Film ReviewsThere Will Be No Stay
Jul 24, 2015 Anchorage Press
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The definition of a stay is the act of temporarily stopping a judicial proceeding. There are two kinds of stays, a stay of proceedings and a stay of an execution. In the feature-length documentary, There Will Be No Stay, it refers to the latter. A stay of execution refers to a halt in the execution of a death penalty, and is usually the last real hope an inmate can have before meeting death at the hand of the state.
There Will Be No Stay has a lot going for it; it's strong and compelling, with a unique vantage point. While media around executions tends to focus on the perpetrators of the crime and/or the victims, this documentary focuses on the executioners themselves, exploring the emotional and psychological impact executing another human being has on the lives of the men and women who work in the system.
The film was directed and narrated by Patty Anne Dillon, and as a first documentary, the work is captivating. There Will Be No Stay moves at a fast pace and covers a lot of ground, some of it well, and some of it sloppily, but in the end what makes the documentary worth watching is the personal accounts of Craig "Bax" Baxley and Terry Bracey, two former South Carolina executioners, as well as the supporting narratives by Rev. Caroll Pickett, Warden Allen Ault, and Anchorage's Bill Pelke, the grandson of a murder victim. Their stories, with the exception of Pelke's, intersect in the act of execution, in which they all play different roles but each is just as responsible as the other in taking human life.
As There Will Be No Stay successfully illustrates, the impact of executing a human being-regardless of the severity of the crime-has a far reaching and detrimental effect on the lives of the people who work in the Department of Corrections system, and subsequently on their health and lives. Not only are the individuals negatively impacted, but their families, children, friends and society at large are worse because of it. The metamorphoses that executioners experience makes them unable to lead healthy lives, and this often results in suicides, divorces, personal violence, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. This intangible loss to society is never part of the cost associated with the economics of capital punishment, but perhaps it should be.
Dillon does a great job presenting the heart of the matter, from personal experiences to conversations and dilemmas that face society when it chooses to implement state executions rather than imposing life sentences without parole.
The people interviewed in the film have intimate beliefs and thoughts about how fragile their own humanity is, they are eloquent and frank; the pain with which they struggle transcends the screen to connect with the viewer's compassion. This makes Dillion's own narration-outside of facts and figures-superfluous. Dillion takes it upon herself to wax poetically and make grand statements which are a pale imitation of the life experiences conveyed by those who have actually experienced what it is to have killing someone as a job.
For all the important information that is given in There Will Be No Stay, the film does a poor job of setting up capital punishment in the context of history, economics, and even the legal frame work of both the death penalty and the lawsuit that Baxley and Bracey engaged in against the State of South Carolina. The filmmaker presents their case with shots of news articles that go by too fast for viewers to read; the two men make reference to the case, but there is a lack of substantial information given to acquaint the viewers with the details of the case or the rationale of Court's decision against the men. Unfortunately There Will Be No Stay does not provide balance and does not give viewers an opportunity to question their own beliefs. It's a slam-dunk if viewers already oppose the death penalty; and outside of providing emotional insight for those that do support it, the film will likely not change many minds.
There Will Be No Stay is more of a point of departure for a larger dialogue in society than it is a conclusive point for understanding how society has arrived at the practice of the death penalty. The men interviewed live with the consequences of working as executioners in varying capacities, what is amazing is how they arrive at similar conclusions about the practice from different paths. It is their process of untangling the systematic, religious, and personal conflicts that gives There Will Be No Stay an important place in the overall conversation.
There Will Be No Stay shows at Bear Tooth on Monday, July 27 at 5:30 p.m.
There Will Be No Stay has a lot going for it; it's strong and compelling, with a unique vantage point. While media around executions tends to focus on the perpetrators of the crime and/or the victims, this documentary focuses on the executioners themselves, exploring the emotional and psychological impact executing another human being has on the lives of the men and women who work in the system.
The film was directed and narrated by Patty Anne Dillon, and as a first documentary, the work is captivating. There Will Be No Stay moves at a fast pace and covers a lot of ground, some of it well, and some of it sloppily, but in the end what makes the documentary worth watching is the personal accounts of Craig "Bax" Baxley and Terry Bracey, two former South Carolina executioners, as well as the supporting narratives by Rev. Caroll Pickett, Warden Allen Ault, and Anchorage's Bill Pelke, the grandson of a murder victim. Their stories, with the exception of Pelke's, intersect in the act of execution, in which they all play different roles but each is just as responsible as the other in taking human life.
As There Will Be No Stay successfully illustrates, the impact of executing a human being-regardless of the severity of the crime-has a far reaching and detrimental effect on the lives of the people who work in the Department of Corrections system, and subsequently on their health and lives. Not only are the individuals negatively impacted, but their families, children, friends and society at large are worse because of it. The metamorphoses that executioners experience makes them unable to lead healthy lives, and this often results in suicides, divorces, personal violence, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. This intangible loss to society is never part of the cost associated with the economics of capital punishment, but perhaps it should be.
Dillon does a great job presenting the heart of the matter, from personal experiences to conversations and dilemmas that face society when it chooses to implement state executions rather than imposing life sentences without parole.
The people interviewed in the film have intimate beliefs and thoughts about how fragile their own humanity is, they are eloquent and frank; the pain with which they struggle transcends the screen to connect with the viewer's compassion. This makes Dillion's own narration-outside of facts and figures-superfluous. Dillion takes it upon herself to wax poetically and make grand statements which are a pale imitation of the life experiences conveyed by those who have actually experienced what it is to have killing someone as a job.
For all the important information that is given in There Will Be No Stay, the film does a poor job of setting up capital punishment in the context of history, economics, and even the legal frame work of both the death penalty and the lawsuit that Baxley and Bracey engaged in against the State of South Carolina. The filmmaker presents their case with shots of news articles that go by too fast for viewers to read; the two men make reference to the case, but there is a lack of substantial information given to acquaint the viewers with the details of the case or the rationale of Court's decision against the men. Unfortunately There Will Be No Stay does not provide balance and does not give viewers an opportunity to question their own beliefs. It's a slam-dunk if viewers already oppose the death penalty; and outside of providing emotional insight for those that do support it, the film will likely not change many minds.
There Will Be No Stay is more of a point of departure for a larger dialogue in society than it is a conclusive point for understanding how society has arrived at the practice of the death penalty. The men interviewed live with the consequences of working as executioners in varying capacities, what is amazing is how they arrive at similar conclusions about the practice from different paths. It is their process of untangling the systematic, religious, and personal conflicts that gives There Will Be No Stay an important place in the overall conversation.
There Will Be No Stay shows at Bear Tooth on Monday, July 27 at 5:30 p.m.