The Shawshank Redemption
| 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 |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Thomas Newman |
| Cinematography | Roger Deakins |
| Edited by | Richard Francis-Bruce |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 142 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25 million |
| Box office | $58 million[2] |
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 is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary 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.
While The Shawshank Redemption received positive reviews at release, it was a box office disappointment, owing to competition from other films such as Pulp Fiction. The film received multiple award nominations (including seven Oscar nominations) and highly positive reviews from critics for its acting, story, and realism. Through Ted Turner's acquisition of Castle Rock Entertainment, the film started gaining more popularity in 1997 after it started near-daily airings on Turner's TNT network. It is now considered to be one of the greatest films of the 1990s. It has since been successful on cable television, VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray.
It was included in the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).[3] In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4]
Contents
[hide]Plot[edit]
In 1947 Portland, Maine, banker Andy Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, and is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at the Shawshank State Penitentiary. Andy is befriended by contraband smuggler, Ellis "Red" Redding, an inmate serving a life sentence. Red procures a rock hammer and later a large poster of Rita Hayworth for Andy. Working in the prison laundry, Andy is regularly assaulted by "the Sisters" and their leader, Bogs.
In 1949, Andy overhears the captain of the guards, Byron Hadley, complaining about being taxed on an inheritance, and offers to help him legally shelter the money. After an assault by the Sisters nearly kills Andy, Hadley beats Bogs severely. Bogs is then transferred to another prison. Warden Samuel Norton meets Andy and reassigns him to the prison library to assist elderly inmate Brooks Hatlen. Andy's new job is a pretext for him to begin managing financial matters for the prison employees. As time passes, the Warden begins using Andy to handle matters for a variety of people, including guards from other prisons and the Warden himself. Andy begins writing weekly letters asking the state government for funds to improve the decaying library.
In 1954, Brooks is paroled after serving fifty years, but cannot adjust to the outside world, and he commits suicide by hanging himself. Andy receives a library donation that includes a recording of The Marriage of Figaro. He plays an excerpt over the public address system, resulting in him receiving solitary confinement. After his release from solitary, Andy explains that hope is what gets him through his time, a concept that Red dismisses. In 1963, Norton begins exploiting prison labor for public works, profiting by undercutting skilled labor costs and receiving bribes. He has Andy launder the money using the alias Randall Stephens.
In 1965, Tommy Williams is incarcerated for burglary. He is befriended by Andy and Red, and Andy helps him pass his GED exam. In 1966, Tommy reveals to Red and Andy that an inmate at another prison claimed responsibility for the murders for which Andy was convicted. Andy approaches Norton with this information, but he refuses to listen and sends Andy back to solitary confinement when he mentions the money laundering. Norton has Hadley murder Tommy under the guise of an escape attempt. Andy declines to continue the laundering, but relents after Norton threatens to burn the library, remove Andy's protection from the guards, and move him to worse conditions. Andy is released from solitary confinement after two months, and tells Red of his dream of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican coastal town. Red feels Andy is being unrealistic, but promises Andy that if he is ever released, he will visit a specific hayfield near Buxton, Maine, and retrieve a package Andy buried there. He worries about Andy's well-being, especially when he learns Andy asked another inmate to supply him with six feet (1.8 meters) of rope.
The next day at roll call, the guards find Andy's cell empty. An irate Norton throws a rock at the poster of Raquel Welch hanging on the cell wall, revealing a tunnel that Andy dug with his rock hammer over the last nineteen years. The previous night, Andy escaped through the tunnel and prison sewage pipe, using the rope to bring with him Norton's suit, shoes, and the ledger containing details of the money laundering. While guards search for him, Andy poses as Randall Stephens and visits several banks to withdraw the laundered money, then mails the ledger and evidence of the corruption and murders at Shawshank to a local newspaper. State police arrive at Shawshank and take Hadley into custody, while Norton commits suicide to avoid his arrest.
After serving forty years, Red is paroled. He struggles to adapt to life outside prison and fears that he never will. Remembering his promise to Andy, he visits Buxton and finds a cache containing money and a letter asking him to come to Zihuatanejo. Red violates his parole and travels to Fort Hancock, Texas to cross the border to Mexico, admitting he finally feels hope. on a beach in Zihuatanejo he finds Andy, and the two friends are happily reunited.
Cast[edit]
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- Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne. Kevin Costner, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt were all offered the role but turned it down because of scheduling conflicts with Waterworld, Forrest Gump and Interview with the Vampire, respectively.
- 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.[5] The short dialogue with Andy is a jest towards this casting decision, as when asked about the origin of his nickname, Red jokingly replies, "Maybe it's because I'm Irish." Freeman once stated in an interview that Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is his favorite book.[6]
- Bob Gunton as Warden Samuel Norton. Although he is well versed in the Bible and presents himself as a pious, devout Christian and reform-minded administrator, 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 a sadistic 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 felt that he would end up with too many inspirations to balance.[7]
- 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.[5]
- Jeffrey DeMunn as the prosecuting attorney in Dufresne's trial.
Production[edit]
Director Frank Darabont first collaborated with author Stephen King in 1983, on the short film adaptation of The Woman in the Room. They remained pen-pals afterwards.[8] This is one of the more famous Dollar Deals made by King with aspiring filmmakers. Darabont later adapted and directed two more of King's books, The Green Mile (1999) The Mist (2007).
After receiving his first screenwriting credit in 1987 for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Darabont returned to King with $5,000[2] to purchase the right to adapt Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, a 96-page short story written by King as part of an attempt to explore new genres. Although King did not understand how the story, largely focused on Red contemplating his fellow prisoner Andy, could make for a feature film, Darabont believed it was "obvious".[9] Five years later, Darabont wrote the script over an eight-week period. Darabont expanded on elements of King's story. Brooks, a minor character in the short story who originally dies in a retirement home, became a tragic character who eventually hangs himself. Tommy, who in the story trades his evidence exonerating Andy for transfer to a nicer prison, is instead in the screenplay murdered on the orders of warden Norton, who is himself an amalgamation of several warden characters in King's story.[9] At the time, prison-based films were not considered reliable box-office successes, but Darabont's script was read by then-Castle Rock Entertainment producer Liz Glotzer, whose interest in prison stories and reaction to the script led her to threaten to quit if Castle Rock did not produce The Shawshank Redemption.[9]
Director and Castle Rock co-founder Rob Reiner also liked the script, and offered Darabont between $2.5[5] and $3 million to allow Reiner to direct it himself.[9] Reiner, who had previously adapted King's novella The Body into the 1986 film Stand by Me, planned to cast Tom Cruise as Andy and Harrison Ford as Red.[9][5] Castle Rock offered to finance any other film Darabont wanted to develop. Darabont, citing growing up poor in Los Angeles, seriously considered the offer, considering it would elevate his standing in his industry and that Castle Rock could have contractually fired him and given the film to Reiner anyway. Darabont chose to remain director, saying in a 2014 Variety interview, "you can continue to defer your dreams in exchange for money and, you know, die without ever having done the thing you set out to do."[9] Reiner instead served as Darabont's mentor on the project.[9]
Freeman was cast at Glotzer's suggestion, who ignored the novella's character description of a white Irishman, nicknamed "Red". Darabont initially looked at some of his favorite actors like Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall, but they were unavailable. Cruise, Tom Hanks and Kevin Costner were offered, and passed on the role of Andy Dufresne. Cruise attended table readings of the script, but he refused to work for the inexperienced Darabont; when Robbins was cast he insisted that Darabont use experienced cinematographer Roger Deakins, who had worked with Robbins on The Hudsucker Proxy.[9] To prepare for the role, Robbins would observe caged animals at a zoo, spent an afternoon in solitary confinement, and spoke with real prisoners and guards.[10] Cast as young convict Tommy, Brad Pitt dropped out following his success in Thelma & Louise, and James Gandolfini passed on portraying prison rapist Bogs.[9]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography took place for The Shawshank Redemption in 1993,[11] on a $25 million budget.[12] Filming regularly required up to 18-hour workdays, six days a week.[9] Freeman described filming as tense, stating "Most of the time, the tension was between the cast and director. I remember having a bad moment with the director, had a few of those". Freeman referred to Darabont requiring multiple takes of scenes, which Freeman considered had no discernible differences. He said that he would sometimes simply refuse to do the additional takes. Robbins said that the long days were difficult, while Darabont considered that making the film taught him a lot, "A director really needs to have an internal barometer to measure what any given actor needs."[9]
The Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio served as the fictional Shawshank state penitentiary in Maine.[11] After nearly a century of use, the facility had been closed three years earlier on New Years Eve, 1990,[13] due to inhumane living conditions. The 15-acre facility, housing its own power plant and farm, was partially torn down shortly after filming completed, leaving the main administration building and two cell blocks. 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 actually located in the administration building; exterior shots of the boarding house were taken elsewhere. Internal scenes in the prison cellblocks were actually filmed on a soundstage built inside the nearby shuttered Westinghouse factory. As Darabont wanted the inmate cells to face each other for the film, so all of the cellblock scenes were shot on a purpose-built set housed in the Westinghouse Electric factory, Mansfield.[11]
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 / 40.65400°N 82.39195°W, near Malabar Farm State Park, in Lucas, Ohio. The tree was split by lightning on July 29, 2011; officials were unsure if the tree would survive.[14] However, due to rally groups and inspections by forestry organizations, the tree was found to be alive and well.[15] The tree was completely felled by strong winds on or around July 22, 2016.[14]
WikiMiniAtlasJust as a prison in Ohio stood in for a fictional one in Maine, the beach scenes shown in the final minutes of the film meant to portray Zihuatanejo, Mexico, were actually shot in the Caribbean on the island of St. Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The beach at ‘Zihuatanejo’ is Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, a two-mile crescent of sand just south of Frederiksted on the southwestern tip of the island. The refuge is a hatching ground for leatherback sea turtles, and open only at limited times (10 am to 4 pm on Saturdays and Sundays), and not at all during the breeding season.[16]
The first edit of the film ran for nearly two and a half hours, which Glotzer considered "long", and several scenes were cut including a longer sequence of Red adjusting to life post incarceration; Darabont said that in test screenings the audienced seemed to be getting impatient with the scene as they were already convinced that Red would not make it.[10] Darabont's original vision ended the film with Red riding a bus towards the Mexican border, leaving his fate ambiguous. Glotzer insisted on including the scene of Red and Andy reuniting in Zihuatanejo. She said Darabont felt this was a "commercial, sappy" ending, but Glotzer wanted the audience to see them together.[9] The film was dedicated to Allen Greene, his former agent who died during filming from AIDS.[17]
Music[edit]
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 score consists largely of faint piano music, and tremolo strings during more active or humorous moments in the film. The score's two main themes only appear two to three times. The prison theme, first heard in the beginning, is a four-note ascending line in the bass, which is developed and reaches its climax when Andy is standing in the river in the rain. The second theme represents freedom, and is first heard when the inmates are sharing beer, feeling like "free men". This theme does not reoccur until the final credits, and is then grander, with fuller orchestration. Like Hans Zimmer's score for The Thin Red Line, the track is often played in trailers during their most dramatic moments. Zimmer himself has credited the score as the one "that has influenced everything the most", and stated that Newman expanded the harmonic palette of film scores.
A central scene in the film features the soprano "Letter Duet" ("Canzonetta sull'aria") from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, also known in Italian as "Sull'aria...che soave zeffiretto." In the duet, Countess Almaviva dictates to Susanna an invitation to a tryst addressed to the countess' unfaithful husband. Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman) remarks in his voice-over narration: "I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. [...] I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it." The music highlights the irony in the movie as the opera characters are only singing about a duplicitous love letter to expose infidelity.
Release[edit]
The Shawshank Redemption received a limited release on September 23, 1994, in North America. During its opening weekend, the film earned $727,000 from 33 theaters—an average of $22,040 per theater. It received a wide release on October 14, 1994, expanding to a total of 944 theaters to earn $2.4 million—an average of $2,545 per theater—finishing as the number 9 film of the weekend.[12] The film left theaters in late November 1994, after 10 weeks with an approximate total gross of $16 million.[18] It was considered a box office bomb, failing to recoup it $25 million budget, not including marketing costs and the cinema exhibitors cuts.[9]
Following a Hollywood tradition of visiting different theaters on opening night to see the audiences view their film live, Darabont and Glotzer went to the Cinerama Dome, but found noone there, with Glotzer claiming that the pair actually sold two tickets outside the theater with the promise that if they did not like the film, they could ask Castle Rock for a refund. Glotzer said that test screenings for the film were some of the best she had seen, and while other critics had praised the film, she believed that a lackluster review from the Los Angeles Times pushed crowds away. The film was also competing with similarly-themed films Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction which had become quotable cultural phenomenons, and a general audience trend towards action films starring the likes of Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenneger.[9] Freeman blamed the title, saying it was unmemorable,[9] with Robbins recalling fans asking "What was that Shinkshonk Reduction thing?". The low box office was also blamed on a lack of female characters to broaden the audience demographic, and a general unpopularity of prison films.[19]
After being nominated for several Oscars in early 1995,[9] the film received a re-release between February and March that year.[18] In total, the film made about $28.3 million in North American theaters, making it the 51st-highest-grossing film of 1994 and the 21st-highest grossing R-rated film of 1994,[12] and an approximate $30 million from markets elsewhere.[2]
Critical response[edit]
The Shawshank Redemption garnered widespread critical acclaim and has a "certified fresh" score of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 66 reviews with an average rating of 8.2 out of 10. The critical consensus states "The Shawshank Redemption is an uplifting, deeply satisfying prison drama with sensitive direction and fine performances."[20] The film also has a score of 80 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 19 critics indicating "generally favorable reviews".[21]
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.[22] While praising Morgan Freeman's acting and oratory skills as making Red appear real, Gleiberman felt that with the "laconic-good-guy, neo-Gary Cooper role, Tim Robbins is unable to make Andy connect with the audience."[22]
Stephen King has considered The Shawshank Redemption to be one of his favorite film adaptations based on his own work.[23]
Philosopher Alexander Hooke has argued that the film succeeds in depicting Jean-Paul Sartre's ideas about existentialism more fully than any other contemporary movie.[24]
Accolades[edit]
The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1994, the most for a Stephen King film adaptation,[25] without winning in any category: Best Picture, Best Actor for Freeman, Best Adapted Screenplay for Frank Darabont, Best Cinematography for Roger Deakins, Best Editing for Richard Francis-Bruce, Best Original Score for Thomas Newman, and Best Sound Mixing for Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Michael Herbick, and Willie D. Burton.[26] It received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture for Freeman, and Best Screenplay for Darabont.[27] Robbins and Freeman were both nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the inaugural Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1995.[28] Darabont was nominated for a Directors Guild of America award in 1994 for Best Director for a feature film,[29] while cinematographer Roger Deakins won the American Society of Cinematographers award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography.[30]
Post release[edit]
Despite its disappointing box-office return, Warner Bros shipped 320,000 rental video copies throughout the United States, and it became one of the top rented films of 1995. The film's home viewing success was considered to be based on positive recommendations and repeat customers, and was being received well by male and female audiences.[19] In 2014, Jeff Baker, then-executive vice president and general manager of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, said that the home video sales had earned approximately $80 million.[2]
The film was also acquired by the American cable network TNT as part of Ted Turner's acquisition of Castle Rock Entertainment, allowing him to bring more recent releases to the network before the broadcast stations could. According to Glotzer, because of the low box office numbers, TNT could air the movie with very low costs but still charge premium advertising space, and the film starting airing on the network beginning in June 1997.[2][9] The film was the first feature in TNT's Saturday Night New Classics, and would air nearly daily.[9] TV airings of the film accrued record-breaking numbers,[19] and its repeated airing was considered essential for turning the film's original poor box-office performance into being a cultural phenomenon.[9] In a 2014 Wall Street Journal article, it was estimated that based on the margins studios take from box office returns, home media sales, and television licensing, The Shawshank Redemption had made $100 million.[2]
Themes[edit]
Chicago Sun-Times film reviewer Roger Ebert argued that The Shawshank Redemption is an allegory for maintaining one's feeling of self-worth when placed in a hopeless position. Andy Dufresne's integrity is an important theme in the story line, especially in prison, where integrity is lacking.[31] Isaac M. Morehouse suggests that the film provides a great illustration of how characters can be free, even in prison, or unfree, even in freedom, based on their outlooks on life.[32]
During a cast reunion q&a, moderator Max Brooks noted that the story is unique in depicting a nonsexual love story between two men.[33]
Legacy[edit]
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 list of The Great Movies.[34] It has been #1 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250 since 2008, when it surpassed The Godfather.[35]
Readers of Empire magazine voted the film as the best film of the 1990s, and it placed number 4 on Empire's list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time" in 2008.[19][36] In March 2011, the film was voted by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra listeners as their favorite film of all time.[37] Additionally, the Writers Guild of America included Frank Darabont's screenplay on its 101 Greatest Screenplays list, at number 22. In an interview, Morgan Freeman quotes, “About everywhere you go, people say, ‘The Shawshank Redemption—greatest movie I ever saw’” and that such praise “Just comes out of them”. Lead actor Tim Robbins states, “I swear to God, all over the world—all over the world—wherever I go, there are people who say, ‘That movie changed my life’ ”.[38] In a separate interview, Stephen King said, "If that isn't the best [adaptation of my works], it's one of the two or three best, and certainly, in moviegoers' minds, it's probably the best because it generally rates at the top of these surveys they have of movies. . . . I never expected anything to happen with it."[39] In a 2014 Variety article, Robbins even claimed that South African politician Nelson Mandela told him about his love for the film.[9] The prison site became a tourist attraction,[11] with many of the rooms and props remaining including the false pipe through which Andy escapes. The surrounding area is also visited by fans, including the oak tree from the finale, while local businesses market "Shawshanwiches" and Bundt cakes in the shape of the prison. The prison itself was to be torn down completely following filming, but was eventually sold to enthusiasts for $1.[13]
| Year | Award | Nominee | Ranking | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies | The Shawshank Redemption | N/A | [40] |
| 2003 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains | Andy Dufresne (Hero) | N/A | [41] |
| Warden Samuel Norton (villain) | N/A | [41] | ||
| 2004 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs | Duettino – Sull'Aria (from The Marriage of Figaro) | N/A | [42] |
| 2005 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes | "Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin'" | N/A | [43] |
| 2005 | AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores | Thomas Newman, The Shawshank Redemption | N/A | [44] |
| 2006 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers | The Shawshank Redemption | #23 | [45] |
| 2007 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) | The Shawshank Redemption | #72 | [46] |
| 2008 | Empire's 500 Greatest Movies of All Time | The Shawshank Redemption | #4 | [36] |
| 2015 | National Film Registry | The Shawshank Redemption | N/A | [47] |
20th Anniversary Celebration[edit]
From August 29 to September 1, 2013, a series of events were held in Mansfield, Ohio, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the film. The events included a screening of the film at the Renaissance Theatre, where it originally premiered, tours of some of the filming locations, and a cocktail at the Ohio State Reformatory which posed as Shawshank State Penitentiary for the film. The cocktail was attended by actors Bob Gunton, Scott Mann and James Kisicki, who signed autographs and shared stories with the fans. Director Frank Darabont sent a video greeting the fans who celebrated the anniversary. More than 6,000 fans of the film attended the events.[48][49]
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