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\n\t\t\tPosted by\t\t\tJohn Scalzi<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0\u00a0
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It\u2019s strange, and possibly borderline offensive, to suggest that an at-the-time two-time Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe-winning actor had not arrived before appearing in The Shawshank Redemption. But guess what, this is precisely what I am going to do, right now. The Shawshank Redemption did a number of things: Gave Stephen King arguably his best movie adaptation. Moved Frank Darabont from a middlin\u2019 genre screenwriter to the Hollywood A-list. Grabbed seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Became the top-rated movie of all time on IMDb. This movie did all of these things. But what it truly did, was give the world its current understanding of the phenomenon that is Morgan Freeman. Freeman came into The Shawshank Redemption appreciated, admired, awarded and accomplished. He came out of Shawshank an icon.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the narration, of course. The scaffolding of the entire movie, which Freeman offers in his rich, unhurried voice, offering context and commentary low and slow. Freeman isn\u2019t just saying the words, he\u2019s braising them, making them tender and toothsome but with just enough wry bite to keep the audience coming back. The words Freeman is saying come from Stephen King\u2019s novella, filtered through Darabont\u2019s screenplay. But make no mistake. The moment he starts speaking, they are his. It\u2019s not an exaggeration to say that more than anything else, it\u2019s Morgan Freeman, and his voice, that have made this movie the classic it is today. Take it away, it\u2019s just another prison drama.<\/p>\n
Maybe that\u2019s too dismissive. Even without the narration, it would be a very handsome, very accomplished prison drama, and one that in many ways is clearly a labor of love for Frank Darabont. Darabont spent some of the money he got for his first feature film screenplay (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) to secure an option on \u201cRita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption\u201d from its author Stephen King. He reportedly spent $5,000 on the option; King reportedly never cashed the check. Darabont wrote a script and took a meeting at Castle Rock Productions, home of another fellow who liked Stephen King, Rob Reiner. Reiner loved the script and wanted to direct it, offering Darabont a fair amount of money to let him do so. Darabont took less money for the opportunity to direct it himself.<\/p>\n
I think this is was a good choice on Darabont\u2019s part. The version of Shawshank that Reiner would have made would, I think, have been good \u2014 we have both Stand By Me and Misery to stand testament to that. That said, there\u2019s a lightness to Rob Reiner\u2019s work (yes, even when Annie Wilkes is taking a sledgehammer to Paul Sheldon\u2019s ankles, we\u2019re talking an overall gestalt), in the way he frames and lights and shoots his scenes, and in how he directs his actors. Reiner\u2019s Shawshank would have looked and played very differently, even with the same script in hand.<\/p>\n
Darabont doesn\u2019t do \u201clight\u201d \u2014 not just in this film but in any of them. He tried to do light in The Majestic and while I like that film quite a lot, actually, boy, was he not the right director for that. Darabont is dark \u2014 well, \u201cdark\u201d makes it sound like he\u2019s goth or something, which he\u2019s not. Let\u2019s say \u201csomber.\u201d He\u2019s somber, and his frame is considered, and he doesn\u2019t do a closeup when he\u2019s got a perfectly good medium shot to go to. Shit, even his close-ups aren\u2019t that close up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I suppose a word that matches well with Shawshank\u2019s pace and bearing is \u201cstately.\u201d Nothing fast, everything considered, all of it moving along in its own time. Which makes sense. Everyone in this movie is doing time. Twenty years, forty years, life. They don\u2019t have to be in a rush for anything. So they\u2019re not, and neither is this film. <\/p>\n
(There are fight scenes, and they are violent, and things move fast there. Again, big picture, folks.) <\/p>\n
Darabont\u2019s sensibilities as a director are precisely right for the story he wants to tell here, one where we need to feel the whole wide expanse of the time these men have at their disposal, and how time itself disposes of them. One of the most celebrated parts of the film is an interlude where an older convict, one who has spent nearly all his life in the prison, is paroled and loosed upon the world \u2014 or more accurately the world is loosed upon him. \u201cThe world got itself in a big damn hurry,\u201d he writes his friends, but Darabont doesn\u2019t make the interlude hurry at all. He follows it, stately, to its inevitable conclusion.<\/p>\n
There is a larger story here. It\u2019s told mostly by Ellis \u201cRed\u201d Redding (Freeman) in narration, centering on his friend Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who is serving two life sentences for the murder of his estranged wife and her lover. Andy doesn\u2019t fit into prison, and not just because he was a banker in his previous life. There\u2019s something else going on with him that makes him an odd fish. Nevertheless over time Red and his friends warm to Andy, and Andy returns the favor as the skills from his past life start to come in handy for a warden (Bob Gunton) who has big plans, not all of them on the up-and-up. <\/p>\n
Andy is a lifer and his life is no cakewalk in prison, but he holds out hope, which is something Red doesn\u2019t approve of. Hope of what? Hope for what? It\u2019s never specified, and then one day an important piece of information comes to light about Andy\u2019s crimes. Things happen not fast after that, but certainly quicker than they had before, and we discover why Red had to be the narrator after all. <\/p>\n
In King\u2019s novella, Red is Irish (a throwaway line in the script, played for humor, is all that remains of that), but after this movie there is no way anyone would imagine anyone else but Freeman in the role. Freeman gives the character gravitas, but not at the expense of making you forget he\u2019s in prison, and rightfully so. Red\u2019s a lifer, and has the perspective of a lifer. If he\u2019s maybe a little smarter than most of the other inmates, with somewhat more perspective, it doesn\u2019t make his position any better than theirs, and he knows it. Red has gotten to sit with his own bullshit for years and years, and Freeman\u2019s performance reflects that fact. The character has gravitas because the world and his choices weigh on him. <\/p>\n
That comes through, to bring everything \u2019round again, in the narration. Narration is almost never a very good idea in film. It usually means that you\u2019ve come to the end of production and editing and realized, shit, some very important plot points have been left terribly unwritten in the script, quick, grab the lead and loop in some lines. Bad narration can drag a film down (see: the original version of Blade Runner, where Harrison Ford\u2019s apparently intentional leaden line readings indicated what value he thought they brought to the film) or even make it more confusing than it was before (see: 1984\u2019s version of Dune, which to be fair, no amount of explanatory narration could have salvaged). So why does it work here?<\/p>\n
One, because going back all the way to King\u2019s novella, this was always Red\u2019s story, even as he\u2019s telling it about Andy. The frame was always there, and always meant to be there; it wasn\u2019t some rushed last-minute addition from the notes of a panicked studio suit. Two, because it is Morgan Freeman. That voice. That cadence. That intonation. That occasional wry remark. Freeman was nominated for Best Actor for this film, and make no mistake that the narration was a great deal of what got him the nomination. The rest of his acting is terrific, to be clear. But it\u2019s the narration that has stayed with people over the decades. It\u2019s arguably the most successful film narration ever.<\/p>\n
Freeman did not win the Best Actor Oscar that year. It went to Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump. In the light of 2025, and the esteem in which Freeman\u2019s performance is currently held, this could be seen as a puzzling choice. This is where I remind people (or, if they\u2019re young, inform them) that The Shawshank Redemption was a box office failure when it came out in 1994. It cost $25 million to make and made only $16 million in its first spin through the theaters. The film\u2019s seven Oscar nominations actually prompted Columbia Pictures to re-release the film in February of 1995, which goosed the domestic take up to just under $25 million. Then it came out on home video and was a monster, becoming the top video rental of 1995. That and incessant showings on basic cable, brought the movie to the esteem it has today. <\/p>\n
But in 1994? Shawshank made less in the theaters than Forrest Gump made in its first weekend; throw in the February re-release and they draw up about even. It was a minor miracle that Shawshank was nominated for seven Oscars at all. It didn\u2019t win any because it was up against Gump and Pulp Fiction and lots of other movies seen more by the public and by Academy voters. The only major award of any note that the film won was one it from the American Society of Cinematographers, who gave Roger Deakins their award for theatrical releases. Really, that\u2019s pretty much it. <\/p>\n
Fear not, for the Oscar comes to Morgan Freeman a decade later, in 2005, when he wins his statuette for Million Dollar Baby. By this time, Morgan Freeman has become Morgan Freeman, The Voice of God \u2014 literally, in the case of the film Bruce Almighty \u2014 and the most recognizable voice this side of James Earl Jones, Tim Robbins, who plays Andy Dufresne in Shawshank, will also win an Oscar, his in 2004. Curiously, both Freeman and Robbins will win their Oscars being directed by Clint Eastwood. <\/p>\n
Does Freeman owe his eventual Oscar to Shawshank? You\u2019ll have to imagine me making a see-saw motion here, since among other things Eastwood worked with Freeman before, notably on Unforgiven, and of course Freeman had turned in Oscar-caliber performances prior to Shawshank. But there\u2019s no doubt that Freeman\u2019s cultural capital had been raised considerably, and much of that comes from this role and its slow ascendance into public consciousness. Freeman is responsible for Freeman winning an Oscar. Shawshank is responsible for making Freeman, America\u2019s Quiet Yet Comforting Voice of Authority, our very own ASMR Daddy, letting us know everything will be all right.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Morgan Freeman has become such a voice icon that there is an entire genre of internet meme devoted to putting text next to a picture of him so when you read the text, you hear him saying the words in your mind, automatically giving those words credibility, no matter what the words are. You could post the words \u201ckittens are a wholesome and natural snack\u201d next to Freeman\u2019s face and suddenly at least some people would be wondering if that wasn\u2019t true. It\u2019s not true, by the way. Please don\u2019t eat kittens. Also Freeman never said that. Freeman probably said none of those things that those memes attribute to him. The internet lies, people. <\/p>\n
So instead, let me leave you with words Morgan Freeman did say, in The Shawshank Redemption, near the end of the film: \u201cGet busy living, or get busy dying.\u201d This is the choice Red has to consider for himself, and the choice he makes is informed by every other thing that has happened in the film. If you watched the film, you know his answer, and if you haven\u2019t watched it I\u2019m not going to spoil it for you now. <\/p>\n
Either way, with or without Morgan Freeman saying them to you, I want you to consider those words in your own life, especially when things are difficult, as they so frequently are. The choices you make and the actions that come from them will make a difference to you and those around you. The Shawshank Redemption, in the end, is about this. You don\u2019t need Morgan Freeman to tell you it\u2019s important. But I have to tell you, it doesn\u2019t hurt when he does.<\/p>\n
Thanks for sticking with me for The December Comfort Watches this month. I hope the new year brings you joy, and comfort, and movies. <\/p>\n
\u2014 JS<\/p>\n
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