Plot
During the latest of many imprisonments for burglary, Panzram (James Woods) forms an uneasy friendship with prison guard Henry Lesser (Robert Sean Leonard). Panzram asks Lesser for writing equipment and proceeds to write his life story, in which he confesses to several murders.
After recounting his life of homicide and crime, and refusing to apologise for any of it, Panzram ends up beating to death a prison trustee, and is sentenced to death. Lesser tries to convince the condemned man to appeal by claiming insanity, but Panzram stubbornly refuses, and in one scene makes his hatred of his own existence clear to Lesser by angrily declaring "I want out of this body, I want out of this life!"
In the end, Panzram gets his wish and is hanged. In his last hours he steadfastly refuses to appeal for clemency and even chases away a priest who comes to hear his confession.
Despite showing obvious disgust at Panzram's crimes, Lesser is troubled by Panzram's death. Throughout the movie, Lesser's relationship with his wife Esther (Cara Buono) is briefly touched upon. It is to her he confides his experiences with dealing with Panzram's violent and nihilistic outlook on life, although she has difficulty understanding the people her husband must deal with in his line of work.
Read more about this topic: Killer: A Journal Of Murder
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“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
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Our bodies are weak and worn;
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