The Shawshank Redemption Store

The Shawshank Redemption
by Michael Flanagan

HUGE

            Few films have been quite as overlooked in the history of great cinematic accomplishment as Frank Darabont’s wonderful The Shawshank Redemption.  The film was nominated for several Academy Awards in 1994, including Best Actor (Morgan Freeman), Cinematography (Roger Deakins), Music (Thomas Newman), and Writing (Frank Darabont).  It was up against the formidable Forrest Gump, which ran away with the show faster than a really well-written and humorous pun.  1994 was a year for movies, though, with Legends of the Fall, Interview With The Vampire, Bullets Over Broadway, Quiz Show, The Madness of King George, and Pulp Fiction being headrunners at the awards.  These movies are all wonderful, yet for some reason, Shawshank is still widely viewed as a cult following., instead of one of the best films of the decades, as it should be referred to.

            Shawshank is filmed beautifully.  The prison is dank, dense, and withheld tightly behind the walls.  Darabont never allows the audience to feel mobile in this movie.  We are watching a forced stage, the four walls of which are never broken.  We are given very few shots at a distance, and we are showed many close-ups, mainly because the movie was filmed in a real prison!  Upon the entrance to Shawshank, the camera sweeps over the prison, showing the many inhabitants from above.  We are then brought inside, where we remain.  Even when Brooks is released, and we follow him in the outside world, we feel his loss, his pain, in the outside prison that he cannot have as a life.  Only in moments of freedom are we given a clear, distant view.  When Andy plays a beautiful opera, we see the prison yard from up high as all its inhabitants have stopped to listen.  Later, when Andy stands in the rain with his arms raised, we see this also from a rising crane shot.  To film a prison is no easy task, but to accomplish this by capturing the audience as well is pure genius.

            The Shawshank Redemption, though, is not as worthy of technical discussion as it is of the human condition.  Specifically, the condition of hope.  The story is of overcoming fear in oneself, and the walls of others, against great strife, in the act of freeing oneself as a whole.  In Andy’s letter to Red, he writes, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.  I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well.”  In Red’s speech at the end, delivered magnificently by the always-perfect Morgan Freeman, he says, “I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.  I hope.”  Thus, the point of Shawshank is made very clear.  Perhaps that clarity is what lost The Shawshank Redemption to audiences.  It did fairly well at the box-office, and extremely well with popular critics.

            What, then, has lost this film to the masses?  It’s one of the best films to be released in decades, with perfect writing, excellent performances, and beautiful music by Thomas Newman (American Beauty).  Is it because it’s based on a Stephen King novella?  Is it because no one knows what a Shawshank is?  Or is it simply because the light of Forrest Gump and the mouth of Quentin Tarantino were too big and they enveloped the majesty that is The Shawshank Redemption.  I say re-release it, let it win for best picture, and retire it to the “Best Films” shelf, right next to Casablanca and The Great Escape.

Trivia:

The role of Tommy Williams was intended for Brad Pitt.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals monitored the filming of scenes involving Brooks' crow. During the scene where he fed it a maggot, the ASPCA objected on the grounds that it was cruel to the maggot, and required that they use a maggot that had died from natural causes. One was found, and the scene was filmed.  The maggot’s family sued, of course.

The mugshots of a young-looking Morgan Freeman that are attached to his parole papers are actually pictures of Morgan's younger son, Alfonso Freeman. Alfonso also had a cameo in the movie as a con shouting "Fresh fish! Fresh fish today! We're reeling 'em in!"

Gil Bellows plays Thomas ("Tommy") Williams. In "Ally McBeal" (1997), he plays William ("Billy") Thomas.

Red's cell number is 237. The haunted hotel room in The Shining (another Stephen King story) was also 237.

In Andy's cell the name "Mother" is carved into the wall. In Fraternity Vacation (1985), Tim Robbins' character's name is "Mother."