The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

Adapted from the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, the film portrays the story of Andy Dufresne, a banker who spends nearly two decades in Shawshank State Prison for the murder of his wife. During his time at the prison, he befriends a fellow inmate, Ellis "Red" Redding, and finds himself protected by the guards after the warden begins using him in his money laundering operation.

Despite a lukewarm box office reception that was barely enough to cover its budget, the film received favorable reviews from critics, multiple award nominations, and has since enjoyed a remarkable life on cable television, VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray, even being included in theAmerican Film Institute's 100 Years…100 Movies 10th Anniversary Edition

Plot

In 1947, banker Andrew "Andy" Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, based on strong circumstantial evidence. He is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank State Penitentiary in Maine, run by Warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton). Andy is quickly befriended by Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), an inmate serving a life sentence whose parole application was recently rejected. Red is known for obtaining contraband and Andy has him obtain him a rock hammer to maintain his rock collection hobby, allowing him to create small stone chessmen from rock. Andy later obtains a large poster of Rita Hayworth from Red, followed in later years by Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch.

On a manual labor detail, Andy overhears Captain of the Guards Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown) complain about having to pay taxes on a forthcoming inheritance. After explaining a legal loophole to Hadley, Andy is reassigned to assist the prison librarian, elderly inmate Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore), a pretext to allow Andy to work on financial requests full time. Andy's financial advice is soon sought by other guards at Shawshank and by visiting guards from nearby prisons.

Hadley delivers a brutal beating to inmate Bogs (Mark Rolston), leader of "The Sisters," after his gang's sexual assault puts Andy in the infirmary. Bogs is paralyzed, and the remaining Sisters leave Andy alone. Andy uses his goodwill with the warden to expand the prison library. When one donation to the library provides him with the opera The Marriage of Figaro, he plays an excerpt over the public address system for all the inmates to hear, well-aware of the punishment of solitary confinement he will receive for the brief moment of bliss.

Warden Norton develops schemes of using prison labor for public works, undercutting the cost of skilled labor and receiving kickbacks for it. Norton has Andy launder the money under the false identity of Randall Stevens, in exchange for allowing Andy to keep his private cell and to continue maintaining the library. Brooks is freed on parole and moves into a halfway house. Unable to adjust to the outside world, he hangs himself. Andy dedicates the expanded library to him.

In 1965, Tommy Williams (Gil Bellows) is incarcerated on robbery charges. He joins Andy and Red's circle of friends, and Andy assists him in getting his GED. When learning of Andy's case, Tommy reveals an inmate at another prison, Elmo Blatch (Bill Bolender), claimed to have committed a nearly identical murder—this might prove Andy's claims of innocence. Norton, fearing the end of income stream supported by Andy, and fearing Andy might tell of the corruption if released, refuses to co-operate. After they argue, he throws Andy into solitary confinement. Norton has Hadley kill Tommy, claiming he was attempting an escape.

Andy returns to his regular cell block and tells Red of his dream of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican-Pacific coastal town. He instructs Red, should he ever be freed, to visit a specific hayfield near Buxton to retrieve a package Andy left there. The next day at roll call, Andy's cell is empty. When Norton, angry at Andy's disappearance, throws one of Andy's rocks at the poster of Raquel Welch, the rock tears through the poster, revealing a tunnel that Andy had dug with the rock hammer over the last two decades. The night before, Andy switched the ledger book he had kept for Norton with his prison-issue Bible. Taking the ledger, his chess set, and one of the warden's suits, he escaped through the tunnel and a narrow sewage drain during a thunderstorm. After escaping, Andy poses as Randall Stevens to withdraw most of the corruption money from several banks, then sends evidence of Norton's corruption to a local newspaper. The police arrive at the prison, and Hadley is arrested, but Norton commits suicide to evade arrest.

Red receives parole after serving 40 years and is allocated the apartment where Brooks committed suicide, and works at the same grocery store. Red follows Andy's advice and visits Buxton. There, he finds a cache of money and a note left by Andy, reminding him of Zihuatanejo. Red violates his parole and travels to Fort Hancock, Texas to skip the border to Mexico. The two are happily reunited on the beach.

[edit]Cast

• Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne: The main character of the film.
• Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding: Andy's best friend and the film's narrator. Before Freeman was cast, Clint Eastwood,Harrison Ford, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford were each considered for the role. Although written as a middle-aged Irishman with greying red hair (as in the novella), Darabont cast Freeman for his authoritative presence and demeanor, because he could not see anyone else as Red.^[3]
• Bob Gunton as Warden Samuel Norton: The warden of Shawshank and the primary antagonist. He has an obsession with the Bible and appears to be a devout Christian and reform-minded administrator.
• William Sadler as Heywood: a member of Red's gang of long-sentence convicts.
• Clancy Brown as Capt. Byron Hadley: Chief of the guards and the other main antagonist. Hadley is an intemperate guard who thinks nothing of delivering beatings to the inmates to keep them in line. When cast for the role, Brown declined the offer to study real-life prison guards as preparation for his role, because he did not want to base it on any one person.^[4]
• Gil Bellows as Tommy Williams: a young convict whose experiences in a previous prison hold the truth about Andy's innocence.
• Mark Rolston as Bogs Diamond: the head of "The Sisters" gang and a prison rapist. He assaults Andy a number of times, but Hadley puts a stop to it by beating Bogs seriously enough to permanently paralyze him.
• James Whitmore as Brooks Hatlen: prison librarian/trustee and one of the oldest convicts at Shawshank. Upon his release, he finds himself unable to cope with life on the outside, and commits suicide. Darabont cast Whitmore because he was one of his favorite character actors.^[3]

[edit]Themes

Chicago Sun-Times film reviewer Roger Ebert suggests that The Shawshank Redemption is an allegory for maintaining one's feeling of self worth when placed in a hopeless position. The integrity of Andy Dufresne is an important theme in the story line, especially in prison, where integrity is lacking.^[5]

Angus C. Larcombe suggests that the film provides a great illustration of how characters can be free, even in prison, or unfree, even in freedom, based on one's outlook in life.^[6]

[edit]Production

Darabont secured the film adaptation rights from author Stephen King after impressing the author with his short film adaptation of The Woman in the Room in 1983. Although the two had become friends and maintained a pen-pal relationship, Darabont did not work with him until four years later in 1987, when he optioned to adapt Shawshank. This is one of the more famous Dollar Deals made by King with aspiring filmmakers. Darabont later directed The Green Mile (1999), which was based on another work about a prison by Stephen King, and then followed that up with an adaptation of King's novella The Mist.

Rob Reiner, who had previously adapted another King novella, The Body, into the movie Stand by Me (1986), offered $2.5 million in an attempt to write and direct Shawshank. He planned to cast Tom Cruise in the part of Andy and Harrison Ford as Red. Darabont seriously considered and liked Reiner's vision, but he ultimately decided it was his "chance to do something really great" by directing the film himself.^[3]

Though the story is set in Maine, the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio was used as a stand-in for the fictional Shawshank Prison.

[edit]Reception

The Shawshank Redemption received a limited release on September 23, 1994, and made over $727,000 on 33 screens in its first weekend. It received a wide release on October 7, 1994.

Despite its critical acclaim, it failed at the box office, making just under $2 million in its first wide weekend, only good for 8th place that weekend. Some believe it was overshadowed by Pulp Fiction, which was in its second weekend of release when The Shawshank Redemptionwent wide; and Forrest Gump, which was also still in theatres at the time. The film made more money in its second weekend of wide release, but was further overshadowed by Stargate, which was released that weekend. The film ultimately made $16 million domestically in its initial release, not even cracking the Top 50 for 1994.

It was re-released in 1995 during the Oscar season, and made an additional $8 million. Overall, it has made $28.3 million in theatres domestically.^[7]

The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1994 (Best Picture, Best Actor – Morgan Freeman, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Mixing) but, in the shadow of 1994's big winner Forrest Gump, did not win a single one. The film's Academy Award nominations enabled it to fare well in the video sales and cable TV viewings. In June 1997, TNT, an American cable network, showed the film for the first time. The film was the first feature in TNT's Saturday Night New Classics. Since 1997, TNT has shown the film about once every two months.^[2]

Entertainment Weekly reviewer Owen Gleiberman praised the choice of scenery, writing that the "moss-dark, saturated images have a redolent sensuality" that makes the film very realistic.^[8] While praising Morgan Freeman's acting and oratory skills as making Red feel real, Gleiberman opined that with the "laconic-good-guy, neo-Gary Cooper role, Tim Robbins is unable to make Andy connect with the audience."^[8] Gleiberman gave the film a B minus.^[8]

In 1998, Shawshank was not listed in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, but nine years later (2007), it was #72 on the revised list, outranking both Forrest Gump (#76) and Pulp Fiction (#94), the two most critically acclaimed movies from the year of Shawshank's release. In 1999, film critic Roger Ebert listed Shawshank on his "Great Movies" list.^[9]

The film has a rating of 88 out of 100 on film-review collating website Metacritic,^[10] and an approval rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes by film critics.^[11]

[edit]Music

Main article: The Shawshank Redemption (soundtrack)

The score was composed by Thomas Newman, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1994, which was his first Oscar nomination. The majority of the score consists of dark piano music, which plays along the main character's role at Shawshank. The main theme ("End Titles" on the soundtrack album) is perhaps best known to modern audiences as the inspirational sounding music from many movie trailers dealing with inspirational, dramatic, or romantic films in much the same way that James Horner's driving music from the end of Aliens is used in many movie trailers for action films. A central scene in the film features the "Letter Duet" ("Canzonetta sull'aria") fromMozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

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