The Shawshank Reflection

1994 was a monster year for movies. From classic crime dramas like Pulp Fiction, to children’s movies like The Lion King, to epics like Forest Gump, to a trio of Jim Carrey comedies, it seemed as if there was a little something for everyone. Which raises the question -- why did a grim prison movie that clocked in at well over 2 hours emerge as the best of all of them? On the surface its appeal makes sense. It was based off of a Stephen King novel, directed by Frank Darabont, and narrated by Morgan Freeman. But then again, so were Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return, The Blob, and The Love Guru. What is it about a prison movie that wasn’t a comedy, didn’t have a star-studded cast, and had little to do with escaping that made it not only the best prison movie of all time, but also arguably the greatest movie regardless of genre? The answer, in this writer’s opinion, are the same aforementioned reasons that make it an unlikely classic to some. Clever Instead of Slapstick Everything in this movie is done tastefully. Instead of making cheap “don’t drop the soap” jokes, it attempts to intelligently study the culture of prison rape. It doesn’t give us an eccentric protagonist (a la McMurphy) who refuses to conform, it “institutionalizes” almost everyone and puts a bullet in one of the few that failed to comply. This doesn’t lead to a snooze fest, it just creates more room for the audience to appreciate the subtle humor. It allows us to laugh at the dark humor in Red’s second parole scene when we realize he is repeating his first speech verbatim. It helps us appreciate Andy’s wit when he gives a newcomer the same advice that Red gave to him when he first arrived. And it allows us one last laugh when Andy ethers the warden at the movie’s climax. None of this would have been as impactful if it was drowned out by a sea of one liners, which causes the viewer to feel that they were rewarded for their patience. No One Steals The Show Morgan Freeman had already gotten some (deserved) shine for his role in Driving Miss Daisy, and Tim Robbins had made a name for himself thanks to Bull Durham, but the two were far from the Robert De Niro’s of the world as far as recognizability goes. This may have hurt the film at the box office, but it helped tremendously in the long run. In order for the movie to reach its full potential, it had to convince the audience that the dynamics of the outside world are completely turned on its head once you enter Shawshank. The message of the film gets a little murkier if the directors were unable to convince us that a “big shot banker” in the outside world becomes a nobody once he is put behind bars. And would the audience be effectively convinced that Andy was lower than no names like Bogs if the character was played by, say, Brad Pitt? The answer is likely no. Some have criticized Tim Robbins’ performance for being too flat and uninspired, but these people seem to be missing the point and are projecting what they expect from a lead character onto Andy Dufresne. Shawshank isn’t a movie about a man that said “fuck the system” for a few decades then finally got the best of his captors. It’s about a man that did anything to keep that one ember of hope alive -- including bending to the will of the higher ups. In that respect, smiling to himself in the Warden’s office as Mozart plays in the background is way more impactful than cursing out a security guard or getting into a fist fight. The Ending’s About Escape, But The Movie Isn’t It’s easy to get tripped up by the fantastic escape scene and start remembering Shawshank as a movie about a prison break. But to ignore the fact that the writers so carefully stayed away from prison break cliches is to ignore what is really at play here. Shawshank isn’t a movie about escaping from prison, it’s a movie about living in prison. Andy doesn’t escape after stealing a gun and shooting his way out one night, he does it over the course of a few decades by chipping away at a wall with a tiny hammer. It’s not a coincidence that Andy’s physical escape from the prison was made as unglamorous as possible -- he crawled through “a river of shit” for a reason. Because if you take one thing away from Shawshank, it’s that it’s more important to want to be free than to actually achieve said freedom. This is just a glance at a movie that many, including myself, would contend to be the greatest of all time. There’s no way to do a full review of a movie like this without skipping over something that made you laugh, cry, or think, so I’m not even going to try. I’ve watched this movie on airplanes, I’ve watched it at 3 in the morning, I’ve even watched it in Spanish, and it never fails to blow me away. Its legacy of the past 20 years is that of a movie that is simultaneously quotable and memorable on a surface level, while at the same time carrying deeper meaning and inspiring the viewer to ask important questions like what it really means to be free. You would have to be as cold as the jury presumed Andy to be in order to walk away from this movie without a smile on your face. If you enjoyed this, check out the Screen Genius breakdown of Shawshank’s final scene as well as Red’s final parole monologue.