The Shawshank Redemption, analysis

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The Shawshank Redemption

For my film analysis, I chose the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Frank

Darabont directed Shawshank and wrote the screenplay based on the novel Rita

Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by author Stephen King. The movie was made in

1994 and produced by Niki Marvin.

The movie stars Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins as two convicts serving time

in a New England prison named Shawshank. Tim Robbins plays a man named Andy

Dufresne, a banker, who gets convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and is sent to

prison in Shawshank. Andy eventually becomes good friends with a fellow convict by the

name of Ellis Boyd Redding(Morgan Freeman) who is able to get anything for anyone

within reason. The story follows the prison life of Andy Dufresne and his eventual escape

from Shawshank's walls.

The movie follows a formalistic style of direction under Frank Darabont.

He

interweaves scenes with nice fluid shots. The shots are not jarring or rough cut. Darabont

tends to take the story at a distance allowing the characters to establish their traits to the

audience instead of pushing a barrage of angles at the audience. The position of the

camera is intricately placed in all scenes. The movie is a perfect example of classical

cinema.

The most unique part about the style of the movie is in the cinematography by

Roger Deakins. The whole story looks like it was filmed with a blue filter. The filters

give a special beauty to the scenes, which in turn causes more dramatic feelings for the

audience. With this filter the movie tends to bring out the two different colors of blue and

brown. The blues of the uniforms are all the more dramatic compared to the drab brown

buildings surrounding the prisoners. The colors...