The Shawshank Redemption 😲

Submitted by [deleted] t3_yfgyqh in movies

I just finished this movie for the first full time. I've seen chunks of it, but never the whole thing. It is a damn great movie with a great damn cast.

Story is fucking great and Andy is a phenomenal protagonist who is also tragic, but the shit he went through, never let that get the best of him. And Red, awesome secondary protagonist who not for a second steals the spotlight

All of the character development and story progression is awesome, and it's rather inspirational how much patience Andy had while in prison. He spent almost 20 years there, the whole time plotting to escape.

He took his time, and never once lost his mind in the process. And the man was innocent.....how does someone who is innocent spend almost 20 years of their life they can never get back in prison, go through hell, and never legit lose their sanity?

Also, Samuel....total piece of shit down to his core...but a great villain in that regard. He isn't one of those likable villains, he's the kind whom you want to see his comeuppance. At first he may seem likable because Andy succeeds in impressing him, but no he's still an irredeemable p.o.s., same exact thing goes for his right hand man played by Clancy Brown

At the end of the movie, it is satisfying to see that Andy exposed them of their crimes and to see Byron Hadley arrested, but was annoying that Samuel took the cowardly way out. Did not face it like a man....

This movie is easily a masterpiece and I wish I had this as part of my blu-ray collection

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Young_Old_Grandma t1_iu3f0pa wrote

"Brooks was here" just totally broke my heart.

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OmniFella t1_iu3ucoh wrote

In the book, Brooks is a single, hardly descriptive line on one page. Frank Darabont extrapolated one hell of a character from that line.

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[deleted] OP t1_iu3f4bh wrote

Man never would adjust, spent the majority of his adult life at that prison.

Red spent almost as much time as him in prison, just short of 10 years, but the one thing that kept him from taking his life too, was his bond with Andy

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Herne8 t1_iu3wljh wrote

Yeah, when we first started dating I convinced my GF to watch it. She'd always been reluctant as she knew it's a Stephen King story and assumed it was a horror. She cried at that scene.

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Michael_G_Bordin t1_iu3i6a7 wrote

I've seen this movie soooo many times.

A few things I've noticed:

  1. the Warden is constantly talking about righteousness and piety, while being a vulgar and cruel man. A friend of mine didn't like the "fart in the wind" line, but I explained it shows how he's a crude and vulgar man, not the pious and pristine man he present shimself as.

  2. Andy was baptized in shitwater. I just think this is beautiful and hilarious, from an atheist pov. That to clean himself of the stink of the corruption of Shawshank, he had to literally crawl through five-hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness.

  3. "Geology is the study of pressure and time". Underrated line. While pressure may not have been overwhelming, the function of time and pressure gave Andy the means of escape. His pressure was such that he found himself useful to the protectionary staff and off-limits to harmful actors, but he was also an innocent man and deserved freedom. And in time he weathered a wall into a hole, busted through a chemically corroded pipe, and wriggled his way through five-hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness I can't even imagine (oh, and financially set himself up). Or maybe I don't want to.

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RudeEtuxtable t1_iu3f2ts wrote

Now rewrite this entire thing as if you're Red narrating....

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dpcaxx t1_iu3fspi wrote

>Now rewrite this entire thing as if you're Red narrating....

...if portrayed by Samuel L Jackson.

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williesnyder t1_iu4amqg wrote

And this move lost Best Picture to Forest Gump in 1995. Both movies were great but Shawshank, in my opinion, was better!

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Seahearn4 t1_iu50tk3 wrote

But Pulp Fiction was better than both.

I think it's always important to remember that the Oscars aren't 100% merit-based. They're a snap-shot of the year, and nothing about judging art qualitatively is objective. There's campaigning and a limited window to view the films. Not much time for re-watching and thorough analysis.

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DobleRanura t1_iu5ii90 wrote

"Better" is being used way too loose by you here. To me Shawshank pierced farther than any "artistic" merits it might hold and simply resonated into what it means to be human in a more profound way than Oscars might be criticizing for. Pulp Fiction was badass and love it as well, and Forrest Gump was also a class A human experience film that crammed a lot more than you could swallow so it didn't let you dwell on the emotions presented to you quite like Shawshank did.

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positive_charging t1_iu3f88g wrote

The head sister's "accident" was so satisfying

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[deleted] OP t1_iu3fb4s wrote

Probably the one good thing Hadley did in the whole movie

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Porkgazam t1_iu58yld wrote

He bought the lads beer after Andy did him a solid for fixing his taxes.

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BlackBrown1827 t1_iu640bf wrote

Had to balance it out for almost murdering him 30 seconds earlier.

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Herne8 t1_iu3x1ga wrote

Probably one of the best movies ever made. When I was 19 I'd broken up with my GF and was seriously depressed. My mom took me on a seaside break to one of my favourite childhood holiday spots to cheer me up. Shawshank was one of the 3 VHS tapes that the caravan we stayed in had to offer. I think I watched it 5 times.

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Beard341 t1_iu3qz3h wrote

“I hope.”

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PugnaciousPangolin t1_iu6j4b3 wrote

The most fascinating thing about this film is that the final reunion on the beach was not the original ending. IIRC, it ended with the shot of Andy in the car driving away, but Darabont added the beach scene at the insistence of the studio, and for once, I agree with the studio.

I love that the scene has no dialogue, and that the men are seen from a distance once they meet and embrace. The remove of that is so satisfying when you realize that both characters spent decades in prison, where privacy didn't exist. Now that they're out, the camera respects that privacy and keeps its distance.

I also love that the final scene is on this lovely little beach with the clear blue water and sky stretching out to infinity. After two hours in a dark, gray and terrible place, it feels the audience escapes the prison along with Andy and Red.

The subtle soundtrack does stellar work here as well. Sublime work by Thomas Newman.

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Ohadi_Nacnud_3 t1_iu3dzly wrote

I'm happy to hear you finally got to see it in its full. You are right it's an amazing film.

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jlcooke t1_iu4bcpb wrote

> And the man was innocent

He took his time to leave because he was going to kill his wife and lover ... but was too drunk to pull it off. Felt guilt and punished himself.

Surprised how many people miss this.

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[deleted] OP t1_iu7qbrz wrote

Ain't how I saw it. He was drunk and enraged, contemplated going in there and doing it, but made the right choice in the end

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TriscuitCracker t1_iu4oo21 wrote

“Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes, really. Pressure and time”.

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TabbyKattttt t1_iu3ks90 wrote

I will NEVER forget this movie.

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hghlnder72 t1_iu3rzwu wrote

"i love it when she does that shit with her hair"

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torn-ainbow t1_iu3t40o wrote

It's a really pure story that feels somehow older and truer than it should.

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yoda_81 t1_iu4063z wrote

I’ve watched it so many times, never gets old

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Lowery613 t1_iu4185p wrote

Glad you watched and enjoyed it. I've recommended it to so many people and they won't give it a chance. Keep an eye on any local theatres or throw back days at big chain theatres, they sometimes play it on the big screen and it's even better.

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Alone_Pop449 t1_iu47gc0 wrote

Best friendship in movie history, I saw myself in both Andy and Red

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BuckyJackson36 t1_iu4aeer wrote

Truly a fantastic movie. It is a rare movie that is actually far better than the book it was based on.

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Xenosys83 t1_iu4qaya wrote

It's not called one of greatest movies of all-time for nothing.

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Tebwolf359 t1_iu4tady wrote

Funny foreshadowing in retrospect:

Andy is telling Red about Zihuatijo and loving on the beach, etc.

Red looks at him, “Andy, that’s just a shitty pipe dream. “

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indecisive_squid t1_iu4tq8n wrote

This is my favourite movie ever. I've been trying to think about why it's so beloved. I think it's something to do with how universal it is. We've all been in situations that we longed to escape from. Situations that we didn't think were our fault. However true that is, we have to do our best to do right by others and escape when we can. We all have the right to escape from what terrifies and imprisons us. That's Andy's story.

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in_the_blind t1_iu5ofm2 wrote

This movie and widely.. .widely acclaimed, and no secret gem.

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Mali_Bootay t1_iuf2n8j wrote

The film score by Thomas Newman is one of his best as well. It’s one of the many great things of this film.

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WhereIsThatElephant t1_iu3k0oz wrote

the movie is outstanding except the part how he has not been moved into another cell in many years, nor how with all the rigorous searches a giant hole in the wall was never discovered either

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beast916 t1_iu3zi75 wrote

In the novella it explains that because of everything Andy does for the warden and guards, he got special privileges and wasn’t ridden as hard as others.

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XavierRex83 t1_iu54rr1 wrote

I think that was clear in the movie as well.

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beast916 t1_iu5c2nu wrote

I know the novella much better than the movie, so I wasn’t sure about the movie.

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XavierRex83 t1_iu5i4zv wrote

It wasn't directly stated in the movie but at one point the warden refers to Andy's cell as a 1 bunk Hilton as well as some of the other special treatment he got.

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in_the_blind t1_iu5opwg wrote

I had a novella once, got 0 to 60 in about 20 seconds. A book i s a book.

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beast916 t1_iu5srl5 wrote

King says it’s a novella. The book is Different Seasons. The novella wasn’t published on its own until about two decades after Different Seasons.

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