A Time to Kill

When Carl Lee killed two men for raping and attempting to kill his daughter, he was arrested and faced a trial. If he lost there was a chance that he could get sentenced to death. Director Joel Schumacher made the audience feel sorry for Carl Lee and his daughter so that the audience felt that Carl-Lee shouldn’t be prosecuted, he did this by making the two men look really evil and his daughter very vulnerable.

The Ku Klux Klan was involved in the film because they want Carl Lee dead and to be proved guilty, they were there when the trials were going on, and they caused trouble by shouting and throwing things outside. Another main issue that the film deals with is how wrong people were because if the jury was to be white then Carl Lee would not get a fair trial, they wanted to change the location to a place where they thought they would have a better chance but the judge said no.

Jake Brigance was at risk for defending Carl Lee because most people weren’t on his side and the Ku Klux Klan would be after him and his family. Another main issue is the rape, it affects the whole of the Hailey family especially Carl Lee and his daughter, the two men that killed his daughter, (Billie- Ray Cobb and Pete Willard) treated his daughter in a disgusting way this made every one feel really angry and ruined the little girl’s life, and she was only ten. The rape scene is what the whole film is based on and it makes every one hate the two men from the beginning and feel bad for Car Lee Hailey.

In the scene we are focusing on, Cobb and Willard are in jail and it starts of with the sheriff telling the two men that if there is any trouble he is going to integrate the prison. Meaning that he is going to put the two men in with the black men, they would most likely get beaten because of the rape.

After this, music comes on, it is a spiritual song “Take My Hand, Oh precious Lord”. Then it is them walking into the court house they are just about to walk through when you see Carl Lee, all you can see at first is his eye looking at them, he closes his eyes, which shows he is scared and runs with a gun. He shoots the two men and accidentally shoots sheriff Looney in the leg and later has to have his leg amputated. When Carl Lee is running everything is in slow motion this adds to the effect as does the music. Every one drops to the floor scared and screaming but the screams aren’t heard well because of the music. After this scene you see Jake Brigance arrive to his house covered in blood because he tried to rescue the sheriff. You hear his daughter say “Daddy”s home’ and she sits on the step outside of his house.

This is a very significant secne because it is when Cobb and Willard are killed by Carl-Lee this has an effect on the rest of the film. It cinematic features make it seem really important because of the slow motion and all of the different shots. The music adds to the tension because it makes you think about what has happened to the little girl and what is happening at the time of the scene. It as frames and is minutes long.

In this scene the differences between John Grishams novel “A Time To Kill” and the film are that in a novel you can’t make it slow motion so you have to describe to the audience which is what Grisham has done. He described the room so well and all of the tension and the people in it so that you can really imagine it. And it is also different because Looney doesn’t crawl up the stairs and there isn’t blood every where.

I think that Joel Schumacher has decided not to have so much blood in the scene because it looks less like Carl Lee is the bad person, he wants ever one to feel for him. I think that both of the scenes are very effective in different ways because you can’t have music and slow motion in a book but you can still have the effects of good description and imagination. I think Joel chose to use slow motion in the film because he couldn’t use words to describe the scene.