The Shawshank Redemption

While this famously underperformed at the box office, The Shawshank Redemption’s life on TV and video helped make it into the classic it’s known as today.  With its innovative use of cinematic spectacle that enhanced the story’s various complex morals, director Frank Darabont’s masterpiece presents a rich understanding of the rarely explored world of prison. Each of the stories and substories told within this overarching story about Andy ranges from suspenseful to heartbreaking, together encapsulating the most complete depiction of prison life in all of cinema.
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It's all thanks to the production crew that made this relevant character study tick; filming took place in a real prison facility that had been previously shut down, which must have created plenty of challenges for the cinematographer when it came to maneuvering through the prison walls with wide high angles. The soundtrack works just as well in giving the movie’s melancholy tone, not just because of Thomas Newman’s score, but also because of the iconic scene where Andy plays opera tunes on the speakers to demonstrate the therapeutic power of music. These examples were among the many sequences that clearly had to be difficult to realize in both sound and image, yet they all worked perfectly. Its ending leaves the viewer with a realization that when prison becomes all one has ever known in life, the outside world no longer feels so welcoming. It raises the question: What is freedom anyway?

R (DLSNV)
Drama
2 hr. 22 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to THINK.
Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY, SAD, and AFRAID.