The Shawshank Redemption: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
(Trivia) |
No edit summary |
||
Line 49:
* [[Brick Joke]]: The library sequence. Amusing when the joke is introduced, but hilarious in hindsight. See the [[The Shawshank Redemption/Funny|Funny Moments]] section for the dialogue.
* [[Brutal Honesty]]: Towards the end, once he's lost his best friend, Red has become so tired and bitter of the endless cycle of his parole hearings and so inured to prison life that he finally tells the parole board exactly what he thinks of both them and himself. It's implied this candor is what finally gets him paroled.
* [[Cacophony Cover-Up]]▼
* [[Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough]]: A non-military example in the forms of Warden Norton and Captain Hadley, made most apparent during the dressing-down of the new inmates.
** It's especially effective as Captain Hadley is played by [[Clancy Brown]].
* [[Captivity Harmonica]]: Both lampshaded AND subverted. Andy gets Red a harmonica as a gift, and he blows a little on it, but doesn't play.▼
* [[Catch Phrase]]: Hadley: "On your feet!"
* [[Chekhov's Armoury]]: Andy's "one-bunk Hilton" prison cell, starting with...
Line 63 ⟶ 65:
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: Had Andy picked up any other hobby than rock-collecting, he might not have gotten too far.
** Also Chess.
▲* [[Cacophony Cover-Up]]
▲* [[Captivity Harmonica]]: Both lampshaded AND subverted. Andy gets Red a harmonica as a gift, and he blows a little on it, but doesn't play.
* [[The Chessmaster]]: Andy.
** Complete with a Chess Motif {{spoiler|Though mostly in retrospect [[Chekhov's Skill|when you realize that the same hobby that allowed Andy to make a chess board helped cover his escape.]]}}
Line 91:
* [[The Dragon]]: Captain Hadley.
* [[Driven to Suicide]]: {{spoiler|Norton and Brooks.}}
**
* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]
* [[Establishing Character Moment]]: Captain Hadley might have just been an unusually harsh prison guard (a job that pretty much requires at least a little harshness) until he {{spoiler|beats a prisoner to death for crying}}.
Line 113:
* [[Hidden in Plain Sight]]: How Andy makes off with Warden Norton's {{spoiler|shoes.}}
{{quote|'''Red''': The guards just didn't notice it. Can't say I did either. I mean seriously, how often do you notice a man's {{spoiler|shoes}}?}}
**
* [[Hope Is Scary]]: Red objects to hope on these grounds.
* [[Hope Spot]]: {{spoiler|Tommy's story about a cellmate who may have killed his wife and her lover suggests Andy can [[Clear My Name|clear his name]]. Unfortunately, Warden Norton has other ideas...}}
Line 154:
* [[Music for Courage]]: Andy plays an opera record over the prison's PA system.
* [[Mythology Gag]]: In one scene, Andy asks Red (played by Morgan Freeman) how he got his nickname. He thinks for a moment and replies with an ironic grin, [[Sure, Let's Go with That|"Maybe it's because I'm Irish."]] In the novella, Red was indeed a red-haired Irishman.
* [[No Animals Were Harmed]]: [[Word of God|Darabont]] revealed on the [[DVD Commentary]] that in order to get this "rating" they couldn't even feed ''fish bait'' (read: worms that were already going to be skewered on a hook and fed to fish) to the baby crow. Instead, they had to find a worm that had already ''died of natural causes''.▼
* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]
** What Byron administers to the pudgy new inmate that "wins" the New Fish Crying Lottery. {{spoiler|He doesn't survive, and his death is Dufresne's first hard lesson about life in prison: it's pretty cheap.}}
** The Sisters repeatedly administered these to Dufresne, driving him deeper and deeper into despair {{spoiler|until he becomes useful to Byron and Norton as a tax accountant. The Sisters administer one more beatdown that nearly kills Andy, Byron administers a huge dose of Boggs' own medicine to him (see [[Laser-Guided Karma]] above), and the Sisters finally let him alone.}}
▲* [[No Animals Were Harmed]]: [[Word of God|Darabont]] revealed on the [[DVD Commentary]] that in order to get this "rating" they couldn't even feed ''fish bait'' (read: worms that were already going to be skewered on a hook and fed to fish) to the baby crow. Instead, they had to find a worm that had already ''died of natural causes''.
* [[Nominal Importance]]:
** [[Played With]] the rest of the 8-man band bar [[The Hero|Andy]] and [[The Lancer|Red]] were never introduced and we only see them as "those guys Andy and Red hang out with" (with the exception of Heywood, which serves as something of a comic relief). They actually ''do'' have names, though mentioned only in the credits and if you analyze the throwaway conversations. Ranked in order of relative importance after Andy, Red, and Heywood:
Line 186:
* [[Reality Is Unrealistic]]: This movie was criticized for portraying prison guards as using beatings to control inmates, [http://www.correctionsone.com/treatment/articles/2017869-ACLU-suing-Corrections-Corp-of-America/ but prison guards have been known to do exactly that in real life.]
* [[Record Needle Scratch]]: Literally, when Hadley busts into Norton's office and puts an end to Andy's playing of ''Le Nozzi di Figaro''. "On your feet!"
* [[Red Herring]]: The parts leading to {{spoiler|the escape. Dufresne, whose innocence was kind of proven was just betrayed by the warden: his witness was assassinated and he was forced to labor under the corrupt prison top brass to launder money. This way he had no chance of being bailed out of prison, and just when the audience is shown that he is innocent. Sad music was played. He got himself a rope. Go figure.}} By morning, {{spoiler|he did not respond to the roll call, and Red was surely already thinking that he took his own life.}} Instead, {{spoiler|he escaped. He decided that he had had enough and used his tunnel, which he presumably kept ''just in case'', and immediately assumed the false identity he had been forging for years. He sent the story to newspapers, had the entire Shawshank Prison corruption case exposed, and cashed in $370,000 of the warden's money before fleeing to a picturesque beach in Mexico. The rope, of course, was to hold his stuff while he was escaping.}} The fact that, up until that point, the audience was never informed in any way that {{spoiler|Dufresne was planning an escape}} made the [[Twist Ending]] (which by today's standards is [[It Was His Sled|not a twist at all]]) all the more glorious. All the [[Red Herring]]'ed scenes [[Once More, with Clarity|were played back]] during this revelation, highlighting the subtle details which we got wrong earlier.▼
* [[Redemption in the Rain]]: [[Trope Codifier|The Canonical One]].
▲* [[Red Herring]]: The parts leading to {{spoiler|the escape. Dufresne, whose innocence was kind of proven was just betrayed by the warden: his witness was assassinated and he was forced to labor under the corrupt prison top brass to launder money. This way he had no chance of being bailed out of prison, and just when the audience is shown that he is innocent. Sad music was played. He got himself a rope. Go figure.}} By morning, {{spoiler|he did not respond to the roll call, and Red was surely already thinking that he took his own life.}} Instead, {{spoiler|he escaped. He decided that he had had enough and used his tunnel, which he presumably kept ''just in case'', and immediately assumed the false identity he had been forging for years. He sent the story to newspapers, had the entire Shawshank Prison corruption case exposed, and cashed in $370,000 of the warden's money before fleeing to a picturesque beach in Mexico. The rope, of course, was to hold his stuff while he was escaping.}} The fact that, up until that point, the audience was never informed in any way that {{spoiler|Dufresne was planning an escape}} made the [[Twist Ending]] (which by today's standards is [[It Was His Sled|not a twist at all]]) all the more glorious. All the [[Red Herring]]'ed scenes [[Once More, with Clarity|were played back]] during this revelation, highlighting the subtle details which we got wrong earlier.
* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: In the novella, Red discusses several inmates he knew who successfully broke out of Shawshank, most of them by employing this trope. {{spoiler|Andy's}} plan probably qualifies as well.
* [[Road Apples]]: Or horse apples. Either way, not rocks.
| |||