The Shawshank Redemption
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The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 movie, written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The film stars Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman as Ellis "Red" Redding.
This movie is primarily about Andy Dufresne's life in prison after being convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover. Despite grossing hardly any money in the theaters, The Shawshank Redemption enjoyed a remarkable life on home video and DVD. It has rapidly gone on to be recognized as one of the most beloved, inspirational, and popular movies ever made.
The Shawshank Redemption has repeatedly been voted by users of the Internet Movie Database as one of the greatest movies ever made. According to the database [Top 250 Movies of All Time], it is one of only two movies with at least a 9.1 average rating (the other being The Godfather). Rated over 200,000 times, it has the most votes of any of the 250 movies on the IMDb list, and had previously secured the #1 position for quite some time. This list is derived from the votes of IMDb registered users.
In the 1994 Academy Awards the movie was nominated for seven awards (Best Picture, Best Actor–Morgan Freeman, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound) but failed to win a single one.
Darabont secured the film adaptation rights in 1987 from Stephen King after impressing the author with his short film adaptation of "The Woman in the Room" in 1983. This is one of the more famous Dollar Deals made by King with aspiring filmmakers.
The film performed poorly in its theatrical run, but it is now one of the most famous examples of a film becoming a major success via the home video market. The poor box office performance was, according to the review on Filmsite.org (see below) partially a result of competition from other films, i.e. Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction and Speed.
Plot
The movie begins with Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) on trial for the murder of his wife and her lover. He is sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank, a fictitious prison in Maine. In Shawshank he eventually befriends Red (Morgan Freeman) and several other prisoners (including Brooks Hatlen, played by James Whitmore).In his first few years in prison, Andy endures injustice and mistreatment by the guards and repeated rapes at the hands of fellow prisoners. Andy's pre-prison, professional life as a banker, and his knowledge of accounting and income taxes brings him to the attention of the captain of the guard, Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown), and eventually, Warden Sam Norton (Bob Gunton). Andy's financial knowledge earns him some freedom from mistreatment, but he also becomes involved in Norton's illegal money-laundering operations.
Time passes, and life goes on for the men. Brooks is eventually released from prison, but after spending over 50 years behind bars, the elderly convict finds that the normal world holds no place for him, and, in a letter to his friends at the prison, declares he's tired of being afraid all the time. "I've decided not to stay," Brooks writes. He then hangs himself in his room.
A young prisoner (Tommy) enters Shawshank in the 1960s, and tells Andy that he has information that could free Andy, or at least get him a new trial. Andy approaches the warden for help, but the warden is unwilling to lose Andy's financial assistance with his illicit schemes, and sends Andy to solitary confinement. While Andy is in solitary, the warden has Tommy killed.
Unknown to everyone, Andy has been working on his escape. Each night he has chipped away at the rock in his cell to form an escape tunnel that eventually leads to a 500-yard-long sewage pipe and freedom. Once outside Andy retrieves all the illegally obtained money he has laundered for the warden and escapes to Zihuatanejo, Mexico. He also sends information to the local newspaper implicating the warden and chief guard. The warden commits suicide before he can be arrested.
Red is eventually paroled and sent to a halfway house (the same used by the late Brooks). While Red is initially as despairing as Brooks, he decides to take Andy up on the offer made to him in prison. Red finds a box, hidden by Andy in a hayfield, that contains enough money for him to leave Maine and join Andy in Mexico.
Differences from the book
On the whole, the film is a faithful adaptation of the Stephen King book. For a general description of the plot, see Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The director's commentary on the special DVD edition explains each change individually. However, there are a number of differences (with some purely oriented towards minimizing the number of characters, or for added effect on the viewers):
- The Indian Normaden that shares Andy's cell for a period does not appear at all in the film.
- The scene where Norton inspects Andy's cell for contraband without finding the rock hammer (and they quote scripture at each other) does not appear in the novella.
- In the novella, the lead guards come and go. In the film, Byron Hadley is the lead guard until the very end.
- Similarly, in the novella, when Andy comes to Shawshank, the warden is a man named Dunahy; he is replaced by a man named Stammas; who is himself replaced by Sam Norton. In the film, Norton is warden throughout.
- In both the film and the novella, Warden Norton has embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars, but in the novella, Norton quietly resigns after Andy's escape whereas, in the film, when Andy escapes and makes Norton's crimes known, Norton commits suicide in his office rather than allow himself to be arrested.
- Red never becomes assistant librarian in the novella.
- Brooks' threatening to cut the throat of another prisoner to avoid being paroled only appears in the film. In both the novella and the film, Brooks is paroled and leaves Shawshank. His suicide soon after leaving prison only occurs in the film.
- In the novella, Williams is transferred to a low-security prison, rather than being killed, in exchange for not talking.
- Red is an Irish-American in the book but in the movie he is black, although when asked by Andy why he is called "Red" he jokingly replies "Maybe it's because I'm Irish."
- The endings are slightly different. The novella ends with Red en route to find Andy in Mexico but not sure that he will, ending with the words "I hope." The movie shows Red finding Andy on the beach in Mexico.
- Andy's escape occurs 9 years earlier, in 1966. In the novella, Andy escaped in 1975.
- In the book, Andy goes through two rock hammers while making his hole. He only uses one in the movie.
- Andy had a small frame and wore gold rimmed spectacles in the novella.
- Andy never gave Red a harmonica, instead polished quartz as cufflinks.
- Hadley retires after a heart attack. The scene where he beats a new 'fish' so badly that he dies after being left in the infirmary over night never happened in the novella.
- The 'record playing' incident never happened in the novella.
- Red and his friends did not give a sack of rocks as a present to Andy in the novella.
- Every year before his escape, Andy buys a bottle of Jack Daniels before his birthday and Christmas. He drinks a few shots and gives it back to Red to pass it around the other inmates. In the movie Andy says he "gave up drinking."
- Andy did not steal warden Norton's shoes in the novella nor did he ask Heywood for a line of rope.
- There was no betting on the new 'fish' in the book.
Cast and credits
Starring:
- Tim Robbins: Andy Dufresne
- Morgan Freeman: Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding
- Bob Gunton: Warden Samuel Norton
- William Sadler: Heywood
- Clancy Brown: Captain Byron Hadley
- Gil Bellows: Tommy Williams
- Mark Rolston: Bogs Diamond
- James Whitmore: Brooks Hatlen
- Jeffrey DeMunn: District Attorney (1946)
- Director: Frank Darabont
- Producer: Niki Marvin
- Screenwriter: Frank Darabont
- Art Director: Peter Lansdown Smith
- Casting: Deborah Aquila
- Cinematographer: Roger Deakins
- Composer: Thomas Newman, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Costume Designer: Elizabeth McBride
- Editor: Richard Francis-Bruce
- Production Designer: Terence Marsh
- Set Decorator: Michael Seirton
- Story: Stephen King
Themes
Hope
A major theme of the film is hope, symbolized in the music, but contained throughout the story of the film (even more so than the novella). Using a subdued messianic motif, Stephen King uses Andy Dufresne to bring hope and redemption to the fallen world of Shawshank Prison and its convicted felons — especially to Red.The character of Brooks is a contrast to Red because the former had become "institutionalized." Red says when discussing Brooks:
- "These prison walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, gets so you depend on them. That's institutionalized. They send you here for life, that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyways."
In fact, Red is headed down the same path as Brooks until Andy changes his course by bringing him hope. Andy is thus Red's redeemer (in the religious sense of the word) because he saves Red from the sad end that Brooks met. In a discussion with Red, Andy links music and hope in a better life:
- "You need music so you don't forget...that there are places in the world that aren't made out of stone. That...there's something inside that they can't get to, that they can't touch, that's yours."
Integrity
Some critics, including Roger Ebert, believe that the integrity of Andy Dufresne is an important theme in the story line, [link] especially in this environment (prison), where integrity is sorely lacking. Andy Dufresne is an individual of amazing integrity (integrity, here, refers to adherence to a code of morality) among a host of individuals without integrity. It is his deep-seated belief in integrity that provides him with the moral fiber to be uniquely distinct from the other characters in the prison. [link] This character trait is absent from both the inmates and the staff of the prison at Shawshank. Many believe that it is his integrity that provides the foundation for Dufresne's hope, persistence, courage, and self-esteem.Christian References
Some critics have interpreted the film as a Christian parable, and indeed some Christian reviewers have referred to it as a film 'true to Christian principles' [link]. The central ideas of redemption through suffering, of escape from sin and of simple honesty, exemplified by Dufresne's embrace of a fisherman's life at the close of the film, seem to point towards a Christian theme. At the same time, the film also cleverly exposes the hollowness of Warden Norton's carefully groomed Christian appearance, a cover for his own immoral comforts.Trivia
- The novella appears in Stephen King's Different Seasons, which also contains The Body, which was made into the film Stand By Me, and Apt Pupil, which was also made into a film by the same name. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption appears under the spring "season" of the book under the heading "Hope springs eternal," which is also the name of a documentary on the special edition DVD. In the Novella "APT PUPIL," Arthur Denker mentions that the banker who helped him buy stocks was named Andy Dufresne.
- The character Andy has some striking (albeit imperfect) parallels to the most famous messianic figure, Jesus of Nazareth. Both are condemned though innocent, both undergo a version of death, resurrection, and ascension, and both bring hope and redemption to their followers. Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine, whereas Andy's first wonder was convincing the guards to give the prisoners beer. After Andy escapes, his friends become like Jesus' twelve apostles, remembering their time with Andy and telling others about him. The warden also exhibits parallels to the hypocritical religious leaders who opposed Jesus. The writer/director Frank Darabont was very gratified by the support for his film from the religious community, and he was pleased that they were not offended by the warden, who was the only explicitly religious character in the film, and that they saw him as the hypocrite he was intended to be. Despite the parallels, Darabont denies any attempt to make a religious film and describes the religious interpretation to be imputed to it rather than intrinsic.
- The song Andy plays over the public address system is a duet from Act III of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) called Che soave zeffiretto ("What a Gentle Breeze"). The recording used was Karl Böhm's 1968 production for Deutsche Grammophon (catalogue number 449 728-2) featuring Gundula Janowitz as the Countess and Edith Mathis as Susanna.
- Red calls Andy's plans for going to Zihuatanejo a "shitty pipedream," foreshadowing Andy's long crawl through the sewer pipes, after which Red says that the innocent Andy "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."
- When the warden opens Andy's Bible, he finds that the rock hammer Andy used to escape was stored starting opposite the title page of the Book of Exodus, which recounts the Israelites' escape from Egypt.
- Names have a special significance in Shawshank. In the first instance, Andy asks after the name of the new prisoner who was bludgeoned to death and is told it does not matter because he is dead and gone. Later, Andy sees that those who had previously stayed in his cell had carved their name in the wall to establish a remembrance. He begins immortalizing his own name in the wall and in the process discovers what would ultimately be his means for escape. Just before Brooks commits suicide, he memorializes his presence in his new prison by carving his name in a wood panel in his half-way house, and on hearing of his death, the prisoners at Shawshank carve Brooks' name into a sign for the library. Before Red leaves to find Andy, he adds his name beside Brooks' in the half-way house, but he is on a far different trajectory from Brooks because he has found hope.
- The Count of Monte Cristo, which includes a prison escape patiently accomplished over the course of many years, was written by Alexander Dumas (mentioned in the film but pronounced "Dumbass" by Heywood), and Andy Dufresne escapes from prison in the movie. Both first names start with the letter "A", and both last names start with the letters "Du" and have a silent "s".
- Shawshank was filmed in and around the city of Mansfield, Ohio, located in north-central Ohio. The prison featured in the film is the old, abandoned Ohio State Reformatory immediately north of downtown Mansfield. The Reformatory buildings have been used in several other films, including Harry and Walter Go to New York, Air Force One and Tango and Cash. Most of the prison yard has now been demolished to make room for expansion of the adjacent Mansfield Correctional Facility, but the Reformatory's Gothic-style ("Castle Dracula") Administration Building remains standing and, due to its prominent use in films, has become a tourist attraction. Several scenes were also shot in Portland, ME.
- The real warden of the Mansfield Correctional Facility had a cameo appearance in Shawshank as the prisoner seated directly behind Tommy on his bus ride to prison.
- Since most of the filming took place in the prison, many of the cast and crew began to feel like real prisoners (compare the Stanford prison experiment). When they had opportunity to shoot outside the prison walls, they described it like a freeing vacation, and director Frank Darabont remembers the days outside as particularly happy.
- The role of Tommy was once earmarked for Brad Pitt.
- The animated series Drawn Together has twice parodied the movie, both times using the Wooldoor Sockbat character as a doppelganger for Brooks Hatlen's character. In "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist, Part II", Wooldoor hangs himself in exactly the same way Brooks did. In "The Lemon-AIDS Walk", after being seized by mall security for stealing candy, Wooldoor finds himself unable to adjust to life on the outside again after being released. Wooldoor's inner monologue about his plight is almost word-for-word the same as what appears in the movie.
- Gil Bellows (Tommy) had never played a major role in a movie, and to help with nervousness, director Frank Darabont advised Bellows to pretend that the other, more experienced actors were naked or in frilly underwear while his character regaled theirs with his story of capture.
- Although Renee Blaine, who plays Mrs. Dufresne, appears only briefly in the arms of her lover during the opening sequence of the film, she is featured on the back cover of both the original DVD and VHS cassette in the interest of claiming some sex appeal for a movie that almost exclusively features men. The picture does not appear on the special edition DVD. Darabont originally intended to have a longer "body heat" scene but cut it in the end. Renee Blaine's primary success came from her extensive modeling career, featured on the covers of Cosmopolitan, Elle, Seventeen, and Vanity Fair and she was a favorite model of New York fashion photographer, Mark Hilden.
- Director Frank Darabont watched Goodfellas every Sunday while shooting Shawshank and drew inspiration from it on using voice-over narration and showing the passage of time.
- The recurring quote "Get busy living or get busy dying" was used by the Chicago band Fall Out Boy as the title for the 12th track of their 2005 album From Under the Cork Tree, as well as in the song "What Daze" on Portland artist Alex Arrowsmith's 2005 album Wharfless.
- Shawshank Prison is noted by other characters in the Stephen King universe. In the movie adaption of the King novel, Dolores Claiborne, the titular character threatens her abusive husband with a "term at Shawshank".
- When Andy begins to play the music over the intercom system, he locks the bathroom door with the guard inside using the washroom. When the guard gets up, he drops what he was reading, a comic called "Jughead", part of the Archie family of comics. Archie premiered in 1941 in PEP comics.
- The young photo of Red on his parole forms is of Morgan Freeman's son, Alfonso, who also is seen in the yard when Andy's load of prisoners is first dropped off, shouting enthusiastically "Fresh Fish! Fresh Fish" whilst reeling in an imaginary line. Alfonso later played a parody of his father's character, Red, in a short spoof titled The Sharktank Redemption, available on the second disc of the 10th anniversary DVD.
- The main characters in the movie Puff, Puff, Pass have an unusual obsession with "the Shank".
- The movie won the first prize in the list of the 201 best motion pictures ever voted by the readers of the magazine Empire.
- In 1999, film critic Roger Ebert named The Shawshank Redemption as a film on his great movies list.
- In 1996 videogame Duke Nukem 3D, Episode 1 Level 3, Duke must exit the prison by finding a hole behind a poster of a girl as in The Shawshank Redemption Andy covers its own way of escape (the hole) with such poster.
- The same actor plays two parts: the first prisoner out of the wagon (whom Hadley asks if he can speak English) and the guard who shouts "Lights Out" during Andy's first night.
- Director Frank Darabont went on to direct The Green Mile, based on another work by Stephen King. Darabont and others have joked that this makes Darabont the most exclusive director in history, as his genre encompassed "all Stephen King novels that take place in prisons in the 1930s".
- The first movie to receive 200,000 votes on the Internet Movie Database. The next closest is , with approximately 198,000 votes. [As of 7/6/06]
Goofs
Red says Andy arrived at Shawshank in 1949, but then tells Tommy he came to the prison in 1947. He indeed came in 1947 because it took Andy 19 years to escape, which he did in 1966.Further reading
- The Shawshank Redemption Mark Kermode (London:British Film Institute, 2003)
References
- Director's commentary on the special edition DVD.
- [A review] from The Washington Post
- [A review] from PrisonFlicks.com
- [A review] by James Berardinelli
- "The Shawshank Redemption The Shooting Script" Darabont, Frank Newmarket Press ©1996, introduction King, Stephen
External links
- [The Shawshank Redemption] review by Roger Ebert
- [The Shawshank Redemption] review by Roger Ebert as "Great Movie"
- [The Shawshank Redemption] at Filmsite.org
- [The script for the film] - varies slightly from the final version.
- [The Shawshank Redemption] at the [Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films] list
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