I know things are a bit late; it’s been crazy around here.

More below, etc.

I’d already seen this week’s movie, of course. I mean, The Shawshank Redemption is… well, very popular, for one thing. Very well regarded critically too, and I admit, I’ve always liked it personally.

I can’t remember the first time I saw it. It might have been HBO, I’m not sure. I do remember that the first couple of times, I missed the very beginning, which is a shame, as the film has more power if it’s seen as a complete entity.

This is also the only King movie I’ve studied academically; it was used in one of my best CJUS classes (a course/evening seminar taught on Probation and Parole) to discuss the dehumanization process used by correctional facilities. That process, which Shawshank talks about as ‘institutionalization’, is very real, and handled quite well in the film, by the way.

So, the movie. Where to start? The Shawshank Redemption stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, both of whom were robbed of Oscars for this movie (Freeman later got one for Million Dollar Baby of course, which I refer to as his Shawshank Oscar, due to the Academy’s long history of making up for past errors with new awards; Robbins got one for Mystic River, which I didn’t care for, but good for him). It was directed by Frank Darabont, who has had a rather special relationship with King movies; he cut his teeth as a film student with a movie based on a King work, then went on to adapt Shawshank, The Green Mile and The Mist. So we’ll be seeing Mr. Darabont again here at SwS. The relationship between the two also has fascinating ties to a sort of mini-film program Mr. King runs, wherein he allows student filmmakers to adapt his short stories for student films at a cost of 1 dollar, while retaining certain rights; these movies are called ‘Dollar Babies‘.

(Since Mr. Darabont has now made 3 full length movies and garnered multiple Oscar nods from King works, this starts to look like a remarkably savvy business decision, as well as a neat thing to do.)

The story principally concerns two men: Andy Dufresne (Robbins), a wealthy young bank executive with a less than faithful wife, who shortly turns up as a dead one. Dufresne is convicted of her murder, which is logical enough, given that the movie shows him parked outside the crime scene, drinking heavily and loading his gun. This is not a good way to behave if one wishes to avoid prison.

So the state of Maine (naturally), sends him on the the Shawshank State Prison, run by the bible-thumping, sleazy warden Samuel Norton (played by Bob Grunton), and overseen by his sadistic lieutenant among the guards, Captain Byron Hadley (played by Clancy Brown). Once there he strikes up a friendship with another inmate, Ellis Boyd Redding, always referred to in person as ‘Red’. In the original story he was a red-haired Irishman, and the movie hangs a lampshade (in other words, points this out itself) on the incongruity now that Red is a black man for the film, a lightly humorous moment. Red is a prison institution, a smuggler, a man who can ‘get’ things, and a ringleader of sorts for a small group of convicts that Andy falls in with over time. Red is also a convicted murderer, and unlike Andy, his guilt is never in question.

Doing a detailed breakdown of the movie’s events would both take some time (it covers a span of almost twenty years) and ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, so I’ll avoid going into great detail. What I will say is that this is an awesome film in almost every respect. The acting is top notch, from every single member of the cast. The directing is calm and measured, taking its time to relay events, always remembering that this is a movie about the passage of time, the slow, inexorable loss of a lifetime in prison.

This is both a very dark film, and a very hopeful one. There’s considerable violence and unpleasantness here, which one should expect, but unlike so many King movies it doesn’t revel in it. Don’t get me wrong; I like gory violent movies, and I intensely dislike it when a movie skates the edge of a horrible event to maintain an MPAA rating and court public opinion. The difference is that true horror for Shawshank comes from the depravity, rather than the suffering, of mankind, though, and so mental pain is ascendant.

Visually, this is a beautiful film, deep, dark and moody, lush colors. It evokes a feeling of being inside after dark, huddled around a small pool of light, deep shadows everywhere, which again, fits a movie set in a prison. The musical score is excellent and one particular segment (you’ll know which once you’ve seen the movie) has been used about a billion times for other movies, trailers, tv shows, etc.

There are no cheap tricks or cheap thrills here. No horror movie quips you’ll be repeating to your friends, no hilarious or outrageous murders, no monsters or supernatural horror. No supernatural at all, though according to the Wikipedia some people interpret this as a religious parable. (As an atheist I chalk that up to the desire to see all good things as flowing from one’s own personal source of truth; if anything, I think this is a humanist film, overtly critical of religion through the character of the Warden. But to each his own.)

Everyone interested in American film should see this picture at least once. Everyone interested in King’s work should see it at least once. (King unambiguously likes it, according to the Stephen King Goes to the Movies foreword for the novella on which the movie’s based, though he as any author would quibbles with minor changes).

Though somewhat overlooked the year it came out, overshadowed by the massively overrated Forrest Gump and the also excellent Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption endures, and today is widely seen as one of the all time greatest works to come out of American film; and we all have Mr. King to thank for that as well. This is one of the movies that made me want to do this project, one end of a broad continuum of quality and one subject in a wide body of topics illustrated by the movies based on King.

Of course, next week’s movie is The Mangler, so maybe I should restrain my effusive praise a bit. Oh well. They can’t all be Shawshank, or The Shining, or Misery or Creepshow, can they?

PS: Fun bonus topic. After watching the film, answer the question: Who is ‘redeemed’ in the Shawshank Redemption? I think several different arguments can be made. Enjoy.

Next Week: The Mangler, a Freddy Meets Stephen Production
Last Week: Needful Things, a waste of Max von Sydow