forthcoming "The Making of 'The Green Mile'", will give readers a guided tour of the production of a modern film classic.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There is an angel somewhere!,
By
This review is from: The Green Mile: The Screenplay (Paperback)
I discovered the first episodes of The Green Mile in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the last ones in France. I read them. I was moved by strong emotions, practically to tears, and yet I remained unsatisfied. I reread it when it came out in one volume, and I had the same sensation of frustration. The book, the story had two lines and the unity was not clear, the message was not obvious and it seemed to be that there is always a devil somewhere to torture, at times to death, the righteous and the innocent. The two time lines were not really reinforcing each other. The bad nurse of the old people's home was not a real continuation of Percy, and Percy did not have and could not have, does not have and cannot have a continuation. Evil in man is repetitive, but in no way continuing, developing, getting any kind of amplification with time. I have just been listening to a tape about the psychiatric hospitals of the old days (up to the mid 70s in France), and the doctors, the nurses, and even the patients, those who dedicated their whole life to get rid of that institution, compared these asylums to concentration camps and demonstrated how the inmates were reduced to animals, and yet resisting, how the rations (during World War II) where starvation rations meant to slowly kill the inmates by starving them. Doctor Lucien Bonnafé, MD, cannot be in any way stopped in his explanation of this alienation, of this reduction of men to vegetables, especially with the chemical straight jacket. Hitler did not invent concentration camps, and he did not invent eugenics, the cleansing of society of their misfits. He just systematised, industrialised it. But, But, BUT, I finally got to the screenplay of The Green Mile by Frank Darabont. He got that second time line out. He recentered the whole story on Paul, the only one Paul that crosses time. And then the light came out so strong that I was not moved any more, but literally blinded into ever stronger and never before experienced emotions, into unquenchable tears, tears that were a salvation, a redemption, an epiphany that would not ever satisfy and quench my thirst for optimistic humanism. This human world contains angels that can transform evil into good, and it is John Coffey, a black man. He has done that for a very long time, till the one day he gets trapped by his naivete and simplemindedness, because angels are naive, simpleminded and maybe slightly retarded, since then cannot conceive evil. When one does only good things and can only bring good news to the world, he is totally isolated, rejected, and thus he becomes the prey of all evil beings who will abuse him and trampled him down. And yet he is not completely trapped, because he comes to the point when he wants to go, to leave this world, where he can only love and be loved by fireflies. So he is happy when he gets trapped, relieved of this enormous responsibility of making the world better, of killing or repairing evil. Even if it means Death Row. But, before leaving, he gives his good nature to some other beings, even if he cannot give them his powers. Here it is a mouse, Mr Jingles, and a man, Paul. And his gift takes the form of a very long life. The very long life of telling the truth, the truth of God, the truth that killing is ugly, no matter whether it is criminal or judicial. Only life is beautiful, and the story of life has to be told forever and ever, to push death away, even if it is Death Row. This life story has to be told over and over again, just like a mouse will play with a spool forever. And thus, Darabont gets us to a universal lesson, to a unique and eternal metaphor. The writer, the storyteller is forever the one who will bring life to earth, real life, the life of justice, of beauty, of emotions, of truth, of entertainment, of happiness. The storyteller is God himself, or at least his angel, because he nourishes our souls with the desire to know a better world. When are we ever going to have the film, the video, so that we can be moved to frantic tears by the images that will demultiply the screenplay into a real piece of human paradise, in our dreams, in our night, in our daydream, in our sunshine of hope ?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If You Write Colloquial Dialog, Learn From GREEN MILE,
By Faye Quam Heimerl - Book Editor "Quam Editorial" (Westminster, CO) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)
This review is from: The Green Mile: The Screenplay (Paperback)
Few writers are adept at recording colloquial dialogue (ordinary speech for a place), but GREEN MILE screenwriter and director Frank Darabont is not one of those writers. He's good at this. Real good. These examples illustrate my point:
· "Billy the Kid," scourge of the earth, says, "Niggers oughtta have they own 'lectric chair. White men oughtn't havta sit in no nigger 'lectric chair, nossir... · Eduard Delacroix, Cajun, says, "Yeah, you take 'em, John. Take him til' dis foolishment done -- bien! After, you take him down to Florida? To dat Mouseville?" · John Coffey, gentle, African American, says, "He kill 'em with they love. They love for each other. You see how it is? That's how it is ever' day. That's how it is all over the worl'." Every character in Darabont's screenplay is defined through his/her speech, although not as obviously as these three. I suggest writers study his techniques and apply them to their own writing. Note: Reading this screenplay is like experiencing the movie from the inside out, an adventure, fo' sure.
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