Constance Harraway, and Kate Winslet as the popular journalist from a major news magazine, Bitsey Bloom ("The Life of David Gale" All Movie Guide). I viewed this film in its entirety in DVD format on my notebook computer at work during the a.m. hours in March of 2005. This fictional drama-thriller suggests the faults in the capital punishment policy. The film challenges to manner a murder mystery with deep idealistic thoughts on capital punishment, life 's purpose, and one 's profound suffrage for a cause. Dr. David Gale is a well established professor, author, and head of the philosophy department at University of Austin. He was also an active member of an anti-death penalty activist group called Deathwatch. The group is a fictional one but not uncommon to real life. There are present day activist groups similar to this one is Austin as well as around the country. The professor 's life is turned upside down after a former student falsely accuses him of rape, latter regretting it, and his wife files for divorce and moves her and their son to Spain to live with her lover. After losing his position, reputation, and family he turns to alcohol for relief. When he seems to have hit bottom he is arrested and convicted for the rape and murder of his close friend Constance and sentenced to death. With only a few days until execution David requests an interview with a popular journalist named Bitsey Bloom. After receiving some mysterious evidence she is left with only days to uncover the truth about his innocence.
Although the film is a fictional one, it does address a real issue in the air presently: Should capital punishment be abolished? Whether one 's for or against it, this movie should make one think about the issue but it tends to go a little further then it should. The script is way too slick to dignify Bitsey 's delusions or David 's professed idealism. The director never manages to conceal the method of deception that underbids this guilt-tripped story. Mostly the characters
were fictional in a real environment of politics in Texas. President Bush is depicted in the film as Texas Governor Hardin on a fictional television show debating capital punishment with David Gale (Arnold).
The film The Life of David Gale takes place in modern day Texas. David Gale was a professor at the University of Austin, which was a substituted for the University of Texas at Austin. It was filmed on location so the setting was really accurate for the campus scenes and the houses were represented true to the Austin area as well sighting the old houses in that community. Even the taxicab company, Roy 's Taxi, was exact to the local businesses. The protests on campus and at the Capital Building were typical of what one might see regularly in the city of Austin. The city of Huntsville is placed in East Texas north of Houston. It is a relatively small town with a huge prison system sprawled out within the piney wooded area with two-lane bare roads connecting the different facilities. I have visited this particular penitentiary and would have to declare that this film truly depicted what its like to enter such an institution as the Huntsville Penitentiary.
Bibliography and Works Cited
Arnold, Gary. " 'David Gale ' limps over death debate.." The Washington Times 21 Feb 2003. 10 Mar 2005 http://web4.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/769/637/64007519w4/purl=rc14_SP00_1_gary+arnold+david+gale________________________________________________________
___&dyn=sig!8?sw_aep=txshracd2497
"Death Penalty Fact Sheet." Death Penalty Information Center. 10 Mar. 2005 .
"The Life of David Gale." All Movie Guide. 10 Mar 2005
Bibliography: and Works Cited Arnold, Gary. " 'David Gale ' limps over death debate.." The Washington Times 21 Feb 2003. 10 Mar 2005 http://web4.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/769/637/64007519w4/purl=rc14_SP00_1_gary+arnold+david+gale________________________________________________________ ___&dyn=sig!8?sw_aep=txshracd2497 "Death Penalty Fact Sheet." Death Penalty Information Center. 10 Mar. 2005 . "The Life of David Gale." All Movie Guide. 10 Mar 2005
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