The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 drama film, 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 Boyd "Red" Redding.

The film portrays Andy spending nearly two decades in the cruelty of Shawshank State Prison, a fictional penitentiary in Maine, and his friendship with Red, a fellow inmate. This movie exemplifies the gap between box office success and popularity. Despite a lukewarm box office reception, The Shawshank Redemption received favorable reviews from critics and has enjoyed a remarkable life on cable television, home video, and DVD, and continues to be noticed by popular culture fourteen years after it's initial release. It is frequently ranked amongst the greatest films of all time.

Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Interpretations
5 Critical reaction
6 Music
7 References in King's other works
8 References to other works
9 Impact
10 References
11 Further reading
12 See also
13 External links



[edit] Plot
In 1947, a young banker named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover based on strong circumstantial evidence, and is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences (one for each victim) at the notorious Shawshank Prison in Maine. Days later, prison inmate Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman) appears before the Shawshank Prison Parole Board, which rejects his parole. Red emerges into the prison yard in time to witness the arrival of new inmates, including Andy Dufresne. Following an ominous and intimidating introduction by Warden Samuel Norton and Chief Prison Guard Captain Byron Hadley, Andy and the other new inmates are deloused and shuffled to their cells. One of the prisoners breaks down in his cell, whereupon Captain Hadley yanks him out and beats him unconscious, inflicting injuries that will eventually kill the man.


Andy asks Red for a Rita Hayworth poster as the inmates watch GildaAndy gradually becomes acquainted with Red's circle of friends, and specifically Red himself, who is known as a clever supplier of contraband to his fellow inmates. Andy approaches Red and orders from him a rock hammer, so as to pursue his hobby of rock collecting. A friendship soon develops. Andy initially works in the prison laundry, where he is harassed and raped by a group of sadistic inmates known as "The Sisters."

One day, Andy's knowledge of finance enables him to set up a tax shelter for Captain Hadley. The only payment he asks is some beer for his friends.

One night during a film screening, Andy asks Red to get him a poster of Rita Hayworth for his cell. When Andy is once again accosted and severely beaten by The Sisters as he leaves the theater, the prison guards commit vigilante punishment against the Sisters' leader, Boggs. It becomes clear to all prisoners that the guards are now protecting Andy from mistreatment. Boggs is permanently hospitalized by a brutal act of retribution by Captain Hadley, and Andy is never again victimized by any of the inmates.

Andy is appointed to assist Brooks Hatlen in the prison library, his first instance of preferential treatment, and writes to the Maine Senate for funds to improve the library. Andy sets up a makeshift office to provide tax and financial services to a growing number of guards and his "clientele" grows to include the entire prison staff, guards from other prisons, and even Warden Norton.

After spending nearly ten years in Shawshank, Andy and Red find a distraught and hostile Brooks holding a knife to Heywood's throat. Brooks' parole has finally been granted and he, in prison since 1905, is so accustomed to life inside that he fears the real world. Outside the prison walls, Brooks encounters nothing but loneliness, isolation, and a dead-end job. He writes a final letter to his friends back at Shawshank before hanging himself in his room at a halfway house.

Warden Samuel Norton capitalizes on Andy's skills and devises a program to put prison inmates to work for local construction projects. His real motive is to profit from corruption in the system, and Andy hides the embezzled funds for Norton by creating a fraudulent identity. The same year, the prison library is expanded, and Andy begins helping inmates obtain their high school diplomas. Then, in 1965, a young prisoner named Tommy Williams enters Shawshank and tells a story about a previous cellmate that appears to confirm Andy's long-held claim of innocence. Fearing exposure if Andy is set free, Norton has Hadley kill Tommy and sends Andy to solitary confinement. He threatens Andy that he will withdraw the guards' protection if he does not continue conspiring with him.

Two months later, Andy is released from solitary confinement and returns to the main prison population a seemingly broken man. Out in the yard, he gives ominous instructions to Red, telling him that if he is ever released, he is to go to a specific spot in a certain hayfield to find something that has been buried there. Andy's friends are concerned that he may commit suicide like Brooks. The following morning, however, Andy is missing from his cell, in which only a poster of Raquel Welch, who has replaced Rita, stares at the Warden, who discovers to his shock, that the poster covers a long escape tunnel that Andy had been able to dig secretly over the course of many years. Warden Norton loses his composure and commits all of his resources to tracking the escapee down, but Andy is never found.

In a flashback sequence, it is revealed that Andy escaped the prison by tunneling through the walls with his rock hammer for nearly 19 years, slowly chipping away at the cement wall and using the poster to cover up his work. He completed his escape by crawling 500 yards through a sewage tunnel. After his escape, Andy assumes the fake identity he created earlier for the purpose of concealing the warden's embezzlements. Wearing Norton's clean suit and shoes, Andy withdraws the funds that he had deposited for Norton over the years. He also sends evidence of the scams to a local newspaper, exposing the warden. Hadley is arrested, reportedly "sobbing like a little girl" as he is taken away, and Norton commits suicide in his office.

Soon after, Red is finally released on parole. After trying to cope with life outside prison (and being given the same job and apartment Brooks had had years earlier), he recalls his promise to Andy shortly before Andy's escape. Red finds money and instructions hidden in the field, and eventually reunites with Andy in Zihuatanejo on the coast of Mexico.


[edit] Cast
Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne
Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding
Bob Gunton as Warden Norton
William Sadler as Heywood
Clancy Brown as Capt. Hadley
Gil Bellows as Tommy
Mark Rolston as Boggs Diamond
James Whitmore as Brooks Hatlen
Jeffrey DeMunn as 1946 DA
David Proval as Snooze
Jude Ciccolella as Guard Mert
Paul McCrane as Guard Trout
Scott Mann as Glenn Quentin



[edit] Production
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. Darabont later directed The Green Mile, 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.

The Shawshank Redemption 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 Richland Correctional Institute, but the Reformatory's Gothic Administration Building remains standing and, due to its prominent use in films, has become a tourist attraction. The real warden of the Richland Correctional Institute had a cameo appearance in Shawshank as the prisoner seated directly behind Tommy on his bus ride to prison and several other staff members from the nearby Mansfield Correctional Institution have small roles.

Several exterior scenes were shot at the Malabar Farm State Park, in nearby Lucas, Ohio.[1] The sequence in which Andy is parked outside his home contemplating murdering his wife was filmed at the Pugh Cabin within the park. The sequences representing the village of Buxton and the field where Red finds Andy's hidden letter were filmed on private land located opposite the park entrance on Broomfield Road. The oak tree is clearly visible from the roadside. The adjacent rock wall, which was constructed specifically for the film, is located on the far side of the hill away from the roadside. The wall is still standing, although it has been somewhat eroded. Other scenes were shot in Ashland, Ohio, Butler, Ohio, Upper Sandusky, Ohio and Portland, Maine.

The photo of a young Red on his parole forms is that of Morgan Freeman's son, Alfonso. Alfonso is also 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 film ends with the prominent dedication "In Memory of Allen Greene". Darabont dedicated the film to his friend and agent, Allen Greene II, who died just before the completion of the film due to complications from AIDS.[2]


[edit] Interpretations
Roger Ebert suggests that the integrity of Andy Dufresne is an important theme in the story line,[3] especially in prison, where integrity is lacking. Andy is an individual of integrity (here referring to adherence to a code of morality) among a host of criminals, and guards, with little integrity.[4] Additionally, some critics have interpreted the film as a Christian parable due to its handling of hope, original sin, redemption, salvation, and faith in the afterlife. Some Christian reviewers have referred to it as a film "true to Christian principles."[5] In the director's commentary track on the tenth anniversary DVD, Darabont denies any intent to create such a parable, and calls such interpretations of the film "fantastic."


[edit] Critical reaction
In 1999, film critic Roger Ebert listed Shawshank on his "Great Movies" list,[6] and in reader polls by the film magazine Empire, the film ranked fifth in 2004 and first in 2006 on the lists for greatest movie of all time.[7][8]

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, in the shadow of 1994's big winner Forrest Gump, failed to win a single one. In 1998 Shawshank was not listed in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, but nine years later, it placed at the 72nd position on the revised list, outranking both Forrest Gump (76th) and Pulp Fiction (94th), the two most critically acclaimed movies from the year of Shawshank's release.


[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. Interestingly enough, 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.


[edit] References in King's other works
In the Stephen King novella, Apt Pupil, Arthur Denker mentions that the banker who helped him buy stocks was named Andy Dufresne, and in the movie adaptation of the King novel Dolores Claiborne, the titular character threatens her abusive husband with a "stint at Shawshank." Shawshank State Prison is also mentioned in It when Steven Bishoff Dubay gets convicted of first-degree manslaughter and is sentenced for fifteen years. Shawshank State Prison is mentioned again when Cheryl Lamonica's death was presumably done by one of her boyfriends, one of which is serving Shawshank for armed robbery, who can also presumably be Tommy. Shawshank is also mentioned in Needful Things where Ace Merril went shortly after his exploits in The Body. The Body is a Novella by King which was adapted to film as the coming of age movie Stand by Me. Shawshank was also recently mentioned in the TV series The Dead Zone which is based on characters from the novel of the same name.

Blaze is a Richard Bachman novel polished from a version written years previously and described by King as a 'trunk novel'. In it, the titular criminal character often finds himself talking to his dead partner-in-crime George, the real brains of the partnership. On one occasion, George accuses Blaze of stupidity and asks if he wants to end up in Shawshank.


[edit] References to other works
Andy asks Red for a Rita Hayworth poster during a screening of Hayworth's film Gilda. The poster depicts a scene from that film. He eventually replaces the poster with one of Marilyn Monroe in her skirt blowing scene from The Seven Year Itch and later with Raquel Welch from One Million Years B.C., which was not released until 1967.
When Andy receives the first response to his letters to the Maine Senate concerning the prison library, the shipment includes a record of The Marriage of Figaro. Defying Norton, Andy plays the duet "Sull'aria Che soave zeffiretto" over the prison loudspeakers for all the inmates and guards to hear.
While sorting books in the library, Heywood asks Andy what to do with a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo. When Andy notes that the book is about a prison break, Red advises that they file it in the educational materials section.
While talking to Red about Randell Stevens, an imaginary man used to cover up money laundering, Andy mentions that Randell Stevens is a "...second cousin to Harvey the rabbit." Andy is referencing an imaginary six-foot rabbit from the 1950s movie Harvey.
Andy's prison break is quite like that of Giacomo Casanova, as outlined in his memoirs History of My Life. When planning his escape from the Leads, Casanova had a pick which he kept in the back of a Bible, which Andy did with his rock hammer. Also, Casanova instructed a fellow prisoner to put pictures of saints up on the wall to cover up the hole he was making.

[edit] Impact
As reported in the New York Times,[9] this movie was in news headlines on December 17, 2007, as two jail inmates escaped from a high-security unit of the Union County jail, New Jersey, in what news reporters described as "Shawshank-style escape". They used photos of bikini-clad women to hide their escape holes and left behind a thank-you note, signed with a smiley face, for a guard they claimed helped them. The guard in question committed suicide soon after.
In the popular MMORPG World Of Warcraft, a quest in Tanaris is given to players with the name "The Scrimshank Redemption."

[edit] References
^ The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – Filiming Locations. imdb.com. Retrieved on 2008-01-15.
^ The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – Trivia. imdb.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-26.
^ Roger Ebert (1994-09-23). Review: The Shawshank Redemption.
^ Joseph Kellard. "Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying: A Review of "The Shawshank Redemption"", Capitalism Magazine, July 17, 2000.
^ Debra L. Lewis (1994). Review: The Shawshank Redemption. Retrieved on 2007-12-26.
^ Roger Ebert (1999-10-17). Great Movies: The Shawshank Redemption.
^ "The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time", Empire, 2004-01-30, pp. 97.
^ "The 201 Greatest Movies Of All Time", Empire, 2006-01-27, pp. 100-1.
^ Fernanda Santos. "Inmates Chip Away Jail’s Walls and Leap From Roof to Freedom", New York Times, December 17, 2007.

[edit] Further reading
Mark Kermode (October 1, 2003). The Shawshank Redemption. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0851709680.

[edit] See also
List of fictional prisons
Films considered the greatest ever