Blog 5: Movie Monday

Shawshank Redemption 

First off can I say…this movie gave me chills!!!! Plus made me cry, laugh, hope, and despair.

Overall Summary

Picture walking in on the one you love in the midst of a steamy affair with someone that was in your daily life. Then after going on a bender all night you wake up to the news that your significant other and the one they are cheating with, were found dead in the very bed you found them cheating in the night before. As we all know you don’t remember what you did sometimes after a night of drinking, that goes for our main character Andy Dufresne. He remembers thinking that he was so mad he wanted to kill them, he remembers filling the chambers of his gun, and he remembers being parked outside of the house drinking from a bottle of whiskey. What he does not remember is if he killed them. So Andy Dufresne, like every other person in his situation when arrested by the cops, lets his attorney argue a plea of not guilty. Although Dufresne was able to have a great legal team, due to his success as a high profile banker, he was found guilty of double homicide and sentenced to two life sentences in Shawshank. As Andy enters Shawshank with the rest of the “fresh fish” we are more fully introduced to our narrator, Red. Red is in Shawshank for murder as well and every year is up for parol but somehow never wants to get it. We find out later in the film that when a man who has been in Shawshank for so long is let go, they become depressed on the outside. Having a day to day routine always set for you is something you don’t find on the outside. So when Red goes up for parol he does not really fight for it because you get the sense that he is comfortable where he resides. In his prison routines and with his friends who are serving long sentences as well. As we delve deeper in to the movie we start to realize that Andy is a very complex character. He unlike many of the prisoners is very well educated with not only a high school diploma but a bachelors degree and he had a successful job in the real world. When the warden and the prison guards find out Andy is so smart the begin to use him to do their taxes and as the story goes on the warden begins to use Andy to record the books for the prison and as we come to find out the warden keeps two books. Since Andy has a little more freedom than the rest of the prison we see that freedom being given to Andy in small favors. He gets to build a large library and he begins to help his fellow prisoners achieve their GEDs. As Andy is gaining popularity in the prison a new prisoner comes in and he is a young guy who thinks he knows it all but Andy realizes it is just a front. This kid has a young kid and a wife at home and he has no way of providing for them due to his lack of education so Andy takes him under his wing. One day as Andy, Red, and this young prisoner are talking about their cases this young guy says to Andy that his case sounds very familiar. He states that he believes Andy is truly innocent because while he was doing a stint in another prison a cell mate of his would brag about crimes he had committed and one night he went off about this woman and a golf pro she was banging behind her husbands back and how he murdered them and the cops blamed the killing on the husband and he walked away a free man until being caught for another murder a few months later. After hearing this Andy went to the warden and asked if someone could take another look at his case because he knew he was innocent, but the warden had other plans. Now what you have to remember Andy did not break the rules unless it was justified we see this in the scene in which Andy plays music on the loud speaker and we see this in the final moments of the film in which Andy escapes. Andy begging the warden for help gets a sentence of a month in solitary confinement and this young kid gets murdered so the warden can still have Andy launder money from the prison for him. Andy seeing no other way out finally enacts the escape plan that he had concocted his first week in the prison. After so many years Andy had dug a long tunnel leading to freedom behind a Rita Hayworth poster and when the day finally came Andy knew he had to escape but he did not enact his escape until he let Red in on a little secret. Under a tree in a remote town Andy was going to leave Red a note that told him where to find him and gave him the money to get there. After Andy’s escape Red knew it was finally time for him to leave Shawshank because Andy made him understand that even though the world can be scary freedom is something that should not be taken for granted. Everyone in the story got what they deserved the Warden killed himself and many of the prison guards who helped the warden were arrested and Andy and Red lived out their days in bliss on the Mexican coast always thinking back on the hard yet sometimes good times at Shawshank.

Opinion

If you have not already noticed I loved this film I believe the characters were perfectly complex and the acting was spot on. There aren’t many films in which you can sympathize with murderers and burgelars but this movie made me believe in the power of education and the power one man can have in changing the world. Even though Andy did not change the world he changed the worlds of many of the forgotten in Shawshank and I believe there is some level of respect we should pay to Andy’s character because he made many people believe in the idea of helping the sinners which for many is not an easy thing to do.

 

******Disclaimer******

I will have a part two next week because I am still trying to gather my thoughts about this piece seeing as it moved me so much and the movie is so complex. As of right now enjoy the summary and I hope you agree with my brief opinion.