FEATURE: A Stephen King Halloween!...The Shawshank Redemption

2. The Shawshank Redemption

(Frank Darabont, 1994)

...somehow that graymeat son of a bitch managed to bring in something else as well.  A sense of his own worth, maybe, or a feeling that he would be the winner in the end...

The Long and Short of It

Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman) resides in Shawshank Prison with a small clutch of friends.  He's found a way to survive - by becoming a salesman who works both the prisoners and the guards.  One day, a new inmate named Andy (Tim Robbins) asks Red to get him a rock hammer.

Adaptation Decay

Improvement.  King's collection of novellas called Different Seasons was a watershed for King, demonstrating his ability to shift outside the horror genre.  Apt Pupil was more dark melodrama than horror, The Body was a coming-of-age memoir, and The Shawshank Redemption was the most dramatic departure.  It's a hopeful story about a prison inmate named Andy Dufresne, who battles the prison system despite his double life-sentence and the "fresh fish" bullseye on his back.  The film takes the story, revises, consolidates, and emerges as a stronger piece of work.  In the film, there's only one warden instead of a shifting roster, and, played by Bob Gunton, he devolves as Andy inspires the men around him.  In the film, Andy's protege Tommy (Gil Bellows) is shot, but in the novella, he's transferred to another prison.  The biggest change is that "Red" was written as an Irishman and is played by Morgan Freeman (who lampshades the switch with a joke early on).  This would start Mr. Freeman on a long, rewarding career of narrating the lives of really super white guys.

Forget All That - How's the Movie?

A modern classic.  Its appeal lies, I think, in its effortless storytelling and its unwavering hope.  We see the system beat up Andy, we see how Andy learns the weaknesses of the system, and, at the film's conclusion, we see him beat that system.  It's easy, classic, satisfying.  Darabont finds ways to make his craft support the story dynamics.  An example: one scene features Andy nearly tossed over a roof, the camera high above, emphasizing how far he could fall, but as he explains himself to a guard (Clancy Brown), the camera dips down until it sees Andy eye-to-eye, just as the guard starts to see him that way.  As to the "hope," I've heard complaints over the years that the film whitewashes prison.  I suspect this has less to do with the events of the movie and more the tone.  After all, Andy suffers rape and solitary confinement with some regularity.  But the film is presented - through music, through Freeman's nostalgia, through the lighting - as a positive story.  This film believes in the hope of its premise.  This may be a naive belief, one not necessarily suited to reality.  But I think that's the power of great stories: their ability to bend the rules so we can be renewed and rejuvenated, be it through screams or laughter or tears.  The Shawshank Redemption is one of those stories.

Alright, but Is It a Good Halloween Flick?

No, but it's a good any-other-damn-time-of-the-year flick.

Kingwatch 2012

Although there's no sign of King directly, Shawshank Prison is a location he mentions in passing in many other books, and, in a detail I forgot earlier in the month, Dolores Claiborne threatens her husband with the prospect of a one-way ticket to the 'shank.


But You Know What Sucks?

2. Graveyard Shift

(Ralph Singleton, 1990)

Were it not for Brad Dourif, this would be number one, and given that it's still only number two, you may have some idea of how little he's given to work with.  Graveyard Shift plunks him on the sidelines and focuses on the "heroes," who are less interesting than the giant mutant rats they have to fight.  Another one of King's short stories that functions best as a quick sick joke, Graveyard Shift might be an easy film to hate, but, like most of the truly bad movies I've mentioned, its biggest crime is that it's deathly boring.  David Andrews is a dull hero, Kelly Wolf is a non-written heroine, foreman Stephen Macht lacks the balls-out weirdness of Robert Englund in The Mangler, and the rats?  They may be inspired by Lovecraft, maybe inspired by Stoker, but that doesn't make them inspired.  The flick adds a giant flying rat.  Or maybe it's just a big bat.  Let's check in with Brad Dourif.  What?  Fell down a sinkhole and died?  That's a shame.