When The Shawshank Redemption got a UK release back in February 1995, I can proudly say I was one of the few people who got to see the film in a cinema. Twice in fact. Perhaps because of my love of the feel-good Field Of Dreams I'd been on the lookout for another inspirational movie working at a similar, exceptionally high level. With the British movie magazine reviews raving as well, I decided to catch Shawshank as the first part of a double bill with Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Big mistake, as Shawshank left me reeling, making watching NBK a next to impossible task.
Later that year I completed a higher education qualification in Film Studies, during which I got into an argument about the merits of the little-seen Shawshank verses the merits of the established classic One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. At the time, few people stood up for the inconspicuous, cliche-ridden prison drama based on one of horror author Stephen King's short stories, and I was frowned upon for suggesting Shawshank be anything like as powerful as the Milos Foreman classic. It's a different story now. Shawshank stands at the top of IMDB's top 250 films of all time, after never leaving the top 5 in the decade the site's been running and it was in the top 5 all-time movies as voted for by Empire Magazine readers a couple of years ago.
At the heart of the film is a perfectly constructed script that centres around the friendship of two men. There's Andy Dufresne, convicted for the murder of his wife and her lover (something we're never sure he's innocent of until it's confirmed in the penultimate act) and Red, the prison go-to guy. Structurally the story reminds me a great deal of Ferris Bueller's Day Off which centres around the rebellious and heroic antics of Matthew Broderick's title character, but whose real story is the journey is that of his best friend Cameron. Same here, as Andy remains a mysterious, enigmatic figure throughout the narrative, it's Red's character that undergoes the emotional journey. It's beautifully summed up in three scenes placed at the beginning, middle and end of the story in which Red visits the parole board. In the first he's eager to please, saying what he thinks the panel wants to hear. In the second he basically repeats the same reassurances to the panel, but the enthusiasm has left him, leaving a hope free, cynical man. And in the third he taunts the panel, calling the board out on their sham of a procedure, not really wanting to be paroled anyway. It's a concise way to measure up the character over a plot which spans 20 years. The Redemption of the title turns out to be Red's not Andy's. After all Red is the only guilty man in the prison (so he says), admitting to committing murder as a teenager.
Structurally, Shawshank adheres loosely to the hero myth as Andy comes into the self contained, fully established prison environment and leaves everybody there changed by his presence; all of them just a little bit better for having known him. Andy's perceived suicide and subsequent escape serve the hero myth as the death and resurrection of the hero, even subtly highlighting this with Red narrating he'll miss Andy now he's gone, while tending to the prison's graveyard. Andy himself is an enigmatic, mysterious soul who maintains his integrity even in the darkest of times. It's of course no coincidence that when he finally does escape, it's through a tunnel as though he's literally being reborn. He falls into the water and holds his arms into a Jesus Christ pose with the water metaphorically cleansing his soul as he goes about his business in the afterlife (well, the free world in Shawshank terms).
Like many movies I love, the film boils down to a moment of choice. In Titanic, it's Kate Winslett deciding to let go of Leonardo Di Caprio (both physically and emotionally) and in Back To The Future it's George McFly deciding to kiss Lorraine. With Shawshank the moment of choice is reserved for the final moments. It's beautifully set up earlier in the film when institutionalised OAP prisoner Brooks is released from incarceration into an outside world he's completely lost in and unfamiliar with. These circumstances are repeated with Red's release leaving the audience to anticipate the same bleak, suicidal outcome. Thanks to Andy's inspirational words Red plucks up the courage to locate a message the escapee has left him and it's following scene where Red's read the note that he makes the choice to break parole. It's simple. It's powerful. It's the whole point of watching a film like Shawshank at all.
Within the story there's some fantastic sequences such as the aforementioned Brooks release. All films, all stories will have a moment in the film which takes the audience to an emotional low, so that when the emotional high eventually comes, the contrast between the two will make that high even more powerful. The 'Brooks Was Here' sequence is one of the most heart breakingly sad sequences I've ever seen. Aided by a great performance and soulful voice over from James Whitmore and a spectacularly haunting piece of score by composer Thomas Newman the film shows us what it's like to live in fear, crushed by the world, all alone and without hope, ending in the ultimate act of misery...suicide.
Then there are other moments which leave you on a profound high such as when Andy barters for some 'suds on the roof', as he makes friends and starts to give the audience and the other characters a glimpse of what makes him special. And there's the iconic Opera sequence as Andy adopts a defiant attitude, playing Mozart on the P.A. system to his fellow inmates. As director Frank Darabont notes, the entire film can be summed up in that single, moving sequence alone. In Shawshank terms music represents hope and freedom and it's utilised later when Andy gives Red a harmonica as a gift. Red being institutionalised and fearfully of embracing freedom on the outside, declines to play.
Darabont delivers a film that is stubbornly old fashioned being slow, steady and deliberate allowing the characters room to breathe. It's not a film about plot and more a series of events spanning a 19 year period which all converge on Andy's escape and Red's redemptive choice, but it's riveting all the same. Tonally this is both brutally punishing and yet it can be poetic, elegant and uplifting, and that's quite a trick to pull off by anyone.
At the end of the day Shawshank comes back down to that moment of choice as summed up in the philosophy of Andy himself when he says, "Get busy living or get busy dying". Freedom isn't where you are or what you do or who you're with. Freedom is a state of mind, a choice. If you can overcome your fear of the unknown and not be inhibited by your perceptions of what others think of you or perceptions of your own limitations, all you have to do is decide to make you're life better. That's damn right.
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