The Shawshank Redemption - Does It Hold Up?
Welcome to the classic hold up, where we analyze media from the past. Each episode features a different host that brings a fresh take on a film, TV show, video game, or music album of their choice. Do old favorites have a shelf life? Will the classics hold up?
Speaker 2:Hello, everyone. My name is Carly Close, and I'll be your host on this episode of the classic hold up. I'm currently a senior majoring in digital storytelling at Michigan State University. Alright. So we're talking about the Shawshank Redemption, which fun fact is one of those movies that everyone now calls a classic.
Speaker 2:But when it actually came out, nobody really saw it. Like, it tanked. It was released in 1994, Same year as Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, and Speed. So, yeah. Kind of like impossible competition.
Speaker 2:Imagine dropping a quiet, slow burn prison drama next to Pulp Fiction's Chaos and Forrest Gump's Life is Like a Box of Chocolates. It didn't really stand a chance. The movie is based on a Stephen King novella called Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. And what's cool is, it's not horror. People usually think Stephen King and imagine blood, monsters, and creepy clones.
Speaker 2:But this one's basically about patience and freedom and finding hope in the least hopeful place. Frank Derabount, who directed it, had actually adapted one of King's short films earlier. And this was his big feature debut. So he was kinda taking a gamble on something deeply emotional, but not flashy. Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a banker who's wrongly convicted for murder.
Speaker 2:And Morgan Freeman plays Red, who's basically the heart of the whole thing. Freeman wasn't the first pick either. The original guy described Red as a red haired Irish guy. But Freeman was already such a powerhouse by the early nineties that Deribond rewrote it for him. It's wild to think of anyone else doing that voice over now.
Speaker 2:Like it's kind of the voice of wisdom. What's interesting about the time this movie came out is that the nineties were obsessed with darker, grittier stuff. They were getting like crime thrillers and edgy indie movies. Shawshank went totally against that. It's a prison movie, sure.
Speaker 2:But it's about friendship and keeping hope alive when that system's built to crush you. That kind of slow emotional storytelling didn't fit the market back then. People who are more into spectacle and chaos. And to make things worse, the title did not help. A lot of people didn't even know how to pronounce it.
Speaker 2:There's a story that some moviegoers skipped it because Shawshank just sounded weird. So between the confusing name, the heavy runtime, and no big marketing push, it completely flopped. It cost about $25,000,000 and barely made it back. But then something interesting happened. When it hit VHS and cable TV, it blew up.
Speaker 2:P and T basically ran it nonstop, and that's when people actually start watching it and talking about it. It's one of those movies that found its audience after the fact, kind of the way it's a wonderful life decades earlier. Both movies bombed first, but then became everyone's comfort film. Cinematography wise, Roger Deakins was behind the camera. And if you're into film at all, you know he's a legend now.
Speaker 2:His lighting is what gives Shawshank that warm hopeful tone even though everything happens inside a stone prison. And Thomas Newman score totally matches that feeling, that slow build from despair to freedom. By the time awards season came around, the Academy realized they might have underestimated it. It got seven Oscar nominations, best picture, best actor for Morgan Freeman, best cinematography. But it didn't win any because Friar's Gump just swept everything that year.
Speaker 2:Still, that visibility helped keep it alive, and word-of-mouth did the rest. Now thirty years later, it's still considered one of the greatest films ever made. It's been number one on IMDb's top two fifty for years. And it's shown in tons of film classes because of its pacing and structure. But honestly, I think the reason people love it isn't technical at all.
Speaker 2:It's because it makes you feel good about endurance, about sticking through something hard. It came out during a time when movies were getting louder and meaner and Shawshank just quietly said, hey, sometimes hope wins. And that never really goes out of style. I actually hadn't seen Shawshank Redemption until 2025. I saw Morgan Freeman's name and I thought, oh, this has got to be good.
Speaker 2:And then I noticed it was based on a Stephen King novella and I was home. I've seen a lot of Stephen King book to movie adaptations and never really had a bad experience with any of them. What surprised me was that this wasn't a horror like I expected. It was something completely different. Storytelling that leaves an impression.
Speaker 2:So I was pulled into the movie and didn't even notice all the subtle foreshadowing, colors, motifs, and metaphors woven throughout. So now, I want to bring in someone who actually lived through the release of Shawshank Redemption to talk about how it's changed and grown over the years. So joining us today is my uncle Steve. So could you tell me a little bit about your personal experience with Shawshank Redemption?
Speaker 3:I've seen the movie a lot of times. It kinda starts, know, in general with my love of movies. I rate movies different ways and one of the ratings that I like to rate them is rewatch value like is it good when you rewatch it? Is it really something you want to see after a second time? So I'd say with Shawshank the cool thing about it is before we had all these streaming services and stuff when it was just cable When I'd see that it was on I would join into it and it's one of those movies you can pick up anywhere in it and rewatch it and enjoy it.
Speaker 3:I Love Stephen King. I'm a huge Stephen King fan. I've read I would say probably 80% of his novels and a good chunk of his short stories. It was based off of one of his novellas and a lot of people don't realize there's a lot of movies out there that Stephen King either it was based off of one of his novels or short stories.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about how Shawshank actually did when it hit the theaters because believe it or not, it wasn't the overnight classic people may think it was. Did you know about that?
Speaker 3:This movie came out in '94. I was 14 years old. You know, my dad and I, not as much as we used to, but about that starting that time and heading into, you know, probably within the last few years, we would see at least a movie a week together. I think some of the hurdles that Shawshank came up against is that it's the same year that Pulp Fiction came out. Same And
Speaker 2:Forrest Gump, right?
Speaker 3:Forrest Gump. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Bigger budgets too.
Speaker 3:Bigger budgets and the other thing was from what I understand, people had trouble with the name. It was really difficult. It wasn't one of those ones with a memorable name like Forrest Gump like Mhmm. People either wanna know about the Gump or the Forrest and it rolls together well and you've got Tom Hanks on there and then Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino. Those are big names.
Speaker 3:Those are big strong names of movies, big strong names of directors and actors. Tim Robbins was a guy. He was fairly well known. Morgan Freeman was kinda just I mean, he started late. There was critical acclaim, but it was not big at the box office at all.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Yeah. So even though it did flop when it came out, the wild part is how, like, it changed over time, like that audience coming around to it. It was kind of a quiet build, but then it just kind of hit the top all of a sudden. So today, it's not just liked.
Speaker 2:It's admired, which is what do you think about that? What do you think that it kind of took some time for people to get around to?
Speaker 3:It was helped by it did get some Oscar nominations. I believe it was best picture, Morgan Freeman for best actor, best adapted screenplay. It was a pretty prestigious nomination didn't win anything. It was re released which helped it a little bit, but yeah, it was kind of just a Similar to the movie is like a slow burn right like It it took time for people to catch on that it was a classic. And if you look at top 100 lists of movies, it's on nearly every one you read.
Speaker 2:It it makes me wonder how it would do if it released today. It didn't really make a big impression because it didn't didn't look exciting. It was kinda gray. It's centered around a prison, you know. It needed time for people to kinda sit with it.
Speaker 2:But nowadays, people don't really sit with much. So
Speaker 3:You're right. Even though, like, society in general likes these quick hit things there are still movies and They aren't necessarily always quick hit that gets some critical acclaim. So I think there's a good chance it could still Do pretty well today. I think it would be similar to back then though where probably wouldn't pop at the box office, but really nothing does anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And maybe if it came out today, people would see Morgan Freeman and would wanna maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, hear that guy's voice everywhere. Commercials and people don't even realize how many voiceovers he does and he's got such a silky smooth voice Mhmm. And way about him.
Speaker 2:If it was released not now, but in the future, how do you think it would be perceived? Would it be a success more so in the future or do you think it wouldn't even be big at all anymore?
Speaker 3:Wow. Then That's we have to get into kind of anticipating what things may be like in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Look, I think there's always an appetite for good storytelling. At the end of the day, underneath all the wanna be stimulated right away type feelings, I Do feel like people want to hear a good story. They want to see it acted well. There's still these There's all almost any kind of movie you can look for on Netflix or anything like that But you can immediately tell when it's bad. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a reason that it's been on IMDb's two fifty for years now. It's one of those films that I think everyone should watch at least once, if not twice, to catch everything that they didn't see the first time they watched it. I think it holds a lot of life lessons in there for people to take about loyalty, trust, hope, friendship. And with so many positive things, it's so shocking how they managed to do that in the complete opposite environment that those things normally tend to exist. Because being in a prison, you don't really associate the prison with, you know, hope in a way.
Speaker 2:And this film did a really good job of storytelling where it managed to accomplish that. It managed to accomplish the themes and really make you think in a more unconventional way.
Speaker 3:I like I said earlier, I've read a lot of Stephen King. One of the things I love about Stephen King's books is that everybody thinks they're just horror books and they're not. I mean, there's some pretty gruesome things and aspects to them, but they're very very very psychological. And the other thing that's cool about the story is there's vignettes with like little stories within the story. This was a novella.
Speaker 3:So when I read this for the first time, which was when you came to me about it, I had never read the novella before. Nope. I knew about it. I never read it and so I read it. The movie largely sticks to the novella because it was a novella and it wasn't a big thousand page book like he get he can write sometimes, there weren't a lot of those vignettes.
Speaker 3:But what was so cool about what Frank Darabont did with this movie is he added them. And so when I saw the movie originally not reading the novella, I'm like this is totally Stephen King. You've got these little pieces within it. Getting the beers for his buddies while tarring his interactions with the sisters, playing the the opera music. A lot of those things Frank Derebond added into it.
Speaker 2:And I also I liked the complexity of each character, how they all had their own, like how they tied to each other. Like Red, he had his deal like he dealt to everybody and how that played a role. How the characters the different stereotypes and clicks in the prison itself, you know, and how they all interacted with each other and what that kinda said about the time that they were living in.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Couple of things I noticed and I believe there was a cinematography nomination. So I was really looking at some of that stuff and one of the things I noticed that maybe I hadn't realized before. Obviously, I I picked up on the grays and the and the gloomy tones, but what I didn't notice were when it was bright or where it was bright. So a lot of times when they're in the yard, it's overcast.
Speaker 3:I mean you could see some shadows and stuff, but gloomy lighting Inside the prison gloomy grays. I mean, that's how prisons are anyway to my understanding So take for instance when they're on the tar factory and they're tarring the view of it as they're working you see them working on top of this old building in the prison, but then off in the distance beyond the walls, it's lush green. It's almost subconsciously you see like there there's beauty just beyond their walls, but they're living in hell.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I kind of going off that the use of color felt like hope to me in a way. Some of the times when the library was getting, you know, built and everything like that, that whole library was kind of warmer. Yeah. Warmer when he was teaching, you know, prisoners to read and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:It just felt like things are happening. There's progress being made. There's it's not the same every day type of thing.
Speaker 3:The music that's being played during those times. Yes. 100%. There's a lot of symbolism in the movie. Andy Dufresne played by Tim Robbins, he's very cool and collected and almost like Like if you were someone in that prison, he may be an afterthought to you What's interesting about it is I was thinking about I was like he kind of uses It's almost like a chess game If you think about not that he was being nefarious in the ways that he worked, but his first friend in that prison was a guy who knew how to get things.
Speaker 3:Right? He ran it. He had a little crew, some friends and he became friends with Red played by Morgan Freeman and That was his first move. That was his first chess move. He's finding the the within his chessboard which ones he can use and then when he by getting good in the good graces of the guard, right?
Speaker 3:What does that get him? The warden. And then once he gets with the warden that eventually helps him to escape and find his redemption, I guess. But then when I rewatched it, he makes chess pieces. That was an obvious symbolism of the movie.
Speaker 3:You know, I was I hadn't seen the movie in a few years and so, like, I was like, well, duh. Like, That was purposeful right the the chess pieces him carving chess pieces for his chessboard was symbolic of how he was moving about I just I thought that was interesting obviously you have the other themes of like hope versus hopelessness. I think nowadays, I think a lot of people can relate to that, right? Because now more than ever we were pointed to like mental health. Back then there wasn't that, right?
Speaker 3:What's interesting is that it really explores that. There's even a scene between Andy and Red where Red tells him hope is a dangerous thing. You know, he goes on and Andy's reply is hope is a great thing, maybe the greatest thing. Again, I think that's also something that people today can can latch on to and can see when you're in a depressive state like, you don't see an end to it. You may lose hope and he never lost his hope.
Speaker 3:Right? He was always looking for an angle to use his chest piece. It doesn't last for even the grimmest of times don't last forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that kinda that made me think about when Red would go to get what's it called when he get released from prison? Oh, parole. Yeah. Parole.
Speaker 2:Like when he would go to try to talk his way out. Every single time he would go, he'd say the same shtick. Mhmm. You know? And I feel like a lot of people can get stuck saying the same thing or thinking like living one narrative.
Speaker 2:This is how prison's supposed to be. This is what I'm supposed to be. This is my role here in my life and I can't break out from that. Yeah. So I think meeting Andy shifted Red's kind of whole thought process about it in general, leading for him to kind of break his own narrative in a way.
Speaker 3:Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of small things throughout the whole entire film that you just don't recognize. And I only watched it through once so I might need to go back and because even just the smallest details of hiding that little pick in the Bible,
Speaker 3:like
Speaker 2:the smallest things, like, what could that even mean? Why did he hide it under his nose? And like, when the warden would test Andy, he didn't even need to open the bible. Like, Andy tried to prove himself, get on warden's level, respect. And so it was right under the warden's nose the entire time.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There's even a point in time when the warden, when he was searching his room, had the bible in his hand in front of in front of Andy, if he would have just opened it. Or if he even would have noticed the weight difference. Right? You would think the little rock hammer would cause a shift in the weight, but he didn't.
Speaker 3:The warden just thought of him as a non threat. Right? Like here's this reserved smart guy, but he's not gonna muscle me. He's not like, doesn't appear to be a criminal.
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Speaker 2:Yes. And like seeing that dynamic and the lengths the warden would go to to keep it, I wasn't expecting I mean, I was, but I wasn't expecting, you know, a guy to get killed.
Speaker 3:Sure. So we're talking about Tommy. Yeah. And another deviation from the book where there's a new inmate that comes to the prison. His name is Tommy.
Speaker 3:Over the course they develop Tommy more in the movie than they do in the book. But over the course of Andy getting to know Tommy, he learns that Tommy spent some time in prison with a guy who bragged about killing a banker's wife and her lover and that they pinned it on the banker. Tommy hearing this goes to Andy and it's determined that that this was the guy and it could he could very easily be tracked down, could aid in Andy's appeal to get out of prison. He at this point and he had already been doing a lot of money money laundering for the schemes of the warden and He didn't want to lose Andy and so he he has Tommy killed In a fake escape the warden does That that is a difference in the in the book the book the warden just convinces Tommy to transfer if he keeps quiet to a minimum security prison So that's a pretty big change Definitely kind of a heartbreaker as you're sitting there watching this and
Speaker 2:And he's younger too. You know, he's got so much and I thought he had like a girlfriend or something. Yep.
Speaker 3:And he had a child. Just got his GED through prison through the help of Andy. It's Yeah. And at that at that point, you kinda you're you're clued into the forces that Andy has to go up against.
Speaker 2:I kind of have a couple of fun questions, ones that I kind of are more theory based, I suppose. I wanna know your thoughts on the ending of was the beach real or was it maybe in Red's imagination? There is some speculation that I read that points having red killed himself where Brooks hung himself suggesting the beach scene was the ideal afterlife.
Speaker 3:What are
Speaker 2:your thoughts on that one?
Speaker 3:Interesting. So I Tend to go with the simplest explanation is probably the most likely we have no Dream sequences we have no like daydream sequences where they you know go out there and they imagine one thing and come back to another Is it outside of the realm possibility? No. I mean could he have said that yes In reading the book, again, there's another deviation there. The book ends with Red heading to the border hoping that he'll get across the border and hoping that he'll find Andy in that sleepy Mexican town.
Speaker 3:Zanzan, Taneo or something like that, I believe. That's where it ends. You get even less in
Speaker 2:the book. Yeah. You don't even know if he made it to Andy.
Speaker 3:You don't. Wow. Which is, know, that's an interesting thing. Know, there's a lot of books and movies that'll do stuff like that. That'll leave you with wondering.
Speaker 3:I'm fine with it. The reason why I'm fine with it is there's so much hopelessness and despair and grimness in this movie that it doesn't harm. Right? It's like it gives you a it gives you something to smile about.
Speaker 2:Right. I was kind of glad there was a happy happy ish and Right. You know.
Speaker 3:Because if there wasn't or if it just left you on the bus where he's like, I hope I see my friend again. I hope and then that was the end of it Stylistically is kind of cool sure like it leaves people to be like what what do you think? What do you think and it generates discussion? But I don't know that he was trying to go for that. So I I like that he went that route
Speaker 2:and that just reminded me of the whole Brooks story, how someone can live their entire life in a prison and the world around it changed, but it always stays the same in that prison. So when Brooks left and tried to go back and reintegrate into society, what that did to him. And I feel like what can we do to even help that?
Speaker 3:It's unimaginable the the almost like fish out of water feeling you might have Brooks another deviation a little bit from the novella the novella only Mentions him as a guy who was institutionalized and and found dead That's it.
Speaker 2:Wow. So they added this whole like finding Jesus and
Speaker 3:he's a beloved character.
Speaker 2:Yeah
Speaker 3:You know, he runs the library. He's a big part of Andy and what Andy does at that prison like the the building up the library and all that stuff so You know again, you have these types of little vignettes like this Brooks' story of the the library. Brooks when he gets out and he writes the letter. It's little stories within the greater story, which is really cool, and it's very Stephen King esque, but in terms of the novella, like, not there. I mean, there it's there, but it's not in the depth.
Speaker 3:Like usually, you get a movie adaptation and it lacks a lot of the detail of the book. This was the opposite.
Speaker 2:That's so interesting because so far I've liked everything that they added Yeah. To the movie. I feel like it definitely built out those characters.
Speaker 3:There's nothing about the movie that seems unlikely. You You know what I mean like sure like a a prison break and chiseling through a wall with a little tiny hammer and then Breaking through a sewer pipe with a rock. It seems pretty unlikely to me, but that's about the only thing Yeah. That was a a little bit silly. It's like, he's got this he's got a rock, and he's gonna bust a sewer pipe.
Speaker 3:Like, it's this thick of of you know?
Speaker 2:That was actually my next little bonus question because I had one more bonus question, and it was it was how realistic is Andy's escape? I mean, it was over a lengthy amount of time, but like
Speaker 3:With any movie, there is some level of disbelief that you have to suspend. Right? Very unlikely that someone would escape from a prison in that manner, especially now. It's not likely, clearly, especially I'll go back to it again because it's silly. He breaks through a huge sewer pipe with a rock by slamming it and timing it with light, thunder strikes.
Speaker 3:That is yes. You have to suspend a lot of disbelief, to think that that can happen. However, like, if you go in to every movie and you analyze, is this possible, you're gonna come away disappointed because most of the time it's gonna be like hell no. If a movie is based off of the rules of our reality, I expect there to be some bending of those rules. When those rules are broken, that's when it bugs me.
Speaker 3:Right? Impossible? I don't know. Kinda anything's possible. Gotta allow the bending Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Of the rules to allow for enjoyment. So I'm okay with it.
Speaker 2:I guess how do you relate to Shawshank Redemption? Do you see like yourself in any of the narratives or characters or what kind of when you watched it or even suggested it to me to talk about, What'd you take away from it and how do you feel about it?
Speaker 3:I think the reason why I like this movie so much, there's one part of this movie that sums up the entire movie. At the end, Red's character narrates Morgan Freeman, Andy Dufresne crawled through 500 yards of the most vile human waste is referring to him crawling through this sewer pipe. 500 yards, five football fields of sewer pipe, crap, puke, and all the things, You know ever any other just think about the nasty stuff coming out of a prism right he crossed the road for 500 yards And what happens when he gets out? He comes out clean right the rain washes him away. He comes out clean.
Speaker 3:He's a new person with a new start right and he meets up with this friend I Think the reason why You asked me How did it speak to me is we all go through really hard times in our life. One person's worst time may not even hold a candle to someone else's worst time and that's okay because we only live through the experiences of our lives, right? Even the worst and most dire of circumstances, they don't always last forever. And there are things that we can do to get out of those dire circumstances. Actions changing a thought moving a muscle Friends true friends right that we can talk about things You you know that Andy and red are true friends Andy hears Red say something about how he used to play an instrument a while ago.
Speaker 3:And then later on the movie, he gets him a harmonica. Yeah. He was paying attention to his friend and then telling him like you should start again. Leaning on good friends, knowing that it's not dark forever. I think that's what spoke to me a lot about this movie.
Speaker 3:That's what I like about it. Such a beautiful story of redemption, hope, hopelessness, friendship, really amazing. And it's definitely one that anybody can relate to, anybody who's gone through anything difficult.
Speaker 2:So here comes the big question. Does the Shawshank Redemption still hold up?
Speaker 3:I don't know if it would hold up. I definitely think the acting, the story itself, but we talk about slow burns. That's especially in a lot of younger people slow burns isn't really what they're looking for You've got you know popularity of reels on Instagram YouTube my son Probably doesn't like to watch anything more than three four minutes long. This movie was I believe at least two hours, maybe two hours and like twenty minutes So that's it's a good question. I think I think if given a chance if it got the same type of critical acclaim because at least now as opposed to '94 when something is Good there's more ways for it to spread out right for the word-of-mouth to catch Back then we didn't have as prevalent of Internet or anything like that.
Speaker 3:You're looking at movie reviews in the newspaper Now you've got different streaming services obviously the internet social media that'll take things and can help kind of stoke the flames a little bit so I think given that assistance and the fact that you know, you have Rotten Tomatoes that gives audience scores and critic scores that people look at all the time that are viewed on these streaming services as well. You can see those scores. I think I think the good story prevails the day in that.
Speaker 2:More like a word-of-mouth type thing.
Speaker 3:I think so, but it you know, we don't need just mouths anymore. Right? Because of the Internet and because of the social media, I think we have that assistance that can get a good movie over the top.
Speaker 2:I think the Shawshank Redemption still holds up, that the idea of hope never really goes out of style. If you look at the movies that are getting released today, it's kind of more a spectacle. I see a lot of films nowadays that kind of hold your hand throughout certain messages or meaning, where it's a very blatantly obvious, not really finding a good balance between the story and what it's trying to say. The cruel reality of prison, people getting, you know, beat up. There's sexual assault.
Speaker 2:There's wrong wrongful convictions. People spending their whole lives in prison only to be released and not know what to do with themselves or the changing times. There's a lot of ways that this film touches on those themes of reality because you're so immersed in this story of this game that Andy Dufresne is playing about the steps he's going, where he's at at all times. You know? Morgan Freeman, you're paying attention to his inner monologue.
Speaker 2:You're thinking more about the story than you are the harsh reality of the situation they're in, and I think they do a really good job of that. You don't see storytelling like that every day. There's hope still in there. There's new beginnings. Since it came out in the nineties, I think it's something that still holds up because kind of was like wine.
Speaker 2:When I think of Shawshank Redemption or movies from the nineties, I kind of think they hold up like wine. Like, the more they age, the sweeter they
Speaker 3:get. Fantastic movie. Great novella as well. One of the best adaptations.
Speaker 2:You know, I watched the movie, but just being able to talk about it back and forth and get your perspective on it has been Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's been a lot of fun. Yeah. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Steve. Thanks for for joining me on this podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks for asking me.
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