Title: The Shawshank Redemption
Writer: Stephen King & Frank Darabont
Director: Frank Darabont
Major Actors: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman & Bob Gunton
Release Year: 1994
The Shawshank Redemption was a major motion picture released in 1994, adapted from the book written by Stephen King titled, “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, published in 1982 in a book containing many other short stories by King (goodreads.com, 2015).
The setting is the Shawshank Prison located in Maine, USA. Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) is jailed for the murder of his wife and her lover, though Dufresne maintains his innocence throughout his stay at the prison. Dufresne becomes friends with fellow inmate Ellis Redding (played by Morgan Freeman), who goes by the nickname Red. The movie chronicles the challenges that Dufresne faces as he tries to adapt to the taxing life of prison as well as the relationships he makes along the way (primarily with Red). Dufresne is one of the few inmates who was educated and successful outside of prison (he was a banker prior to being sentenced to prison). He begins helping other inmates and eventually earns the trust of Warden Sam Norton (played by Bob Gunton). During this time Andy becomes aware of money laundering occurring under Warden Gunton’s direction.
The film also focuses on the lives of some of the other inmates. One of note is that of the prison librarian, Brooks Halten. Brooks becomes more and more fearful of the end of his sentence as he is faced with trying to adjust to life outside of his cell. He is so afraid that he threatens the life of another inmate just so that he can avoid being paroled. The parole board ends up approving Brooks’ parole, but Brooks quickly commits suicide after the film shows how he will be unable to make the adjustment to life outside of prison.
Eventually Andy is made aware of a witness to the crime he was sent to prison for. However, Warden Norton, well aware that Andy is privy to the crimes he’s committing, denies even considering Andy’s new information. Andy had been working on an escape tunnel and ends up successfully escaping Shawshank. After this, through some very careful planning, Andy succeeds in revealing all of the corruption that had been occurring at the Shawshank Prison.
This film was presented in Chronological fashion. In my opinion, presenting this film chronologically was the perfect choice. The reason that Andy was in prison needed to be established early on. The end of the movie involved a little bit of a different play on this though as the focus was on Andy’s actions to expose the corruption. The director used cut-away scenes to highlight the goings-on at the prison as a result of the crimes Andy revealed. Regardless, unless an audience member read the book, the film was not very predictable. There could have been many eventualities and Andy’s escape was, for him, a huge victory, resulting in his “redemption” when after exposing the warden.
My favorite scene follows (“…every last man at shawshank felt free.”)
References:
goodreads.com, (2015). Different Seasons. Retrieved from: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39662.Different_Seasons
imdb.com, (2015). The Shawshank Redemption. Retrieved from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161
youtube.com (2015). The Shawshank Redemption Opera Scene. Retreived from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzuM2XTnpSA
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