The Executioner's Song (film) this work. "Time Out- London" said about the film's performances: "Jones (playing Gilmore) goes his own fascinating route to the loser's nirvana without recourse to psycho-style tics, while strong character performances from Arquette and Lahti constantly shift the focus back towards the everyday straitjacket of Utah underdogs." The Executioner's Song (film) The Executioner's Song is a 1982 made-for-television film adaptation of Norman Mailer's 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The film is directed by Lawrence Schiller from a screenplay by Mailer. The movie is about the final nine months of the life of Gary Gilmore, beginning with his
Death-Song of Conan the Cimmerian consists of nine seven-line stanzas in a modified ballad measure, rhyming A-B-A-B-A-A-B. It's told from the point of view of Conan, reflecting on his life and setting forth his personal philosophy as his death approaches. Conan relishes his memories of the life he has led and the friends he has made even as he feels the bite of mortality. Power and material gain, for which he has striven all his life, are acknowledged as ephemeral: "They crumble into clods." He faces his death unflinchingly, pairing life's hard-won pleasures with the ravages of age and extinction in an almost off-hand fashion,