September 23rd marked the 20th anniversary of what is probably many people’s favorite movie: Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption. Currently it is sitting on the #1 slot on IMDb (no small feat), with a 9.3 rating.
What makes The Shawshank Redemption so great? The title isn’t really appealing, ‘Shawshank’ is a made-up word and spell check isn’t really recognizing ‘Redemption’ for some odd reason. It’s a prison drama about two men that meet on the inside and what happens in twenty years. However, the film is certainly good enough for AMC and TNT to show on TV for a monthly basis.
Where were you when The Shawshank Redemption came out? I, for one, was probably not even a cell, just an idea between my parents that wouldn’t be fully realized until ’98. Maybe you were a kid, enamored with The Lion King that came out a couple months before. No matter where you were in ’94, chances are you didn’t spend two and a half hours in a cold room with sticky seats watching The Shawshank Redemption. At its peak, the film was in 944 theaters, a measly number compared to the 2,365 theaters Forrest Gump played in only months before. By the end of 1994, Shawshank was the 51st highest grossing film that year, making only a total of twenty-eight million dollars.
1995. Oscar nominations are out, and The Shawshank Redemption nabs seven, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Morgan Freeman. This is in a year with Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump as fellow nominees, so the film was in pretty good company. Like 2009’s A Serious Man, The Shawshank Redemption was a nominee that many people acknowledged but overlooked, nodding their heads “Oh yeah, I heard it was good.” Somehow, the film got good word of mouth from the right people, and it became the most rented film of 1995. Thank you Blockbuster!
I first saw the film in 2011, after scrolling through IMDb scavenging for must-sees, The Shawshank Redemption was the top of the pile. I remember being a little bored with the first half, as the prison life of wrongly convicted Andy Dufresne (played with incredibly nuance by unfairly-snubbed Tim Robbins) is played out with events connected only by Morgan Freeman’s crisp narration. But I stuck with the film, there was some gravity to it that I can’t explain, an unknown suspense that was brewing, and yes, the film did pay off by the end credits. As a whole, the film was, and (dozens of watches later) still is, an incredible experience. Eyes and ears are the only thing needed to appreciate the film.
So I liked the film a lot. So what? I like Spider-Man 3, and I seem to be the only one. Pretty much everyone I know that has seen Shawshank likes/loves it too, and I think I know why: deep down, the film isn’t Oscar bait, it’s a crowd pleaser. It does what movies are made to do, to make you laugh (the chemistry between Andy and his fellow inmates is quite delightful), to make you cry (BROOKS WAS HERE), to make you want to just jump out of your seat and applaud (that scene in the rain, you know what I’m talking about), to hold your seat tight as goosebumps crawl down your arm (Any scene with Capt. Hadley), but most of all, to have a good time.
Next week, I will be talking with Mike’s Likes about what makes The Shawshank Redemption such a good time. The video below is one of the most incredible scenes in any movie ever, and if it doesn’t tempt you to watch the movie for the first or fifty-first time, I don’t know what will.
Wu Chainz 