Since its release in 1994, the film’s place in the popular consciousness has never shown any signs of fading away.
Universally acclaimed movies are a uniquely interesting case. An unimaginable number of analyses have been written about Frank Darabont’s breakout feature as a deeply sympathetic study of the incarcerated, as an unaging cinematic touchstone, and as an allegory for Jesus Christ — more than even his more obvious Biblical parable, The Green Mile, in which the messianic figure of John Coffey even bears the initials “J.C.” More has been written and dissected about Shawshank than the great movies which surround it because it somehow strikes a chord, culturally. Its longevity is illustrated by its refusal to die away after over 30 years of unbroken praise, garnering it a reputation as the prison movie, with other classics of the subgenre powerless to overtake it. Prison imagery is identified explicitly with Shawshank; to a certain type of person, its iconic status makes it a completely essential movie, a must-watch on the same level as Star Wars or Toy Story or Jurassic Park.
That’s an odd distinction for a movie like this to carry. A movie where we are introduced to our protagonist by witnessing his conviction for murder, and whose inner life we can only speculate about in the same way that the observant Red does (in the first of many narrator roles portrayed by Morgan Freeman). Andy Dufresne is an enigma for a majority of the runtime when he should theoretically be our emotional anchor, and even while he’s currying favour with the prison guards, establishing a suitable library, and tutoring an inmate through his high school equivalency, his perspective is absent. He exists in a story which has no traditional, journeying narrative progression, but which instead presents us with a series of anecdotes through the years of his prison sentence — this is not a structure that absolutely screams “American classic”. Surely there’s some alchemy going on to give a film like this such unconventional popularity and esteem.
Is it the visuals? They’re no doubt beautifully, purposefully composed, but Darabont constructs his debut out of purely functional shots; there’s no show-off cinematography until the climactic, often clipped moment where Andy basks in the glory of his fantastic escape. Could it be the music? Well, for as much as it is profound and operatic, I don’t know that any epic drama earns its reputation based on its score alone. The next most likely culprit is the acting, and the dynamic range of heavy-handed and naturalistic performances that fill its runtime would almost convince you that this is an actor’s movie; but still, it does not seem like James Whitmore’s convincing, ‘institutionalized’ breakdown as Brooks, or even Tim Robbins’ remarkably nuanced embodiment of Andy is what keeps people coming back.
What provides Shawshank its continued relevance in the modern day is the timelessness of its themes; it is a story with which we can identify, featuring a version of ourselves who we admire. Andy is an innocent man beset by the loneliest, most cancerous circumstances possible following the traumatic murder of his wife. His situation is similar to Kafka’s The Trial, in which the accused cannot defend himself because he does not even know the crime for which he is being convicted, yet the movie does not take the nightmarish tone of that text. It swiftly portraits a man who keeps a level head in spite of disheartening conditions, a man who makes friends, acquires social capital among the authorities, and is eventually allowed to make his own rules — all through sheer talent.
From one angle, this is a noxious, individualistic fantasy. Entertaining as it is to watch Andy’s rise, it is totally sensational. But that would only be a problem if this is where his accomplishments ended. After all, Shawshank is not just a ‘prison movie’, it is a meditation on incarceration that definitively concludes that imprisonment’s main feat is enriching a certain class of humanity with legal slavery, as well as producing a genuine tragedy in the form of recidivism. A sensational story like this would not be complete without a sensational ending which saw this system’s comeuppance, personified by its worst villain: the warden.
Andy becomes the architect of the warden’s rapid downfall when he finally makes his escape after two decades of careful, quiet planning. It is clear to us when we see the details of his escape played out in flashback that the only way that one man could be moved to free himself like this, with such extraordinary odds against him, is with a tempest in the soul. His outlook on his life after the very moment he is locked up is deeply influenced by a single, teleological end; a legacy that will survive beyond himself. The titular redemption is inspiring, on a human level, because it is what we should hope to obtain over the course of our entrapped lives.
So, of course this is an iconic movie. It connects with us through a sincerity and ubiquitous relatability in order to motivate a transformation beyond ourselves — something which only a great work of art can do.
