This movie has become one of my all time favorites. It features Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. It was directed by Frank Darabont.
Andy Dufresne (Robbins) is a quiet innocent man who is convicted for the murder of his wife and her lover. He is sent to Shawshank prison, a place where "every man is innocent." There, his true innocence shields him from demoralizing prison life. He makes accomplishments within the system and in spite of the system. He makes many friends, including his best friend Red (Freeman).
(Spoiler Alert!!!)
This is a rich movie. The first thing I notice most are all the connections. Everything that happens in the movie is brought back in the middle or the end. The rock hammer snuck into prison for Dufresne is cleverly forgotten, only to be made the prime tool of Andy's escape, contradicting the earlier claim by red that "it would take a man 600 years to carve through the walls with that thing." The warden admires Dufresne for his knowledge of the bible, but never opens the book. On their first meeting, he casually says "Salvation lies within." Natural this is brought back as the place of concealment for Andy's rock hammer.
The movie even uses connections to explain parts of the movie that may not make sense. For instance, Andy's character is not the type to pine over beautiful actresses and models, yet he asks for posters of models every decade of his stay. The posters are eventually found to have covered the hole in Andy's prison wall. His love of geology and desire to carve chess pieces are the reason behind his knowledge of escape. Finally the non-existent man Andy creates as a front for the Warden's financial cheating, becomes Andy's disguise.
Shawshank has an intricate plot that shows the development of many relationships. It takes Andy through many completely different stages of prison life. He starts as the new guy, wanting to feel normal and get his inmates some beer. He goes through some rough first years, getting raped by the "sisters." He then becomes liked by the guards and starts to influence their financial life, leaving his laundry room den and becoming a librarian. Finally when he has built up his library and made him self part of the prison, he finds a way to prove his innocence. By then he has become so valuable to the warden that the warden sabotages any chance at freedom. From their his prison life comes spiraling back down, this time made rough by those on the outside. Finally he becomes an escapee, literally crawling through shit to get to his salvation.
A lot of my own knowledge of prisons were triggered by the Shawshank Redemption. They based their characters largely on criminals that existed in real life. For instance Brooks is nursing a baby sparrow or raven when the movie starts. By the end the bird is fully grown and one his only forms of company in the pre-intervention prison library. This character relates to the Birdman of Alcatraz, a criminal who had a movie made about his life that predated Shawshank. http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/stroud.htm
This movie also reminded me of Zimbardo's prison experiment. The unnecessarily rough guard was well thought out, although the prisoners were much less rebellious. http://www.prisonexp.org/
The Shawshank Redemption is just one of those good movies. Half comedy, half drama, half feel good, half feel infuriated at the injustices done.
Final Rating: 4.9
2 comments:
I liked this film, but God's gift to cinema it was not. I don't know why I feel that way. I suppose that, for me, everything just worked out too well in the end -- all the pieces of the puzzle coming together in such an unbelievable fashion that it kind of took me out of the reality of the film. Still though, I must say, a very high quality film.
There's a reason why The Shawshank Redemption is up so high on IMDB's list. It really is an incredible film, deeply moving and wonderfully told. Every bit of dialogue and narration is absolutely perfect. Great film.
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