The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Dirty pavement of the jail’s yard. Despondent steps of the newcomers, doomed to spend the rest of their lives in Shawshank, one of the most dreadful and cruel prisons in the US. From this moment on they have no rights, no social position, even no name – only a number on their clothes and a life in strict accordance with the severe order. A tall, stooping guy among them, scared, like an animal at bay. His name is Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) and he is convicted of having murdered his wife and her lover. Ellis Boyd Redding, best known as Red (Morgan Freeman), one of the jail’s oldest residents, bets that this guy will be brought down by Shawshank the very first night. But he doesn’t. Neither this night, nor hundreds and thousands of following nights entwining into twenty long years won’t make Andy Dufresne give up for a moment. He turns out much more that he seemed to Red at the first glance. This ordinary man proves to be a model of courage, dignity and firmness. He is not guilty and will never renounce it, doing anything to right this wrong. Red was mistaken about him. And hardly had this man, who never knew another home except the jail, thought that Andy would become his best friend ever, his only kindred soul. His friend who after twenty years of imprisonment would escape from Shawshank in a most unbelievable and bold way.

The Shawshank Redemption is based on the original novel Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King. This novel seems not typical of King, because it depicts the evil not in the form of supernatural forces but in its simple and common manifestations – in the way it lives inside a human soul. The colorless existence of people sentenced to life imprisonment is dreadful and sometimes even loathsome. These features of life in Shawshank are depicted very naturally. The film doesn’t lack shocking scenes of violence and cruelty. However, despite all this, The Shawshank Redemption is not a cruel movie about injustice and ugly inner side of life in prison. No matter how strange it may sound, this is a good and kind story about hope and faith. In this aspect The Shawshank Redemption has very much in common with The Green Mile. Apart from the common director Frank Darabont, these two movies are united by the same motif of love and hope which somehow can find a place even inside the dirty walls of a jail cell.

Darabont΄s masterpiece also finds some parallels with another cult drama film - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which the action takes place in a lunatic asylum. As well as the innocent personage of Tim Robbins lives among murderers and thieves and finds ways to change their lives for the better, in the same way McMurhpy brilliantly performed by Jack Nicholson gives some joy and hope to the miserable asylum recluses. This genius actor, the master of creating multi-sided, cynical and controversial personages can play anyone from a hippy lawyer (Easy Rider) to a private investigator (Chinatown) or an experienced Mafioso (The Departed). Together with Morgan Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption key actor, he made up a stunning duet in The Bucket List. Their terminally ill heroes decide to do things they’ve never done before at death’s door. As for Morgan Freeman, an outstanding actor recently officially acknowledged a living cinema icon, The Shawshank Redemption brought him his first Oscar nomination. Freeman won his Oscar for the best supporting role for Million Dollar Baby in 2004.