Shawshank Redemption Essay

In 1994, Frank Darabont’s film ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ received a poor reception when released; it only made a $0.3m profit. More recently the film has become known as one of the greatest movies of all time, it has inspired hope in many people, helping them to lose weight, leave abusive marriages and such like. The film is based mainly upon two convicts, and the idea of hope. Andy Dufresne is a ‘Hot Shot Banker’ imprisoned with two life sentences, for the suspected murder of his wife and her lover and ‘Red’ (Morgan Freeman) whom Andy redeems hope in, along with the other convicts, saving them from institutionalisation.

The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King is both a wonderful film and a brilliantly written short story. There are many themes represented in each form of The Shawshank Redemption. The one major theme that interests me in both the film and the story is freedom. Freedom serves a large purpose for both the story's writer and the filmmaker. Both use similar examples to signify freedom, not only in the jail, but also in a larger context about life. There are many events and examples in both the film and the short story that signifies the theme of freedom. The one main difference is when the film uses the director’s technique to portray a feel of freedom for the inmates. The overall three issues used in this essay are all linked to the

The movie the Shawshank Redemption, based on the book by Steven King, I believe is one of the best movies ever made. The portrayal of prison life in the movie is the best I have seen and a star-studded cast including Morgan Freeman supports the characters and brings to life the everyday struggles of life behind bars. In this paper I will relate topics from class to the movie and discuss information we have learned through out the semester.

The Shawshank Redemption is a prison drama movie released in 1994 and is based on a novella named “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”. The novella was written by Stephen King and published in 1982 in a compilation of four novellas which was named Different Seasons. “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” was the first novella in the book; King called this first chapter HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL. The rest of the novella chapters had references to summer, fall and winter. However, King pointed directly to the main theme of the novella by his emphasis on HOPE. Imprisonment is obviously an isolating and fearful experience. Ironically, after long incarceration, many prisoners become institutionalized and so used to the bars, the tight schedules and the prison guards that they become afraid of freedom or even the hope of freedom. As King stated in an interview, “What are we afraid of, as humans? Chaos. The outsider. We’re afraid of change. We’re afraid of disruption, and that is what I’m interested in.” (Lehmann-Haupt, www.theparisreview.org) Both the book and the movie explore these fears, but keep hope alive in the human condition by describing one prisoner’s ability to retain his self-worth despite being in a hopeless situation. His outlook on life, his “inner light” kept him hopeful that he could become free again.

The film that I will be analysing is “The Shawshank Redemption”. The Shawshank redemption is a film that was directed by Frank Darabont in 1994 and it was set in 1947. This film is about a young hotshot banker named Andy Dufresne who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. For this crime he was given a double life sentence and he was sent to Shawshank prison to serve this sentence. While in prision Andy makes a couple of friends and his best friend in prison is named Red. Red runs the black market in shawshank prison and he knows how to get things. Over the span of 20 years Andy earns the respect of his fellow prisoners and he also earns the respect of some of the guards by doing their taxes for them in return for just a couple of favours. The extract that I have chosen to analyze is the rooftop scene.

The Shawshank Redemption movie is about a man named Andy Dufresne who was falsely accused of murder and was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife and her lover. Being in jail, Andy faced many problems of being abused, but he also gained a strong friendship with a man named Red. Many of the things that the prisoners had to face showed a sociological perspective on how life was in jail and how it affected the prisoners. In Shawshank prison, the functionalism theory, the conflict perspective, and the control theory shows the life and adjustments a prisoner has to make in order to survive going into a new world.

guts and that he wanted to survive. In return for his favor of helping the guard,

He tried to get Andy to turn the music off and go unlock the door but Andy just sat their with his hand behind his heads and had his feet prop up on the disk just smiling. So the warden made Andy spend time “in the hole” or solitary confinement for two weeks.

“The Shawshank redemption” is a film in which Andy Dufresne is wrongfully given two life sentences for the murder of his wife and her lover and is sent to the Shawshank prison where Andy is subjected to a variety of different beatings by the guards and other inmates, even being raped by other inmates. After getting involved with doing the guards taxes the crooked warden forces him to hide his many untaxed revenues. After Andy escapes he leaves the jail in scandal by giving evidence to the press surrounding the warden’s dodgy dealings. This paper will be analysing how the director, Frank Darabont uses stylistic features to present the idea of hope in the film. The primary features used in this film was symbolism but there is the use of lighting

dark suit. We next see him on the bus. The camera is set in front of

At the beginning of the Shawshank Redemption, Andy gets framed for the murder of his cheating wife. Which makes his life take a darker turn with him going to Shawshank prison. Shawshank prison is one of the worst prisons ever, the prison guards abuse the prisoners, and the warden orders them to do so and will do anything for money. The prison uses fear as a way to keep the prisoners in line. When you first show up to Shawshank they take you in, strip you down, and spray you with water. After that, they throw this powder on you then give you your clothes and walk you to your cell naked. The prisoners have a game to see who breaks down first, so they yell at the new prisoners until one breaks. Their goal is to break the person they bet on this shows fear because when a new prisoners break they cry and become very scared and the one who broke in the film was murdered by a guard.

a sense of realism that filmmakers try to copy to this day. With such a low budget, Alvidsen

'Shawshank Redemption' directed by Frank Darabont is a compelling film about the life of one of its prisoners, Andy. many film techniques were used through out the film as a clever way of conveying main themes. This essay is going to examine how Darabont used camera angles and colour effectively in this film to portray the idea of power.

In the film, “The Shawshank Redemption” directed by Frank Darabont, symbolism was used to highlight the main idea of holding onto hope. Darabont has effectively used different symbols throughout the film to convey the themes of hope and freedom in Shawshank. “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” This quote said by Andy Dufresne in a letter to Red shows that Shawshank was portrayed as a place of hopelessness at the start. But it was through the use of these symbols, music, the library, and the birds, that made the viewer truly understand how “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

The area of the criminal justice system that is showcased in the Shawshank Redemption is the prison system. By following the story of the main character Andy, both the problems and realities of the system are highlighted. Throughout the film, the characters are portrayed in many ways. The most alarming ways that the prisoners in the film is as lower class citizens. By making this point, the writers are eluding to the fact that the system is corrupt because of the subculture that exist within it.