"And as the hour approached for the execution, in his own mind, Collins became both the executioner and the victim. He would pace up and down, transformed in almost a kind of exorcism when he knew he was responsible for taking someone's life"
About this Quote
Right before an execution, Liam Neeson sketches a psychological split so vivid it feels like a camera trick: Collins becomes "both the executioner and the victim". It’s not poetic flourish; it’s a way of naming what state power requires from the people who carry it out. The body doing the killing has to stay functional, but the mind can’t simply file the act under "procedure" without paying a price. So the psyche improvises a doubling: if you can inhabit the condemned man’s terror while tightening the noose, you’re not a monster, you’re a human being trapped inside an institutional role.
"Exorcism" is the tell. Neeson isn’t saying Collins is merely anxious; he’s describing something like spiritual contamination, as if killing on behalf of the law brings a presence into you that must be paced out, sweated out, ritualized away. The pacing reads like a secular prayer - movement as penance, motion as a bid for cleanliness. That’s why the line "responsible for taking someone's life" lands harder than "doing his job". Responsibility implies choice, even when the state provides the script.
Coming from an actor, the intent is also meta: Neeson is articulating how a performer enters a character built on contradiction. Collins is "transformed" not into a villain, but into a site of moral conflict. The subtext presses the audience toward discomfort: executions don’t only end one life; they recruit others into violence, then ask them to live with it.
"Exorcism" is the tell. Neeson isn’t saying Collins is merely anxious; he’s describing something like spiritual contamination, as if killing on behalf of the law brings a presence into you that must be paced out, sweated out, ritualized away. The pacing reads like a secular prayer - movement as penance, motion as a bid for cleanliness. That’s why the line "responsible for taking someone's life" lands harder than "doing his job". Responsibility implies choice, even when the state provides the script.
Coming from an actor, the intent is also meta: Neeson is articulating how a performer enters a character built on contradiction. Collins is "transformed" not into a villain, but into a site of moral conflict. The subtext presses the audience toward discomfort: executions don’t only end one life; they recruit others into violence, then ask them to live with it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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