Life During Wartime #1: THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (Patreon exclusive)

The Shawshank Redemption
U.S.: Netflix
Canada: Crave, Hollywood Suite

by Walter Chaw

Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption came out in 1994. Based on the “Hope Springs Eternal” entry from Stephen King’s quartet of novellas Different Seasons (Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption), it was not actually Darabont’s first shot at bringing King to the screen. Ten years earlier, he had adapted “The Woman in the Room” from King’s short-story collection Night Shift–the first of King’s “dollar babies,” which saw the author licensing his short fiction to student filmmakers for the bargain price of $1.

I introduced The Shawshank Redemption as good viewing for being trapped in the house and asked the kids to pay attention to the conversations the film has about the nature and definitions of freedom.

• What is freedom for the imprisoned? 
• How do Andy and Red find freedom in their circumstances?
• How are the guards free? How are they imprisoned?

The key to the questions is to keep them “open-ended”–in other words, nothing anyone can answer with a “yes” or a “no.” It’s too easy to give the “right” answers when it’s 50/50, and most teenagers will be at least cunning enough to know where you’re leading them.

I chose The Shawshank Redemption because it’s a gateway to harder stuff like Jules Dassin’s Brute Force (which we’ll screen down the road) or Don Siegel’s Escape From Alcatraz (which we would be doing had the kids not already seen it). I love the Siegel not only for being an accessible introduction to the director but also for the way it inspired the kids to look deeper into the true story upon which it’s based. It’s also not a bad way to get to know Clint Eastwood in a crowd-pleasing, pleasantly-tense jailbreak flick.

For all their similarities (between The Shawshank Redemption and Escape from Alcatraz), I would resist screening two prison films back-to-back. It’s a little obvious right now, too–a bit on the nose, as it were.

The Shawshank Redemption also allows an early introduction to Morgan Freeman’s superstar period. My kids had a vague idea of who Freeman was before this; they have a strong sense of him now. It’s certainly the less odious choice if Driving Ms. Daisy is the alternative.

More questions:

Why did Andy play the opera?

Andy plays “Duettino-Sull’aria” from The Marriage of Figaro. The vinyl he spins in the warden’s office features Karl Bohm conducting the Deutschen Oper Berlin. Alas, it was recorded in 1968–twenty-one years after the 1947-set events of the film. The sopranos–those “two Italian ladies” Red talks about–were Gundula Janowitz and Edith Mathis (an Austro-German and a Swede, respectively).

For as solemn as the aria seems–and it’s a beautiful one (one of the most beautiful products of Mozart’s mathematical genius, in fact)–what they’re singing about is a plot to trap a hapless count with a fake love letter and an invitation to rendezvous. I don’t know how much of this was intentional, but it’s worth asking:

• How much does it matter whether Darabont intended this piece to comment on Andy’s “trickery”? 
• To what extent does authorial intent matter when it comes to criticism/analysis of the piece? 
• Is it invalid to reference the content of this piece if Darabont denies knowledge of its significance?

If you wanted to (and I did), you could mention as well that playing the evil guard Hadley is the great Clancy Brown, whom your kids might know better as the voice of Mr. Crabs–or that bounty hunter in the Bill Barr episode of “The Mandalorian”.

Another fertile area of discussion centres around James Whitmore’s character Brooks Hatlen. We’ll see Whitmore again when we do Them! and Planet of the Apes–for now, Brooks will introduce a recurring theme in these films of wanting to find meaning at the end of life. He carves “BROOKS WAS HERE” in the beam from which he hangs himself.

Why does Brooks carve his name in the beam before he hangs himself?

Given that zoomers and this new generation (Gen-C?) are particularly open and attuned to LGBTQX issues, it’s worth discussing the portrayal of the “Queens” gang, who torment and repeatedly gang-rape Andy for the first hour of the film.

• How is homosexuality portrayed in The Shawshank Redemption?
• How is Boggs treated?

A good way to lead into this dialogue is by asking what the positive counter-portrayals of homosexuality are, if any. If there aren’t any, what sort of damage does a monolithic portrayal of any minority do to a minority group–particularly when a film becomes generally accepted as a “classic,” as this one has. This leads to:

• How are minorities portrayed in this film?
• How is Red a hero if he is a hero?
• What is Red’s role in this film if he isn’t a hero?

The sticky wicket with this picture for me is that Red is largely heroic for being impressed and ultimately saved by Andy. Andy, who is smarter than everyone else, harder-working, more perseverant–and also, as it happens, innocent.

Lastly, we talked a little bit about Different Seasons–how ¾ of it has been adapted and how the one that hasn’t, The Breathing Method (“A Winter’s Tale”), was my favourite of the four growing up. It’s an old Hammer-style anthology set-up that I hope to one day see as a literal bookend for an anthology picture–something, maybe, like Ryan Spindell’s The Mortuary Collection, which is just awesome.

Final thoughts:

• Decades go by in the film–how does Darabont chart the passage of time visually?
• The hero of this film is a banker who successfully grifts dirty money from his corrupt boss. Where do you land on the morality of his actions?
• This film was nominated for a hatful of Oscars but lost all of them. Why do you think it became so popular a middlebrow entertainment given its questionable heroes and sexual violence?

This last question prepares them for a few upcoming films that did horribly in the courts of both public and critical opinion. Kids are easily influenced about what’s good based on what popularity declares to be good. The hope is to provide them with a space in which they’re allowed to question popular taste, as well as their own–and, it goes without saying, their father’s. Critical thinking is our most powerful survival strategy. Let’s teach it to our kids.

We transition here from The Shawshank Redemption to Charles Laughton’s indescribable Night of the Hunter. Until next time…