The Shawshank Redemption (1994): Favourite Films Series

The Shawshank Redemption (1994): Favourite Films Series

Andy Dufresne is wrongfully accused of murdering his wife and her lover and sent to Shawshank prison, where he befriends Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, the man who “knows how to get things”. They become friends, and as the years wear on, Andy never loses hope, despite the poor quality of life Shawshank offers, the harsh warden, the rapists, and the toll prison life takes on everyone. I don’t want to spoil anything, even though the movie is over twenty-five years old as of writing this, because if you are reading this and haven’t yet seen it, then let me explain somewhat briefly why it’s one of my all-time favourite films. 

Put only into words, The Shawshank Redemption sounds like it has potential, but for someone who has never seen it, words alone make it sound…alright? There’s no romance, just friendship, there’s little action or variety, and it’s largely just dialogue scenes set in a depressing prison. This is part of the power of cinema: it can take a solid concept and elevate it into a moving experience that wouldn’t be quite the same in any other medium.  

Frank Darabont had already been making a name for himself in Hollywood with numerous screenplay credits before he took on The Shawshank Redemption. Shawshank was to be his first directing job for a film to be released to theaters (his first being the television movie Buried Alive). It was his theatrical debut, and I can’t think of a more extraordinary debut. By the 1990’s, Stephen King had already put out dozens of novels and short stories. Darabont had a wealth of source material to pick from. He didn’t select one of the grander, flashier horror tales for which the author was most well-known like IT or Pet Sematary or Dark Tower. He bought the rights to adapt King’s short story Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption back in 1987, and in 1994, the film was finally released. Though it didn’t win any Academy Awards or make a significant amount at the box office, Shawshank resonated with those who saw it, and as the years went on, it gained greater recognition as being an exceptional film, and is now regarded by many as one of the greatest films of all-time. 

I can’t think of a single thing to criticize. The story is excellent. The dialogue is memorable, much of it pulled straight from the story. The camerawork is precise and purposeful. The editing is tight and impactful. The cinematography is somehow beautiful despite most of the film taking place in a prison made mostly of layered stone and steel bars and grey concrete. It’s a drab background that lets the characters pop out. The acting, too, is faultless. If Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins had turned in average performances—showed up, read their lines, went through the motions—the film would still be good, but they elevate it to a significantly higher level. Morgan Freeman has given many good performances, but this is certainly one of his greatest. 

There are many underrated aspects to Shawshank that sometimes get overshadowed (understandably so) by the big three highlights: the lead performances, the screenplay, and the directing. I can’t think of one bad performance from any of the supporting actors. The warden, played by Bob Gunton, is quietly detestable at first, then just gets more and more villainous as time wears on. Even Red’s gang of cohorts, most of whom don’t get much dialogue or even that much screen time, are all great. The character of Tommy Williams, a young, fast-talking crook, is introduced quite late into the story, but he makes a strong first impression, and despite only having a small part in the overall story, proves to be incredibly memorable even in that short time. 

The casting contributed significantly to the memorability of the characters, with great players like William Sadler and James Whitmore, just to name a couple. The music, too, is another underrated element of this masterpiece. It isn’t a big, imposing score, but it enhances many scenes, most memorably for me when there’s that sinister shot of the prison as Andy arrives and the music swells to make it even more foreboding, and the beautiful, hopeful music during the final moments of the film. In contrast, sometimes the absence of music makes certain scenes better, too, like when the new overweight prisoner is beaten to death in a horribly realistic manner on the first night, or when Andy negotiates with Captain Hadley on the roof as he’s about to throw him off. 

In the discussion of best Stephen King stories, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is up there, but it certainly isn’t in the top tier of his greatest works. In terms of the film adaptations, though, Shawshank Redemption is usually everyone’s number one pick. It’s a faithful adaptation, not leaving out any major elements from the story, and expands on the source material in eloquent ways. It’s a strange thing to consider one of the best stories to come from the mind of Stephen King isn’t a horror story or even a supernatural one. It’s a deeper, more meaningful tale, where the monsters are human and the focus is not on terror but on hope. Like Andy says, it comes down to a simple choice. “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”