Pulp Fiction

NOTE: This discussion of the very great The Shawshank Redemption delves into spoiler territory. If this risks your enjoyment of seeing the film for the first time, you might as well see it it now. You won’t regret it.

Last week I promised an interview with Mike’s Likes about The Shawshank Redemption in honor of the film’s 20th anniversary. Here are the results.

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WC (me): When did you first see the film?

ML (Mike’s Likes): Well I first saw it sometime in middle school, maybe 7th grade. During that time I was into action and fast-paced movies. I tried watching Shawshank, but it was too slow. I think I fell asleep. Then, over the next few years, I learned more about film in general. I watched slower-paced movies like Pulp Fiction–

WC: Pulp Fiction isn’t really slow-paced.

ML: -and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I came to appreciate these films more. Then, I rewatched Shawshank some time during my freshman year, and I was blown away.

WC: I first saw the film between 7th and 8th grade, and even thought I thought it was really slow too, I chugged through it. I’m glad I did. The ending had a profound effect on me, I really wish you got to experience that instead of falling asleep. To me, Shawshank is kind of a back-heavy film, and all the scenes near the end are so great because of all the character exposition. Like, I think each act of the film just improves on each other. There’s many scenes with emotional power because of how much you care about the characters.

ML: [like] Brooks’ final scene, in which he kills himself. It’s the only time I’ve ever come close to crying during a movie. Ever. To me, that’s kind of an accomplishment. It’s the range of emotions I think. The film can convey penetrating tones of sadness and hopelessness, like with the Brooks scene. It can make one feel simply satisfying, like when the warden met his maker or when Red told off those suits [at his parole hearing]. But the most important emotion is hope. Andy never stopped hoping, and it paid off for him. It’s just relatable. Everybody feels these, but this film puts it on such a grand scale.

WC: It’s a good movie to live by. It’s a film that affects anyone who sees it on a human level. Not many films try like The Shawshank Redemption, and even less succeed as well. It’s the type of movie to pick a favorite scene too. Even though Tim Robbins dominated the first 80% of the film, Morgan Freeman got the Oscar nomination for Lead Actor, and I think it was because of the final 25 minutes or so after he gets out of prison. Those scenes are easily where the movie could have gotten overly-schmaltzy, but director Frank Darabont handled it brilliantly. And that ending! It’s made my eyes sweat a couple of times.

ML: My favorite scene was the music scene, in which Andy hijacks the intercom system to play the beautiful Italian love song. The look on his face when he ignores the warden and turns the music up, coupled with Red’s commentary gives me goosebumps every time.

WC: That’s a great scene too. I featured it on last week’s post!

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Check back tomorrow for my review of David Fincher’s latest, the dark dark dark comedy Gone Girl.

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.