Shawshank Redemption

Carlo Krell

            As soon as I woke up this morning, I watched a long and detailed preview of today’s anticipated Él Clasico match between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Usually, these previews are most often the same when it comes to these two Spanish teams battling against each other – politics, finances, money, transfers, Lionel Messi on one side, and Cristiano Ronaldo on the other. However, there was one small difference today: Neymar is going to play against his team’s greatest rival for the first time. Fortunately, I believe the producers were aware of the redundancy of their previews because today’s show was almost entirely about the Brazilian youngster rather than the game itself. “He was meant to play soccer. Even before exiting his mother, Neymar was destined to revolutionize the way of playing this sport.” That’s all I heard today. Gratefully and coincidentally the day I was going to write this blog.

            I see “moral vision” as what one is inspired to do; something that is right; when one seeks to make a change in what he believes is right. The Shawshank Redemption, the movie I chose to watch, by this definition expresses a very strong moral vision. Before anything else, however, what does Neymar have to do with this? Well, his destined moral vision – albeit not essentially moral - was to play soccer and do what he thought was best for his team and for his nation (it was a great, realistic, and modern way of portraying a “moral vision”). Basically, the movie is about an innocent man, Andy Dufresne, being convicted of murder and becoming another prisoner’s best friend. Both imprisoned men spend a number of years together, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency through thick and thin.

            I would love to talk about many aspects of the movie, but I don’t want to “steal” what others, like Luiza and Yugo, have already said. Consequently, I’m going to innovatively try to split the rest of my response in two parts – aesthetic/artistic film aspects and ethics. Yet, both sections will be based on the same premises, which will unfortunately resemble other responses. First of all, Shawshank prison is an extremely corrupt environment with different echelons, including in the prisoner society. In addition, people are only recognized for what they do rather than for what they are or what they represent. Moreover, although paradoxically stated, many of the characters developed in the film were satisfied with their confined lives, even Red, the second protagonist, when asking his boss at the supermarket for permission to go to the restroom. Likewise, most of the prisoners had no aspirations given that they were “satisfied” with their ordinary, redundant and dreary routines – that is why Andy (the outlier) is always in spotlight.

            Just like in the paragraph above, the film portrayed prisoners as the “majority” of the environment’s society. Few of them had voices, very few actually. That I can think of, I heard the voices of probably two handfuls of prisoners all throughout the film. Furthermore, they are all portrayed as one, rather than a collective group of individuals. This is primarily shown through the plot of the film and through the camera angles. In about five occasions, the filmmaker placed his camera on a wire over the prison. This upper angle focused on all the prisoners down below on the prison yard, making the spectators (free humans outside of prison watching television) look down upon the ant-sized prisoners. This introduces me to another artistic approach to prisoners, which is that they are tremendously weaker than prison and authority. Once again, the plot already suggests this, yet the meaning is augmented when the plot is aggregated to the movie’s filmmaking tactics. When the prisoners are going back inside from their “recess,” they always look up to the prison walls – the filmmaker even made the camera seem like prisoners’ eyes.

            In terms of non-film art, a few things stood out as well. When Andy was carving his chess horse, he expressed one of his likes through emotion. For him, his geological hobby was a way of keeping his mind busy and focused even when placed in a state of potential chaos. Seeing something that he loved again – chess, rocks, and carving – made him feel more comfortable. This suggests that art is a way of finding solace and of expressing emotion, something we’ve already studied and agreed on. In addition, Andy, as well as all other PRISONERS (and not authority figures), expressed delight and emotion towards the classical music that played out loud. Andy even said “music is beautiful since it’s kept inside us. Both up here (in our minds) and right here (in our hearts and souls).” There are other artistic aspects of the film that need to be mentioned, yet I’ll tie them in to the “ethical” section for the purposes of your understanding.

            The first “ethical” characteristic of the movie appeared right in the beginning. Andy was convicted of murder because his wife was cheating on him. The Lawyer that convicted him even considered cheating a “sin.” With “sin” in mind, another huge “ethical” part of the movie was religion. As soon as Andy entered prison, Warden Norton (the prison’s manager) said “Trust the lord.” This suggests that God is the supreme moral lord, the one who determines what’s right and wrong. This is a religious approach to human nature, similar to many different philosophies we’ve studied. However, even though Norton was extremely religious, he ordered his employed troops to do immoral things. When in authority, you can do whatever you want to someone (a prisoner) – hitting, throwing cold water, killing, inter alia, are acceptable. Another huge aspect of human nature was also portrayed in the movie. The prisoners, even without paper money, found a way of commercializing with cigarettes and contraband. Not only does this suggest that humans are selfish, but it also shows that humans are willing to do immoral things for their own pleasure (living a good life in a corrupt society). Outside jail, Norton was also a ridiculously corrupt individual, once more emphasizing this perspective of human nature. With egocentrism in mind, another scene of the movie struck me. The police officer in charge of all cells did not (pardon the bluntness) give a damn about a “fat man’s” sadness. In reality, he killed the “fat man,” as he was called, because he was tired of seeing him cry. In the following morning, when everyone was talking about his death, Andy asked if someone knew the “fat man’s” name. The response was “why would you care?”

            The film went against the “all men are equal” philosophy in a myriad of ways. A few of them were already expressed, so I’d like to focus on one realm of this approach. When Andy was taking his first bath, a member of “The Sisters,” the toughest group in prison, admitted he was a homosexual. Instantaneously, Andy fled. This could mean several different things, such as Gay people are avoided, Gay people shouldn’t belong with other men, Gay people shouldn’t be the toughest men at a prison, inter alia, but I will choose not to elaborate on this because it could be a whole other blog.

            One inspirational ethical approach of the film, on the other hand, was that a man is only a man when he has company. Similar to Carol Giligan’s philosophy on human nature, the film shows how humans achieve great things with the help of others. In terms of filmmaking, whenever the lights were already shut down at night, prisoners “left the darkness” and became “enlightened” when they spoke to other prisoners across the hall. Crooks killed himself because he was lonely, even when he was free. These were ways of representing the difference between solitude and company. Likewise, everything that the prisoners did in prison to keep their minds occupied needed others’ aid. Red needed to do his contraband when others needed his help, and the youngster who had tried stealing a television in JCPenney needed Andy’s help to get into college. Initially, the youngster had no hope of getting in, and many other characters lived without hope because, as Red recalled, “hope is dangerous.” However, by the end the film made explicit that all men should have hope because it is what keeps good things from dying.

            The last ethical characteristic of the film I’d like to talk about regards authority. It became clear that with more authority, one is more corrupt. Norton, the police officer, and even Andy at times made this evident. However, one is not born corrupt. When in contact with such a corrupt and immoral world (like that prison), one becomes corrupt as well. As Andy himself mentioned, he became a crook after being convicted as one. The only authoritarian figure that was not shown to be corrupt was God. Yet, controversially stated again, Norton’s corrupt safe was placed right behind a religious statement. Does this mean that money is a supreme power as well, just like God?

            So, what about moral vision? I believe that the movie portrayed such a strong moral vision because it showed us all the bad things of human nature and society. Andy was the outlier – the one who tried breaking the system. He did not abide by the ordinary or the “set of rules.” In the end, when Andy was capable of escaping a horrible world, and freeing himself from his temporary corruption, he showed us what our moral vision should be. We shouldn’t be corrupt because that is wrong. By asking Red to go meet him outside of the USA, Andy also showed us that we should always seek company and friendship. In the end, the film suggests that we as humans should seek was is right for us and for ourselves. We should pursue what we’re inspired to, what we’re destined to. Yet, we should never succumb to authority or to corruption. Rather, we should stick to those beside us, who will definitely take us to the best places, including psychological places.

           I don't believe the film expresses if art should or shouldn't be moral. Yet, based on the moral vision of the film, I conclude that art should have some meaning or objective to it.