REEL REFLECTIONS

REDEMPTION ACCOMPLISHED
A Review of "The Shawhshank Redemption"

David Greiser

By the time this issue of DreamSeeker Magazine goes to press, it will be late summer—traditionally the big-budget, blockbuster season. Summer at the cinema is generally long on action and short on substance. While I will certainly get out and see the next "Batman" installment, and might even relive part of my childhood by enjoying "Get Smart," there’s nothing on the horizon that beckons me toward a review.

That said, I’m going to indulge in that great old television tradition, the "rerun," by reviewing an older film. Since moving to isolated Hesston, Kansas, cable television has assumed a larger share of my movie-watching diet. Some days I think that cable TV endlessly recycles the same dozen or so movies. But for every mediocre action film that shows a dozen times a month (fill in "The Bourne Identity" and any James Bond film here) there is the occasional gem ("O Brother, Where Art Thou" or the second "Spiderman" movie). But the film I find myself drawn to watch over and over again is director Frank Darabont’s "The Shawshank Redemption."

"Shawshank" is one of those films for which viewer appreciation has grown with time. Based on a short story by Stephen King, the film was only moderately successful when it was first released in theaters in 1994. After its brief theater run, it moved quickly to video rental. From there the film’s reputation seemed to take on a life of its own. In 1995 it was rated the top rented video of the year, and by 1999 the Internet Movie Database announced that a poll of its readership had pronounced the film the "Greatest Movie Ever Made." At a more anecdotal level, I cannot count the number of conversations I have had with people who, on learning of my interest in movies, quickly ask me if I have seen "The Shawshank Redemption."

What is it about this film that has resonated so deeply with viewers? I can only guess the answer, based on my own personal response to it. "Shawshank" is indeed a story of redemption—redemption and hope. It is a profound feel-good story.

To be sure, the film is well crafted and extremely well acted. Veteran actors Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, in their lead roles as Red Redding and Andy Dufresne, have each enjoyed outstanding careers as character and lead actors. Neither has ever been better than in this film. Freeman plays aging inmate Red with a wise nonchalance that nearly covers over the melancholy he feels from too many turn-downs for parole.

Red’s advice to new inmate Andy is to learn to live without thinking about the future. When Andy tells Red about his dream of living in Mexico one day, Red warns, "Don’t think about Mexico, because it’s down there, and you’re in here."

Robbins’ Andy is an enigmatic loner, wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife. Far from following Red’s advice, Andy cultivates hope through nurturing an inner life that the penal system cannot extinguish.

One of the many memorable scenes in the film involves Andy’s locking himself in the warden’s office and playing a Mozart recording over the prison’s loudspeakers. When he is released from solitary confinement 30 days later, the inmates ask him how he survived. He responds that he had Mozart to keep him company. We need music, he says, to remember that there are places in the world that are not made of stone. "There’s something inside that they can’t get to . . . that’s yours."

The film holds other hidden treasures I only uncovered after several viewings. One of these is the deliberate pacing of the story. Time moves slowly in this film, just as time must move slowly for those who are incarcerated. Emotions are present but are always muted, owing to the predatory nature of prison life. To show human weakness is to flirt with one’s own destruction.

But the greatest treasure in this film is the multiple layers of redemption in the story. Andy eventually gains one form of "redemption" when he escapes while at the same time implicating his captors in wrongdoing. And Red finds redemption when, against all hope, he is paroled and joins Andy in his little piece of Mexican heaven.

At the risk of causing some eye-rolling among my readers, I’ll point out that some have teased out a Christ-figure, Andy’s character. Andy lands in evil Shawshank as an innocent. He takes on the fleshly life of an inmate and suffers unjustly at their hands. He descends, literally, into the bowels of the earth and escapes. When Red’s captivity ends, he goes to where Andy has gone and rejoins him. Meanwhile the inmates tell and retell the details of Andy’s life.

Okay, so it’s a stretch. But it’s a great story, too. If you haven’t seen it in a while, rent "The Shawshank Redemption." The writing, the acting, and above all the story are well worth the time.

—Dave Greiser watches movie reruns and ducks tornados in his basement in Hesston, Kansas. The rest of the time he teaches pastoral ministry courses at Hesston College as well as Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary—Great Plains.