{"id":1469,"date":"2007-11-15T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2007-11-15T09:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html"},"modified":"2007-11-15T09:00:14","modified_gmt":"2007-11-15T09:00:14","slug":"pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPierrepoint\u201d: My Other DVD Pick This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, my DVD choices this week reveal the variety in my movie tastes as well as perhaps the scattered, unstable nature of my brain. While I laughed myself silly watching \u201cChalk\u201d, I was deeply, emotionally disturbed as I watched \u201cPierrepoint<\/a>\u201d, a gripping drama about capital punishment. Stylish yet gruesome, \u201cPierrepoint\u201d examines the life of England\u2019s last official hangman, Albert Pierrepoint<\/a>, as he tries to separate his life from his work, with his soul ultimately paying the price. \u201cPierrepoint\u201d is not for the faint of heart, but it is my other DVD pick for this week.<\/p>\n


\nAlbert Pierrepoint is not an evil man or a blood-thirsty one, either. He is simply a grocery delivery man before he is convinced to step into the shoes of his father and uncle by becoming an executioner. However, Albert exceeds at his job above and beyond those family members before him. He’s calm, steady, efficient, and humane as he analyzes the height and weight requirements for each and every hanging. He doesn\u2019t tell his wife what he does for a living at first, and he is detached and aloof from his co-workers. The implication seems to be that if he can just compartmentalize his unsavory occupation from the rest of his life, he won\u2019t be scarred by it. In the end, this just isn\u2019t the case, even as he participates in hangings of Nazi war criminals, his life is deeply affected by the culture of death that surrounds him.
\nI don’t suppose a movie like “Pierrepoint” will do much to advance the moral debate over capital punishment, in the same way I am not sure that a movie like ‘Vera Drake'” really furthers a debate about abortion, but it is a fascinating character study, all the more powerful if examined in light of the death penalty in our present culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, my DVD choices this week reveal the variety in my movie tastes as well as perhaps the scattered, unstable nature of my brain. While I laughed myself silly watching \u201cChalk\u201d, I was deeply, emotionally disturbed as I watched \u201cPierrepoint\u201d, a gripping drama about capital punishment. Stylish yet gruesome, \u201cPierrepoint\u201d examines the life of England\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvds"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cPierrepoint\u201d: My Other DVD Pick This Week<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cPierrepoint\u201d: My Other DVD Pick This Week\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yes, my DVD choices this week reveal the variety in my movie tastes as well as perhaps the scattered, unstable nature of my brain. While I laughed myself silly watching \u201cChalk\u201d, I was deeply, emotionally disturbed as I watched \u201cPierrepoint\u201d, a gripping drama about capital punishment. Stylish yet gruesome, \u201cPierrepoint\u201d examines the life of England\u2019s…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-15T09:00:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kris Rasmussen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u201cPierrepoint\u201d: My Other DVD Pick This Week","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\u201cPierrepoint\u201d: My Other DVD Pick This Week","og_description":"Yes, my DVD choices this week reveal the variety in my movie tastes as well as perhaps the scattered, unstable nature of my brain. While I laughed myself silly watching \u201cChalk\u201d, I was deeply, emotionally disturbed as I watched \u201cPierrepoint\u201d, a gripping drama about capital punishment. Stylish yet gruesome, \u201cPierrepoint\u201d examines the life of England\u2019s…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2007-11-15T09:00:14+00:00","author":"Kris Rasmussen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html","name":"\u201cPierrepoint\u201d: My Other DVD Pick This Week","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-11-15T09:00:14+00:00","dateModified":"2007-11-15T09:00:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/667195b00ac2263e0f6700056170bbf8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/pierrepoint-my-other-dvd-pick.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"\u201cPierrepoint\u201d: My Other DVD Pick This Week"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/667195b00ac2263e0f6700056170bbf8","name":"Kris Rasmussen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e7\/2e7278d93dd11c6aad2c82da37f0d657x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e7\/2e7278d93dd11c6aad2c82da37f0d657x96.jpg","caption":"Kris Rasmussen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/krasmussen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}