The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 154 Days to go: 109
Movie #284: A Time to Kill
There are a lot of things I like about A Time to Kill — things I liked when it came out, and things I like still. The affinity levels may have changed a little bit over the years, one way or another, as I’ve grown and changed as a person, but not drastically. It’s a good film, and I get a lot out of it. One aspect of it that has always made me a little uncomfortable, though, is the closing argument defense attorney Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) gives at the end of the film.
Jake’s client Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson) is on trial for killing the two men who brutally raped and almost murdered his ten-year-old daughter. The entire trial, Jake has been trying to get details of the rape on the record, and his closing statement is a perfect opportunity to do that unencumbered and uninterrupted. It’s also his opportunity to, as Carl Lee has made clear, say the thing to the jury that will help them relate to this crime. Jake, like the jury, is “one of the bad guys,” as far as Carl Lee’s concerned, and that’s why he picked him. He sees black people and white people on different sides of a wall — “However you see me, you see me as different.” — and he enlisted the enemy to make the rest of the enemies see it his way. It’s a cold outlook, whether you believe it has merit or not, and although Jake is taken aback by this admission (He’s always looking for someone to be on his team in this film, yet he finds himself repeatedly alone.), he uses his closing to giving a detailed and emotional accounting of the brutality Carl Lee’s daughter endured, while the jury, with their eyes closed, are meant to imagine it and picture this girl. “Now imagine she’s white,” he says, and suddenly everything clicks. Even the judge and District Attorney Buckley (Kevin Spacey) and Carl Lee himself know what an impact that statement makes. But does it? Or should it?
Essentially, what that statement boils down to — and what the entire movie is getting at, really — is that we’re all people, and yet we rarely see each other as such. I find that incredibly depressing, even more so because as much as I hate to admit it, it’s probably true. If there’s one thing being on Facebook makes clear, it’s that a lot of people have no capacity to look at life through the eyes of another person. The things we post, the things we share, the things we argue about and debate at length, all lead me to believe that more often than not we’re all so clouded by the lens of our own experience, we have a hard time accepting that other people, other races, other cultures, other income levels experience things differently than we do. I’m guilty of it myself. There have been many times I’ve struggled to understand how anyone could see something differently than I’ve seen it, or how anyone could hold onto anger over an issue that wasn’t that big a deal, or could prioritize something I found inessential. And yet it happens, all the time. How did compassion and commiseration become such specialized skills? How do we fix that? Certainly not by an impassioned monologue that promises if we can only see a black rape victim as a white rape victim, all will be well in the world. It feels simplistic and kind of insulting to me, and yet I appreciate the idealism of the thought.
I’ve never felt the way Carl Lee does here, that there’s a my side and a his side, but it’s entirely possible, too, that I live in a state of blissful ignorance on the matter. Being a woman, I know full well many of the prejudices women face as I’ve experienced them first hand. As a white woman, however, I don’t have that same connection to the prejudices African-Americans face, even though I know they exist. The best I can do, therefore, is to take their accounts at face value and work to correct them, work to dispel them. And that comes from following their lead on how they feel and what they want to accomplish, just as Jake eventually follows Carl Lee’s lead on how to approach this trial. So maybe it’s not perfect and maybe it’s a little too pat and a little too idealistic, but maybe it’s the best we can do, metaphorically: Strive to be better. I can get behind that, absolutely. Does it make the ending more palatable? I still haven’t decided.
There’s a lot more to this movie than that, though. There’s Kiefer Sutherland leading the KKK, and his father Donald as a broken old drunk of a lawyer. There’s Oliver Platt as the morally compromised Harry Rex, and Ashley Judd as Jake’s ever-sweaty wife Carla (I swear, they rubbed her in baby oil before every take). There’s the awesome Charles S. Dutton as the tough Sheriff Walls and Chris Cooper as the (accidentally) one-legged deputy. And then there’s Sandra Bullock as law student and sexy assistant Ellen Roark. When I was younger, I was really irritated that Jake and Ellen didn’t take advantage of that insane sexual chemistry they had. As I’ve gotten older, I really appreciate the restraint given their relationship. It’s super easy for two sexy actors to have sexy sex in a movie; infidelity is like a go-to plot twist in films of every genre. But for two characters to be attracted to each other and to want to have sex but to not because it would be wrong? That is a rarity, and I find it all the more commendable for that reason.
Of course, this being a John Grisham story, I once again can’t really speak to the plausibility of the legal things that occur. It seems to me a lawyer can’t throw an elbow to a guy’s face even if that guy tried to blow up his house. And if I was the one guy on the jury ready to vote not-guilty when the foreman took an informal poll at the restaurant, I’d probably go to the judge about him using the n-word, which at the very least should get that guy kicked off and might lead to a complete mistrial. And of course, don’t shoot anyone for raping your daughter. I cannot guarantee you’ll get the same outcome as Carl Lee Hailey.
I actually volunteered as a rape crisis advocate several years ago, which amounted to me going to emergency rooms whenever a rape victim came in while I was on call. I would hold their hands and sit with them and listen to them and just be there for them when all the other people (cops, social workers, hospital staff, etc.) had specific jobs to do and couldn’t just be support. I was called in once for two fifteen-year-old girls, one of which asked me to phone her father because she was too embarrassed and humiliated to. I called him up and told him what happened and had to talk him down from killing the boys who did this. I understand the impulse, but trust me: Your daughter will need her father with her, not in jail. If a girl’s dad ends up imprisoned for murdering her rapist, it’ll just be one more thing for her to blame herself for. I know the justice system isn’t perfect, and a lot of times these d-bags go free, but vigilantism is not the answer. Sorry, Carl Lee.
“There ain’t nothin’ more dangerous in this world than a fool with a cause.”
Viable Option 