AS91106
Title: The Shawshank redemption
Director: Frank Darabont
Text type: Film
I would have never thought a film based on murder, rape, injustice and imprisonment would be voted the best film of all time, but after watching The Shawshank redemption, I realised why it had received such great reviews and awards. The Shawshank redemption, the 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont is an adaption of the novella ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank redemption’ by Steven King, it was nominated for seven academy awards and has since then become the top rated film on IMDB with more than 1.4 million votes.
The Shawshank redemption is based on very unfortunate and negative events but still this film will leave you with a sense of warmth as it makes you feel like part of a family. That is however a family made up of prisoners. I felt a variety of emotions while watching it, like happiness and respect when the main character Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) escapes prison and lives the rest of his life on a tropical island, this made me admire his resilience against the prison after so many years. Anger and hate was another common emotion felt while watching the film for example when the warden keeps Red (Morgan Freeman) trapped inside the prison years after his sentence was finished, this showed just how corrupt Shawshank prison was and the people inside of the prison being kept as what some would define as slaves. Shawshank has a very unique way of telling the experience of Andy who was wrongfully accused of a murder he didn’t commit by expressing the views toward him through other characters perspectives in and outside of the prison using a sense of first person POV. The director used this film technique through characters like Red, speaking about Andy and what his thoughts and feelings are on him from when he first sees him climbing off of the prison bus to the very last scene on the tropical island. These qualities have lead me to recommend the film to other year 12 students because the messages portrayed through the prison and the warden teach the audience of how some people crave power and can cause them to become terrible people who only care for themselves. This is relevant to year 12s because in our modern society, such people exist and do in-humane things for power and wealth, corrupt governments are scattered across the world and only want power over its civilians and money.
Shawshank teaches its audience of the injustice against people and their rights, unfairly framing a person without proper evidence is still a huge issue in modern society, Gerry Conlon is a perfect example of wrongful imprisonment when he was accused of a bombing killing five people, after torture and years of being locked behind bars new evidence surfaced exposing Gerry’s innocence. Shawshank showed me that the court of justice isn’t always fair. The Shawshank redemption exposes the horrors that actually happen in historic and modern and is a film that I highly recommend to other year 12 students so they can visualise the not so beautiful world we live in.
Harry Cooper, Blog 