The Shawshank Redemption

1994 was a pretty good year for films, what with Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, and Four Weddings and a Funeral all being nominated for Best Picture from that year. Another one of the greats from ’94 was, without a doubt, The Shawshank Redemption. This film is ranked at #1 on the IMDB’s Top #250 Films as rated by the users and is ranked at 97% among users over at Rotten Tomatoes. It is certainly a popular film and seems to bring out the best in people that watch it.

The Shawshank Redemption comes to us based on a novella from Stephen King. The screenplay was written by Frank Darabont, who also directed the film. Darabont would continue the prison theme in 1999 and take on another Stephen King work as well with The Green Mile, which I realized I have not seen. The Shawshank Redemption actually didn’t do so well at the box office, but through showings on cable television and through DVD sales and rentals, the film picked up steam and eventually ended up making many people’s favourite films lists.

The Shawshank Redemption stars Morgan Freeman in arguably the best role of his career. He stars as Red, the narrator of this story and well-respected inmate at the Shawshank Prison in the State of Maine. The story spans from 1946 to 1967 and centers around Andy Dufrense, played by Tim Robbins. Dufrense was sent to Shawshank after being accused of killing his wife and her lover. He claims innocence, as does everyone at Shawshank except for Red, and is swiftly introduced to the harsh realities of the cruel prison. Dufrense, through the years, becomes good friends with Red and deals with the many cold realities of the prison. Dufrense also profits and seizes opportunity using his past as an accountant, helping various prison guards and officials with their taxes.

Robbins is great as Dufrense and plays him as a man that simply hit a bump in the road that wound up realigning his entire life. Prison served to reeducate Dufrense and gave him new purpose, sending him off to Mexico when it was all over and giving him a drive that he likely didn’t have before. Robbins doesn’t overact anything and we truly feel the different senses of freedom and imprisonment as brought through his tremendous acting abilities.

Freeman is the real highlight in the film, however. As Red, Freeman delivers a “wise sage” performance of such natural grace and poise that all actors should take lessons from this veteran. Freeman had just come out of another stellar role in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven and had also recently picked up gobs of accolades for his excellent role in Driving Miss Daisy, so his stock was high and he utilized his opportunity to knock it out of the park. With his body of work, especially his work within The Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman asserts himself as one of the truly great American actors of our time.

One of the most interesting thematic elements explored is that of Andy Dufrense’s overall integrity. In a sea of shady characters, Dufrense (and Red, actually) represent some sort of standard of integrity that appears to be lacking in other areas of the prison. It seems that everyone at Shawshank Prison is corrupt, down to the lowest of the low, and the establishment seems hellbent on crumbling from within. Dufrense’s integrity, his willingness to play ball so as to set up a library for the prisoners and his willingness to teach those that need instruction, really belies a quality of character that becomes the focal point of the film and adds the most humanizing element. It is this integrity and this quality of character, I think, that has helped The Shawshank Redemption rise to mean so much to so many people.

With strong characters and powerful themes, The Shawshank Redemption is truly a remarkably film filled with passion and all of the components of a truly classic character story. It doesn’t push a morality, rather it engages the characters in situations in which they must choose how to act and, further to that, allows the characters to grow within their own paces. The warden and prison guards, more often than not, choose to act with evil intentions whereas the prisoners, all of them “innocent” in some way, choose to act with a sort of moral code and protect one another from the evils within the walls of the prison. Guided by extremely good acting and a powerful script, The Shawshank Redemption is a marvelous film.

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