 Special Edition Digibook Few movies capture the triumph of the human spirit as memorably as Frank Darabont's film The Shawshank Redemption from the same Stephen King story collection that gave us Stand By Me. Morgan Freeman plays Red, a lifer who knows how to cope with the bleak hopelessness of Shawshank State Prison. Tim Robbins plays new inmate Andy, a quiet banker convicted of murders he didn't commit - and whose indomitable will earn Red's respect and friendship. Andy's resourfulness brings hope and change to the entire prison. He's full of surprises. And the best comes last, leading to one of the most satisfying finales in film history. Storyline: Andy Dufresne is a young and successful banker whose life changes drastically when he is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and her lover. Set in the 1940's, the film shows how Andy, with the help of his friend Red, the prison entrepreneur, turns out to be a most unconventional prisoner. Written by Martin Lewison Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Casey Broadwater on July 2, 2009 -- Few films broach the subject of true male friendship. We have buddy movies, sure, but these are often just action flicks that mine an odd-couple style pairing for comedic gold. Even war films, with their Band of Brothers, one man willing to lay down his life for another mentality, rarely tackle the subject in more than a cursory way. What I'm talking about is a deep-seated, platonic, emotional bond between two men—I believe bromance is the term used in the modern vernacular—a lifelong link that can stretch vast distances and weather all storms. Most guys I know have at least one such relationship, but admittedly, we don't like to talk about it. Pride gets in the way, insecurity and machismo too, and so the camaraderie that can exist between two men goes largely unappreciated, both in our own lives and in the sex-fueled machinery of pop-culture. The Shawshank Redemption, then, is a strange cinematic enigma, a film that trades guy/girl sexual chemistry for nonphysical friendship and male-pattern emotional baldness. It's also one of the most uplifting films of the past twenty years, a fact that has left some critics wary of it's so-called sentimentality, while moving a whole generation of audiences to tears and exaltations. Director Frank Darabont (The Mist, The Green Mile) adapted The Shawshank Redemption from a non-genre novella by horror hound Stephen King. Set initially in 1947, the film follows Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a banker who is wrongfully convicted of the murder of his wife and her illicit lover, and sentenced to a double life term in Maine's Shawshank State Penitentiary. Also in for life is Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), the story's narrator and, as a smuggler of contraband, the prison's always-open general store. The two men strike up an almost immediate friendship, and the remainder of the film chronicles their relationship over 19 years together in the pen. Andy is innocent, but he accepts his fate, at least initially, by pursuing tiny acts of normalcy. He carves a chess set from soapstone, helps a guard with tax problems in exchange for beers for his roof-tarring crew, builds a better prison library, and eventually ends up cooking the accounting books for Warden Norton (Bob Gunton), a vile tyrant who has his sticky fingers in a number of illegal financial pies. When Andy chooses to act out his "get busy living, or get busy dying" ultimatum, he enacts a plan to take what life owes him, leaving provision a-plenty for his old pal Red. One of the criticisms leveled at the film is that it is nonrealistic, and that certain elements of the prison experience, and certain facets of the friendship between Andy and Red, are implausible and overcooked. Fair enough, the film simply isn't a realist drama, and while I was thinking about this review, I was reminded of the introduction for Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, a play that, like The Shawshank Redemption, is a reminiscence of the long ago and far away. "The scene is memory and is therefore nonrealistic," Williams writes. "Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominately in the heart." If there's a better description for The Shawshank Redemption's memory play aesthetic, I haven't found it. Red recalls his prison days, the good, the bad, and the brutal, through the foggy lens of emotion. Prison guards, like Captain Hadley (Carnivale's Clancy Brown), are remembered as one- note titans of disciplinary terror, swinging night sticks unrelentingly. Fonder moments—the rooftop beer scene comes to mind—are recollected through an amber glow of triumph and nostalgia. So, no, this is not a patently realistic film. In reality, hundreds of prisoners probably wouldn't have stopped to stare at a loudspeaker when Andy plays opera from the warden's office, but that's certainly what it felt like to Red. Working within this memory play structure allows The Shawshank Redemption's themes to take on an almost mythic resonance. It's a prison movie, sure, but there are more kinds of imprisonment than the brick and mortar, bars and stripes variety. The film deals with institutionalization, but who hasn't felt simultaneously confined and comforted by the institutions—marriage, work, religion, etc.—of everyday life? And let's not forget hope, which Andy calls "a good thing, maybe the best of things." The film's overarching message, if you want to call it that, is that no matter how bad things may get, and how unfair the world may be, life can and will get better, provided we allow ourselves a little hope. This might sound like a platitude —and I'm the first to balk at cinematic pandering—but The Shawshank Redemption, in the breadth of its journey, is one film that actually earns the boldness of its message. This seems to be why there's often such a dichotomy between critical reactions to Shawshank and audience response. There's no doubt that people have latched onto this film as a kind of celluloid talisman, a bit of moviemaking magic that can carry them through the tough times. And critics simply don't know what to do with that. If the film had been made in the 1940's, I think it would be universally regarded as a classic, but we're a bit too hesitant today to equate "feel good crowd pleaser" with "artful and important." And perhaps rightly so. There's a lot of emotionally manipulative tripe out there—say, The Notebook or ahem, Coldplay, ahem —that gets gobbled up by the indiscriminating maw of pop consumerism. Getting voted #2 on IMDB's Top Movies of All Time is a bit of a stretch, but with The Shawshank Redemption the masses have thoroughly and rightfully befuddled the tastemakers, and I have a feeling that the film will continue to be enjoyed for years to come. In my book, at least, that's more than enough to call it a classic. After all that talk about memory, myth, and critical response, I never got around to mentioning how absolutely fantastic the film is from an acting/directing standpoint. Tim Robbins strolls through his scenes like a man in a park, at one with his surroundings but clearly engaged mentally with some deep secret. Morgan Freeman, over the course of his three parole hearings, goes convincingly from subservient to resigned. And director Frank Darabont wrings every bead of lifeblood from King's story, frequently elevating the material into something poetic and grand. The Shawshank Redemption's box office disaster was redeemed by video sales, and this Blu-ray release will continue the tradition with stellar visuals, strong audio fidelity, and a decent package of extras, all housed within a tasteful digibook. Highly Recommended. Cast Notes: Tim Robbins (Andy Dufresne), Morgan Freeman (Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding), Bob Gunton (Warden Norton), William Sadler (Heywood), Clancy Brown (Captain Hadley), Gil Bellows (Tommy), Mark Rolston (Bogs Diamond), James Whitmore (Brooks Hatlen), Jeffrey DeMunn (1946 D.A.), Larry Brandenburg (Skeet), Neil Giuntoli (Jigger), Brian Libby (Floyd), David Proval (Snooze), Joseph Ragno (Ernie), Jude Ciccolella (Guard Mert). IMDb Rating (12/04/16): 9.3/10 from 1,735,711 users Top 250: #1
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