HUM 71
What composes the soul of a man? Is it his life experiences? Is it his origins? Is it the choices he makes? It is perhaps a combination of all those notions. Nothing is singular but rather an amalgamation. In the confines of a dark passage, human beings have a capacity to rise above adversity or fall prey to it.
In The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Andy Dufrane’s quest to keep his humanity intact makes a film a modern classic. Directed by Frank Darabont, the film deals with virtues of friendship, hope and the consequences of choices people make in their life. Prison sucks the humanity out of prisoners. Red, a fellow prisoner and friend of Andy, says it best when he remarks, “They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take.”
The film is a circular narrative with Red narrating the entire length of the film. It is shot extensively within the confines of the prison. If there is a singular antagonist in the film, it is the prison itself. Andy's path to humanity is constantly foiled at every turn. Andy is either beaten, conned or made to feel less than human. He is made to feel subhuman. To counter this, he uses his education as a banker to curry favor with the guards and the warden as well as his fellow inmates. According to Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times, “What quietly amazes everyone in the prison -- and us, too -- is the way he accepts the good and the bad as all part of some larger pattern than only he can fully see.” It can be argued that his main antagonist is the warden Samuel Norton and Captain Byron Hadley (Head Guard.) They are not fully formed antagonists because their characters are essentially one note. They are either corrupt or evil acting more as an extension of the prison they manage.
Frank Darabount provides a low key atmosphere to the surroundings. He shoots most of the film in shades of gray so that certain key scenes spontaneously grow out of it. Take the uniforms worn by the prisoners. They are a grey blue with blue jeans. The prison is drab and decaying giving a sense of a quiet 'hell on earth.' It enlivens the characters on screen whenever the tone of the film uplifts itself in scenes of triumph. Examples of this are seen throughout the film. The cinematographer Roger Deakins’s lighting techniques is used to the director's advantage. According to Jason Fraley of the Film Spectrum, “Darabont and Deakins use a classic half-lit technique with the Warden, as the Warden speaks to Tommy in the courtyard at night. One lens of his glasses is in the light, and the other is in complete darkness, quite literally suggesting a dark side.” Shot selection composes an important part of the film. In one of the first opening scenes of the film, as the prisoners are accosted into the inner walls for the first time, Andy looks up to see the prison. The point of view shot is brilliant in its execution which extends evidence to the fact that the prison is a thematic character. It is repressive in nature and erodes the humanity of the prisoner that lives within its walls.
Sound editing is crucial to the film. Voices carry throughout the prison giving credence to demonic nature of the prison. Take one of the opening scenes of the film where Andy and other newcomer prisoners are having their first night in the prison. The prison is quiet and still. Suddenly, the prisoners start berating the 'newbies' trying to get them to break. We hear several voices from different ends of the cell block. Things quiet down when the guards led by Captain Byron Hadley whose thundering voice silences everyone with the exception of one prisoner who is beaten because he has cracked under pressure. Another example of sound editing is when Andy first encounters the sisters. The sisters are the 'homosexual' gang in the prison. Andy isn’t able to fight them off. We only see the sisters beating him relentlessly as the camera cuts away. The sound of the beating never stops through red's narration. It also relates to the hopelessness of the situation.
For the purpose of clearly defining Andy’s quest of retaining his humanity, Misc-en-Scene is employed fairly well in the film. There is one chilling scene that speaks to the greater theme of the film. The scene is when Andy is thrown into solitary confinement after pleading with the warden to hear his case of innocence after being told by a new prisoner named Tommy that he knows that Andy's wife was murdered by someone else. The warden has Tommy killed as Andy is too valuable to his own personal interests as he launders money for the warden. The scene that follows is after tommy gets killed as the warden visits him in solitary confinement.
Shot 1: Extreme Close up of Andy in the dark with a just a hint of light just over his head. The door opens and light storms into the room with Andy covering in fear.
Shot 2: Captain Hadley is standing over head in the hall way as the warden enters the room with the light following him from behind. The warden tells Andy that Tommy has been shot and that they have to put it behind them. The camera shoots him from below.
Shot 3: A close up of Andy with him replying that he will no longer work for the warden.
Shot 4: The warden replies 'nothing stops' as he walks into the room and closer to Andy as the camera closes in on his stern face.
Shot 5, 6, 7 and 8: we have interplaying shots of Andy covering in fear with the warden saying he will destroy what Andy has worked for over. The lighting is key to this scene as we see the warden step from darkness into the light with his face covered in darkness. We then see half his face covered in darkness giving credence to the corrupt nature of his character.
Shot 9: The warden walks away and back into the light and tells Captain Hadley to give him another a week in solitary. Captain Hadley walks into the frame with a look of pleasure on his face. The camera is shooting this from a low angle. He closes the door with a loud thud.
Shot 10: We are back to the first scene with Andy in the dark with the peak of light shining through into the cell. Andy is grasping at the light clawing at the walls.
This whole scene is indicative of the whole film. It is very clear that Andy's fight for humanity and essentially literal freedom is thwarted by the warden at every turn as an agent of the prison. The lighting in the scene brings that sense of something that is close but yet so far. The low angle of shot of the warden stepping in the light is essentially that the warden and the captain stand between Andy and freedom.
Works Cited
1) Ebert, Roger. Www.rogerebert.com. The Shawshank Redemption. Web. 23 Sept 1994.
2) Fraely, Jason. Www.filmjournal.com. The Shawshank Redemption. Web. 3 Oct 2011.
3) The Shawshank Redemption. Perf. Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman. Warner Bros, 1994. DVD.
