The Shawshank Redemption

             The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is an impressive, engrossing piece of film-making from first-time director/screenwriter Frank Darabont who adapted horror master Stephen King's 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption ( first published in Different Seasons). The inspirational, life-affirming and uplifting, old-fashioned style Hollywood product (resembling The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Cool Hand Luke (1967)) is a combination prison/dramatic film and character study, abetted by the golden cinematography of Roger Deakins, a touching score by Thomas Newman, and a third imposing character - Maine's oppressive Shawshank State Prison itself (filmed at the transformed, condemned Mansfield, Ohio Correctional Institution).
             Posters for the film illustrate the liberating, redemptive power of hope and the religious themes of freedom and resurrection, with the words: "Fear can hold you prisoner, Hope can set you free." The patiently-told, allegorical tale (unfolding like a long-played, sometimes painstaking, persistent chess game) of friendship, patience, hope, survival and ultimate redemption by the time of the film's finale was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Morgan Freeman), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound - and failed to win a single Oscar. And the film's director failed to receive a nomination for himself!
             In the prologue before the film begins and pre-title credits play, a scratchy car radio (on the soundtrack) plays the song: "If I Didn't Care," performed by the Inkspots:
             If I didn't care, more than words can say,
             If I didn't care, would I feel this way,
             If this isn't love, then why do I thrill
             And what makes my head go round and round
             During a dark, quiet night in a wooded area [in the year 1946], a car is parked outside a cabin [belonging to a golf pro engaged in an affair with an adulterous wife]. The dri...

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The Shawshank Redemption. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 06:39, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/71219.html