How Frank Darabont Presents the Shawshank Redemption's Subtitle Hope Springs Eternal

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How Frank Darabont Presents the Shawshank Redemption's Subtitle Hope Springs Eternal

In 1982 a writer named Steven King wrote the short story "Rita

Heyworth and The Shawshank Redemption". Little did he know that his

text would become one of the best films ever made. The year is 1992

and a plucky young director going by the name of Frank Darabont has

big idea for making a film version of King's great novel. After much

deliberation king and Darabont agreed and set to work making a film to

remember.

The Shawshank Redemption conveys a range of emotions from utter

despair to jumping for joy and happiness, but the emotion portrayed in

the film is the idea of hope, which is inspired. But before I can

explain that I must firstly make you aware of the changes from the

text.

Firstly and most importantly Red the flame haired Irishman is now

black! He is played superbly by the big box office pull Morgan

Freeman.

Also the three wardens in the original text are now one man "Norton" a

cruel man who believes in the bible and discipline.

The main character in the film is Andy Dufrain a banker who gets

wrongly sent to jail for killing his wife after finding out she was

"banging" another man. During the film Andy is the centre of many

scenes of hope and despair. Many things happen to Andy including being

raped several times.

In one scene the hope meter hits rock bottom during Andy's first night

a new inmate is killed. Earlier in the film the other inmate's bet on

who will crack first, Red bets ten cigarettes on Andy. So later that

night the inmates start throwing abuse at the new inmates. At this

point the light is so low on the mi...

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...ugh the whole film Andy had been writing to the government

requesting books for the prison library and one day his request is

accepted and he is confronted by boxes and boxes of books. Andy also

notices that there are some records in the boxes, he then goes to the

warden's office turns on the gramophone and the loudspeaker system and

plays the record across the whole prison. During this Red says that

again they felt like free men. The lighting in this scene is

especially superb when Andy is sitting in Norton's office and sunlight

is streaming through the window. This scene has got to be one of my

favourites in the film, as it's warm and makes you forget your worries

and hardships.

The proof that this is a classic film is that when asked those that

have seen it always remember all about it and have a positive opinion.

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