Monster's Ball is a 2001 film, directed by Marc Forster, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry and Heath Ledger. It was written by Milo Addica and Will Rokos. Halle Berry won an Academy Award for Best Actress for the character of Letitia Musgrove.
The title comes from the custom in mediaeval England of calling prisoners awaiting execution "monsters". The night before their execution, their jailers would hold a feast known as a monster's ball as their farewell.
Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton ), a widower, and his son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), are corrections officers in the local prison. They reside in Louisiana with Hank's ailing father, an unwavering racist whose wife committed suicide. Hank's hateful attitude toward others, strongly influenced by his father, extends to his father, his son, and members of the neighboring community.
As Hank and Sonny assist in the execution of a convicted murderer, the proceedings prove too intense for Sonny, who collapses and then begins to vomit as he is leading Lawrence to the electric chair. Hank beats Sonny up in the jail's bathroom afterwards.
Some time later, Hank drags Sonny out of bed and tells him to get out of the house. Unable to cope with the estrangement, Sonny grabs a gun. The confrontation ends in their living room with Hank at gunpoint, lying on the carpet, and Sonny in Buck's customary chair. Sonny asks his father, "You hate me, don't you?" After his father calmly confirms that he does and always has, Sonny responds, "Well, I always loved you," and then shoots himself. Hank subsequently buries Sonny in the back garden, quits his job at the prison, burns his uniform in the backyard, and locks the door of Sonny's room up tightly. Buck calls him a quitter.
During the years of the executed prisoner's incarceration, his wife Leticia (Halle Berry) has been struggling while raising their son, who has inherited his father's artistic talent, but is also morbidly obese. Along with her domestic problems, Leticia struggles financially, leading to the loss of the family car and, worse, an eviction notice on her house. In desperate need of money, Leticia takes a job at a diner frequented by Hank.
One rainy night, Leticia and her son are walking down a soaked highway when he is struck by a car. Leticia is left helpless on the side of the road, grasping her son and calling out to passing motorists, all of whom drive past. Hank happens to be driving along and sees Leticia cradling her mortally injured son. He initially drives past, like the cars before him, but then turns around, picks Leticia and Tyrell, the son up, and takes them to a hospital, but Tyrell dies upon arrival and Hank lends his shoulder for Leticia to cry on. At the suggestion of the authorities at the hospital, he drives her home. A few days later, Hank gives Leticia a ride home from the diner and after they begin talking in the car and discover their common loss of their sons, she invites him in and they drown their grief with alcohol. They begin a relationship initially based on sex and relief from loneliness but which later becomes emotionally supportive. Hank finds out that Leticia is Lawrence's widow, but he does not tell her that he participated in her husband's execution.
Leticia stops by Hank's home with a present for him. Hank is not home, but the father, Buck is. Buck insults Leticia using raw racist language and implying that Hank is only involved with her because he wants to have sex with a black woman. She responds by rejecting Hank. This incident proves to be the last straw for Hank and he decides to send his father to a nursing home; it is implied that Hank will cut him out of his life as well.
Leticia is evicted from her home for non-payment of rent and Hank invites her to move in with him. She agrees and later discovers Hank's involvement in her husband's death while he is gone but is there waiting for him when he returns from town with ice cream. At first she looks dazed but gradually she seems to cheer up. As they sit on the porch, eating ice cream and gazing up at the stars, Hank says, "I think we're going to be all right." Leticia smiles, but does not reply.
Academy Awards Best Actress: Halle Berry (Winner)
Best Original Screenplay: Milo Addica & Will Rokos (Nominated)
BAFTA Awards Best Actress: Halle Berry (Nominated)
Black Reel Awards Best Actress: Halle Berry (Winner)
Golden Globes Best Actress in a Drama: Halle Berry (Nominated)
MTV Movie Awards Best Female Performance: Halle Berry (Nominated)
National Board of Review Best Actor: Billy Bob Thornton (Winner)
Best Actress: Halle Berry (Winner)
Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Halle Berry (Winner)
Wikipedia
Quotes from Monster's Ball
Sonny Grotowski: You hate me. You hate me, don't you? Answer me! You hate me don't you!
Hank Grotowski: Yes, I hate you. Always have.
Sonny Grotowski: Well I've always loved you.
Hank Grotowski: I wanna take care of you.
Leticia Musgrove: Good. Cuz' I need to be taken care of.
Lawrence Musgrove: I'm a bad man.
Tyrell Musgrove: Who says?
Lawrence Musgrove: I do.
Buck Grotowski: Who are you?
Leticia Musgrove: Um...
Buck Grotowski: You just walked in my house.
Leticia Musgrove: My bad. I thought...
Buck Grotowski: Hank? You lookin' for Hank?
Leticia Musgrove: Yes. Is he here?
Buck Grotowski: Who are you?
Leticia Musgrove: My name is Leticia Musgrove... and, uh... me and Hank is, uh... friends.
Buck Grotowski: Musgrove? Please, little darlin', have you got a cigarette?
Leticia Musgrove: Yeah, but it looks to me like you really don't need to be smoking.
Hank Grotowski: I went by our station on the way home... I like that sign. I think we're gonna be alright.
Hank Grotowski: What's that? Some kinda... some kinda annual... school annual or something?"
Leticia Musgrove: Make me feel good.
Ms. Guillermo: You must love him very much.
Hank Grotowski: No, I don't. But he's my father. So, there it is.
Hank Grotowski: Let's get this over quick.
Minister: is there a passage you'd like me to read?
Hank Grotowski: No, all I wanna hear is dirt hit that box.
Buck Grotowski: What the hell those niggers doing out there?
Buck Grotowski: Damn porch monkeys! Your mother, she hated them niggers too.
Buck Grotowski: You ain't no man till you split dark oak.
Lawrence Musgrove: I've always believed that a portrait captures a person far better than a photograph. It truly takes a human being to really see a human being.
[last lines]
Hank Grotowski: I think we're gonna be alright.
Warden Velesco: Lawrence Musgrove, do you have anything you'd like to say?
Lawrence Musgrove: [after a pause he shakes his head] Push da button.
Amera Ziganii Rao. A Profile
WRITER. ESOTERIC. PHILOSOPHER. ENLIGHTENER. INSPIRER. PHOTOGRAPHER. ARTIST
Amera Ziganii Rao is a philosophical writer, essayist, social commentator, prose writer, dramatist and photographer as well as a consciousness explorer, self actualiser and emotional healer. She is a former hard news journalist who is now turning professional with her art forms and indeed, her healing forms, after a long journey of inner searching, self teaching and exploring many layers and areas of both craft and wisdom. She is now working on her first book of philosophy and esoteric thought, and social and cultural commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is 46 years old and currently lives in London.
AMERA ZIGANII RAO SCHOOL OF LEARNING
Writer and Enlightener, Amera Ziganii Rao, is now putting together a comprehensive and unique programme of Education For Liberation. Liberation of the lower mind into the higher mind, the soul and the inner heart and therefore one's true, confident, happy, successful, creative, sexual, sensual, individual, intelligent, emotionally healed, capable of loving and being loved self. Based on her scholarly and non scholarly work over 14 years, if not for her whole life, and her extensive and intense, visceral experiences of self transformation from resignation, cynicism and despair to a state of bliss, the courses will cover the method of change. The psychological, sociological, spiritual, cultural, political, emotional and physical and even anthropological methods of change. Why we are here. The meaning of life, no less. This will be on offer in the near future, in the form of online courses and live events, to begin with. Thank you
AMERA ZIGANII RAO SCHOOL OF LEARNING ll
In the meantime, please enjoy this website. I have included many of the subjects I am covering, areas of experience and insight that I will be exploring to the fullest in my book, the courses and all the other work that is to come as a dramatist, novelist and essayist. I also of course, include many of the wise people on this planet, who have come long before me; authors, screen dramatists, playwrights, film makers, artists, and other enlighteners and grand carriers of the wisdom I have found the most helpful on my journey, to find peace and become enlightened. The seemingly impossible journey, in the face of oneself and one’s circumstances. People who have contributed massively to my healing on this mad journey called life. People who have helped to make me as good a carrier of wisdom as I in turn, can be. Thank you.
Amera Ziganii Rao ©
Esoteric. Self Actualiser. Consciousness Explorer. Philosophical Writer. Essayist. Dramatist. Prose Writer. Photographer. Film & TV Creative. Entrepreneur. Ex-Journalist.
Other Links
Amera Ziganii Rao. A Profile ll
http://ameraziganiirao.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/amera-ziganii-rao-profile-ll.html
Amera Ziganii Rao Photography
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ziganiirao/
http://ameraziganiiraoart.blogspot.co.uk/
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