The Shawshank Redemption

For the novella, see Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

For the Bishop Lamont album, see The Shawshank Redemption/Angola 3.

The Shawshank Redemption
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Frank Darabont
Produced by	Niki Marvin
Screenplay by	Frank Darabont
Based on	Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Narrated by	Morgan Freeman
Starring	Tim Robbins Morgan Freeman
Music by	Thomas Newman
Cinematography	Roger Deakins
Editing by	Richard Francis-Bruce
Studio	Castle Rock Entertainment
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures (Theatrical) Warner Bros. (Home Media)
Release date(s)	September 23, 1994 (1994-09-23)
Running time	142 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$25 million
Box office	$28,341,469

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont and starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

Adapted from the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, the film tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a banker who spends nearly two decades in Shawshank State Prison for the murder of his wife and her lover despite his claims of innocence. During his time at the prison, he befriends a fellow inmate, Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, and finds himself protected by the guards after the warden begins using him in his money laundering operation.

Despite a lukewarm box office reception that was barely enough to cover its budget, the film received favorable reviews from critics, multiple award nominations, and has since enjoyed a remarkable life on cable television, VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray. It was included in the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies 10th Anniversary Edition.

Plot

In 1947, banker Andrew "Andy" Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of murdering his cheating wife and her lover, based on circumstantial evidence. He is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank State Penitentiary in Maine, run by Warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton) and brutal chief guard, Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown). Andy befriends Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), an inmate serving a life sentence whose parole application was recently rejected. Red is known for obtaining contraband and is able to procure a rock hammer for Andy, allowing him to create small stone chess pieces. Andy later obtains a large poster of Rita Hayworth from Red for his cell wall, followed in later years by Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch.

Andy works in the prison laundry, but is regularly sexually assaulted by "the Sisters" and their leader Bogs (Mark Rolston). After overhearing Hadley complain about taxes on a forthcoming inheritance, Andy tells him a legal loophole and is reassigned to assist the prison librarian, elderly inmate Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore); a pretext for Andy to work on financial requests. Andy's advice is soon sought by other guards at Shawshank and from nearby prisons. Hadley cripples Bogs, after one of his assaults puts Andy in the infirmary. Bogs is removed from the prison and Andy is left alone from then on, writing weekly letters to the state government for funds and using goodwill with Norton to expand the prison library. One donation provides him with a recording of The Marriage of Figaro and he plays an excerpt over the public address system, well aware he will be punished for doing so. Norton begins using prison labor for public works, undercutting the cost of skilled labor and receiving kickbacks. He has Andy launder the money under the identity of "Randall Stevens", in exchange for his private cell and maintaining the library. Brooks is freed on parole into a halfway house but, unable to adjust to the outside world, hangs himself; Andy dedicates the expanded library to him.

In 1965, Tommy Williams (Gil Bellows) is incarcerated on robbery charges. He joins Andy and Red's circle of friends, and Andy assists him in getting his GED. When he hears the details of Andy's case, Tommy reveals that an inmate at another prison, Elmo Blatch (Bill Bolender), claimed to have committed a nearly identical murder, suggesting Andy's innocence. Andy approaches Norton with this information, but the warden fears Andy may reveal his corruption should he be released. Norton places Andy in solitary confinement and threatens to destroy the library if he should talk, then orders Hadley to kill Tommy under pretext of an escape attempt. Andy returns to his regular cell block and tells Red of his dream of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican Pacific coastal town, and setting up a hotel with boat rides for his customers. While Red shrugs it off as unrealistic, Andy instructs him, should he ever be freed, to visit a specific hayfield near Buxton to retrieve a package.

The next day at roll call, Andy's cell is empty. An enraged Norton throws one of Andy's rocks at the poster of Raquel Welch which tears through, revealing a tunnel in the wall that Andy dug with the hammer over the last two decades. The night before, Andy switched Norton's ledger with the prison-issued Bible and took the ledger, his chess set, and one of Norton's suits and escaped through the tunnel and a sewage drain during a thunderstorm. Andy then poses as Randall Stevens to withdraw most of the corruption money from several banks and sends evidence of Norton's corruption and murder of Tommy to a local newspaper. The police arrive at the prison and Hadley is arrested, but Norton commits suicide to evade arrest.

Red receives parole after serving 40 years and is allocated the apartment where Brooks committed suicide, and works at the same grocery store. Just like Brooks, Red begins to fear the outside world. Remembering Andy's advice, he visits Buxton and finds a cache of money as well as a note left by Andy, telling him to get to Zihuatanejo. Red violates his parole and travels to Fort Hancock, Texas to skip the border to Mexico. The two are happily reunited on the beach to begin a new life.

Cast

• Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne
• Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, Andy's best friend and the film's narrator; convicted of murder in 1927. Before Freeman was cast, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford were each considered for the role. Although written as a middle-aged Irishman with greying red hair (as in the novella), Darabont cast Freeman for his authoritative presence and demeanor; he could not see anyone else as Red. The short dialogue with Andy is a jest towards this casting decision as Red - when asked about the origin of his nick name - answers "Maybe it's because I'm Irish."
• Bob Gunton as Warden Samuel Norton. He is well versed in the Bible and presents himself as a pious, devout Christian and reform-minded administrator, but his actions reveal him to be corrupt, ruthless, and remorseless.
• William Sadler as Heywood, a member of Red's gang of long-serving convicts.
• Clancy Brown as Capt. Byron Hadley, chief of the guards. Hadley is an intemperate guard who thinks nothing of delivering beatings to the inmates to keep them in line. When cast for the role, Brown declined the offer to study real-life prison guards as preparation for his role, because he did not want to base it on any one person.
• Gil Bellows as Tommy Williams, a young convict whose experiences in a previous prison hold the truth about Andy's innocence.
• Mark Rolston as Bogs Diamond, the head of "The Sisters" gang and a prison rapist.
• James Whitmore as Brooks Hatlen, prison librarian/trustee and one of the oldest convicts at Shawshank having been in prison since 1905. Darabont cast Whitmore because he was one of his favorite character actors.

Themes

Chicago Sun-Times film reviewer Roger Ebert suggests that The Shawshank Redemption is an allegory for maintaining one's feeling of self-worth when placed in a hopeless position. The integrity of Andy Dufresne is an important theme in the story line, especially in prison, where integrity is lacking.

Angus C. Larcombe suggests that the film provides a great illustration of how characters can be free, even in prison, or unfree, even in freedom, based on one's outlook on life.

Production

Darabont secured the film adaptation rights from author Stephen King after impressing the author with his short film adaptation of The Woman in the Room in 1983. Although the two had become friends and maintained a pen-pal relationship, Darabont did not work with him until four years later in 1987, when he optioned to adapt Shawshank. This is one of the more famous Dollar Deals made by King with aspiring filmmakers. Darabont later directed The Green Mile (1999), 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.

Rob Reiner, who had previously adapted another King novella, The Body, into the movie Stand by Me (1986), offered $2.5 million in an attempt to write and direct Shawshank. He planned to cast Tom Cruise in the part of Andy and Harrison Ford as Red. Darabont seriously considered and liked Reiner's vision, but he ultimately decided it was his "chance to do something really great" by directing the film himself.

Though the story is set in Maine, the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio was used as a stand-in for the fictional Shawshank Prison. Though a large portion of the prison was torn down after filming, the main administration building and two cell blocks remained; the site would be revisited later for filming parts of the film Air Force One. Several of the interior shots of the specialized prison facilities, such as the admittance rooms and the warden's office, were shot in the reformatory. The interior of the boarding room used by Brooks and Red was located in the administration building, though exterior shots were made elsewhere. The prison site remains a tourist attraction to date. Internal scenes in the prison cellblocks were actually filmed on a soundstage built inside the nearby shuttered Westinghouse factory. Downtown scenes were also filmed in Mansfield, as well as neighboring Ashland, Ohio. The oak tree under which Andy buries his letter to Red is located at 40°39′14″N 82°23′31″W, near Malabar Farm State Park, in Lucas, Ohio. The tree was heavily damaged by straight-line winds in a thunderstorm on July 29, 2011; officials are unsure if the tree will survive.

Reception

The Shawshank Redemption received a limited release on September 23, 1994, and made over $727,000 on 33 screens in its first weekend. It received a wide release on October 7, 1994.

It was re-released in 1995 during the Oscar season, and made an additional $8 million. Overall, it has made $28.3 million in theatres domestically.

The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1994 (Best Picture, Best Actor—Morgan Freeman, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Mixing-Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Michael Herbick and Willie D. Burton) but, in the shadow of 1994's big winner Forrest Gump, did not win any awards. The film's Academy Award nominations enabled it to fare well in the video sales and cable TV viewings. In June 1997, TNT, an American cable network, showed the film for the first time. The film was the first feature in TNT's Saturday Night New Classics. Since 1997, TNT has shown the film about once every two months.

Entertainment Weekly reviewer Owen Gleiberman praised the choice of scenery, writing that the "moss-dark, saturated images have a redolent sensuality" that makes the film very realistic. While praising Morgan Freeman's acting and oratory skills as making Red feel real, Gleiberman opined that with the "laconic-good-guy, neo-Gary Cooper role, Tim Robbins is unable to make Andy connect with the audience."

In 1998, Shawshank was not listed in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, but nine years later (2007), it was #72 on the revised list, outranking both Forrest Gump (#76) and Pulp Fiction (#94), the two most critically acclaimed movies from the year of Shawshank's release. In 1999, film critic Roger Ebert listed Shawshank on his "Great Movies" list.

The film has a rating of 80 out of 100 on film-review collating website Metacritic, and an approval "Certified Fresh" rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes by film critics.

In March 2011, the film was voted by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra listeners as their favorite film of all time, beating others including Fight Club, Pulp Fiction and Back to the Future.

American Film Institute Recognition:

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies—Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains:
  • Andy Dufresne—Nominated Hero
  • Warden Samuel Norton—Nominated Villain
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs:
  • Duettino – Sull'Aria (from The Marriage of Figaro)—Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes:
  • "Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin'."—Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores—Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers—#23
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)—#72

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, which was his first Oscar nomination. The majority of the score consists of dark piano music, which plays along the main character's role at Shawshank. 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. A central scene in the film features the "Letter Duet" ("Canzonetta sull'aria") from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

See also

• List of films considered the best
• List of number-one DVDs of 2002 (UK)
• List of number-one DVDs of 2006 (UK)

Further reading

• Mark Kermode (2003). The Shawshank Redemption. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0851709680. http://books.google.com/?id=hYBZAAAAMAAJ. 
• Turner, Cory (4 August 2011). "On Location: Mansfield, Ohio's 'Shawshank' Industry". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/2011/08/04/138986482/on-location-mansfield-ohios-shawshank-industry. 

External links

• The Shawshank Redemption at AllRovi
• The Shawshank Redemption at the TCM Movie Database
• The Shawshank Redemption at Box Office Mojo
• The Shawshank Redemption at the Internet Movie Database
• The Shawshank Redemption at Rotten Tomatoes