Story

The Shawshank Redemption is a film that does not rely on big budgeted action sequences and special effects. The film relies on the story and the characters to make it great, something that a lot of movies lack. The story of Andy Dufresne and his time spent at Shawshank is narrated by Red. The viewer learns about Andy through the eyes of Red, and since he does not know what is happening inside Andy’s mind, neither does the viewer. This technique makes Andy’s escape that much more surprising, because Red thinks that Andy is going to kill himself, and since that is what Red believes, that is what the viewer is meant to believe.
Through the story we learn to truly care about these characters, even though they are criminals. Through the characters of Andy and Red the story is one of friendship, hope and as the title claims, redemption. In the last conversation between Red and Andy before he escapes, Andy says how though he did not pull the trigger, he drove her away and he killed her. He then goes on to say how he has down some bad things in his life and he has paid his dues for them and that he has had enough of the prison. Andy then talks about his dreams, he wants to move to Mexico and open a charter boat company. Andy then goes to escape through a hole in the wall and then crawls through 500 yards of a sewage pipe. Through his escape, a man innocent of murder is redeemed. Andy never gives up hope. He knows that one day he will receive the state funds to revamped the run down library, he never gives up on Tommy whom Andy is helping to get his G.E.D. and he never gives up on that fact that he is innocent and one day he will get out of prison.
The Shawshank Redemption is an adapted screenplay from the Stephen King novella “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.” Along with directing the film, Frank Darabont also wrote the screenplay. Since he wrote and directed, he got his vision completely. The character of Red was originally a red-haired Irishman, but when Morgan Freeman was cast, the character then became an African American. When Andy asked why they called him Red, he responds by joking, “Maybe it’s because I’m Irish.” In the Stephen King original story, Andy was a short pudgy man. Tim Robbins, the actor who plays Andy is far from that, so the script was altered to fit Tim’s description. The film stays faithful to the original story except for the few things mentioned and that there is only one warden in the film, in the novella there are several. When a book is too long, a lot of things are cut out of the movie, this is not the case with this film, since the story was a little over a hundred pages long, and almost everything was kept in, in some way or another. The film surpasses the novella in quality. The fact that the film only has one warden and that Captain Hadley, a guard at the prison has a bigger role makes the ending of the film more dramatic then it is in King’s story.
Andy is a symbol of hope in the film. He is hope to the other inmates and in some ways the guards. He does these larger than life things in the prison that no other inmate could have accomplished. Because of handling of the warden’s illicit money he has an office, he is allowed to live alone, and he is able to walk the prison freely without a guard. This symbol is repeated throughout the film. Unlike a lot of films, this film has no outright political agenda, it is just a story of a friendship of two men who are in prison, they are not gay or in love with each other. The simple story with a lack of agenda is something is not found a lot in movies that are a reason why this film and the story are so good.