The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 movie, written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The film stars Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman as Red (Ellis Redding).

Trivia

• The novella appears in Stephen King's Different Seasons, which also contains The Body, which was made into the film Stand by Me, and Apt Pupil, which was also made into a film by the same name. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption appears under the spring "season" of the book under the heading "Hope springs eternal," which is also the name of a documentary on the special edition DVD.
• The character Andy has some striking (albeit imperfect) parallels to the most famous messianic figure, Jesus of Nazareth. Both are condemned though innocent, both undergo a version of death, resurrection, and ascension, and both bring hope and redemption to their followers. Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine, whereas Andy's first wonder was convincing the guards to give the prisoners beer. After Andy escapes, his friends become like Jesus' twelve apostles, remembering their time with Andy and telling others about him. The warden also exhibits parallels to the hypocritical religious leaders who opposed Jesus. The writer/director Frank Darabont was very gratified by the support for his film from the religious community, and he was pleased that they were not offended by the warden, who was the only explicitly religious character in the film, and that they saw him as the hypocrite he was intended to be. Despite the parallels, Darabont denies any attempt to make a religious film and describes the religious interpretation to be imputed to it rather than intrinsic.
• The song Andy plays over the public address system is from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and is called Che soave zeffiretto. The recording used was Karl Böhm's 1968 production for Deutsche Grammophon (catalogue number 449 728-2) and the singers are Gundula Janowitz and Edith Mathis.
• Red calls Andy's plans for going to Zihuatanejo a "shitty pipedream," foreshadowing Andy's long crawl through the sewer pipes, after which Red says that the innocent Andy "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."
• When the warden opens Andy's Bible, he finds that the rock hammer Andy used to escape was stored starting opposite the title page of the Book of Exodus, which recounts the Israelites' escape from Egypt.
• Names have a special significance in Shawshank. In the first instance, Andy asks after the name of the new prisoner who was bludgeoned to death and is told it doesn't matter because he is dead and gone. Later, Andy sees that those who had previously stayed in his cell had carved their name in the wall to establish a remembrance. He begins immortalizing his own name in the wall and in the process discovers what would ultimately be his means for escape. Just before Brooks commits suicide, he memorializes his presence in his new prison by carving his name in a wood panel in his half-way house, and on hearing of his death, the prisoners at Shawshank carve Brooks' name into a sign for the library. Before Red leaves to find Andy, he adds his name beside Brooks' in the half-way house, but he is on a far different trajectory from Brooks because he has found hope.
• The Count of Monte Cristo, which is about a prison break, was written by Alexander Dumas (mentioned in the film but pronounced "Dumbass" by Heywood), and Andy Dufresne escapes from prison in the movie. Both first names start with the letter "A", and both last names start with the letters "Du" and have a silent "s".
• Shawshank was filmed in and around the city of Mansfield, Ohio, located in north-central Ohio. The prison featured in the film is the old, abandoned Ohio State Reformatory immediately north of downtown Mansfield. The Reformatory buildings have been used in several other films, including Harry and Walter Go to New York and Brubaker. Most of the prison yard has now been demolished to make room for expansion of the adjacent Mansfield Correctional Facility, but the Reformatory's Gothic-style ("Castle Dracula") Administration Building remains standing and due to its prominent use in films, has become a tourist attraction.
• The real warden of the Mansfield Correctional Facility had a cameo appearance in Shawshank as the prisoner seated directly behind Tommy on his bus ride to prison.
• Since most of the filming took place in the prison, many of the cast and crew began to feel like real prisoners (compare the Stanford prison experiment). When they had opportunity to shoot outside the prison walls, they described it like a freeing vacation, and director Frank Darabont remembers the days outside as particularly happy.
• The role of Tommy was once earmarked for Brad Pitt.
• Gil Bellows (Tommy) had never played a major role in a movie, and to help with nervousness, director Frank Darabont advised Bellows to pretend that the other, more experienced actors were naked or in frilly underwear while his character regaled theirs with his story of capture.
• Although Renee Blaine, who plays Mrs. Dufresne, appears only briefly in the arms of her lover during the opening sequence of the film, she is featured on the back cover of both the original DVD and VHS cassette in the interest of claiming some sex appeal for a movie that almost exclusively features men. The picture does not appear on the special edition DVD. Darabont originally intended to have a longer "body heat" scene but cut it in the end.
• Director Frank Darabont watched Goodfellas every Sunday while shooting Shawshank and drew inspiration from it on using voice-over narration and showing the passage of time.