The Executioner's Song aired over two nights on
NBC in 1982, earning an Emmy nomination for Norman Mailer (for scripting the
adaptation of his own non-fiction book), and an Emmy win for star Tommy Lee
Jones, who played convicted murderer Gary Gilmore. The real Gilmore robbed and
shot two people in July of 1976, the same month that the Supreme Court made the
death penalty viable again. Gilmore demanded to be executed, and his
case became a media sensation, inspiring Saturday Night Live sketches, punk songs,
and, of course, the Mailer book and TV movie. The film The Executioner's
Song
covers that frenzy in brief, but it's primarily a naturalistic character
sketch, divided into two parts: the story of the days leading up to Gilmore's
crime spree, and the story of the days leading up to the firing squad.
In addition to the TV
version, director Lawrence Schiller—a noted photojournalist and the first
man on the scene to secure the rights to Gilmore's story—cut together a
135-minute feature-film version for foreign markets, with rougher language,
more graphic violence, and more overt sexual content. But the uncut version
isn't extraordinarily explicit, and in many ways, the version of The
Executioner's Song
now on DVD is too betwixt-and-between: not long enough to be a fully realized
portrait of a time and place, and not rough enough to deliver the full impact
of Gilmore's crimes, or the price he paid for them. Still, Jones is riveting in
his breakout role, playing Gilmore as a petulant, easily heartbroken little
boy, just looking for a hug. Also strong, early in their careers: Rosanna
Arquette as Gilmore's jiggly welfare-queen girlfriend, and Christine Lahti as
his disapproving cousin. (After Lahti turns him in to the police, she hardens
as she says, "You committed a murder on Monday and a murder on Tuesday… I
wasn't about to wait around 'til Wednesday.")
Mostly though, what
resonates about The Executioner's Song are the stark Utah landscapes, the twangy
country soundtrack, and the way Jones reacts to the string of petty indignities
imposed on his character. Gilmore's employers, his creditors, his family, and
his friends treat him like an incompetent, harmless screw-up, and it says
something about the way he internalizes their disdain that when he finally
picks up a gun, he doesn't point it at the ones who hurt him most.
Key features: None.