Shawshank Redemption Film Analysis

The Shawshank Redemption (1994), directed by Frank Darabont, is a film about Andy Dufresne, a lawyer sentenced to life in prison for supposedly murdering his wife. The main theme of the film is that Andy survives the brutality and corruption of prison through his enduring hope. The director expresses the theme in two scenes from the film. The first sympathises the audience with Andy. The second is about Andy escaping. The film particularly appeals to viewers going through personal hardships like divorce and loss by offering a compelling message of hope.

The first part starts with Andy and his fellow prisoners tarring a roof under the supervision of some guards. The director is trying to make the audience support Andy. He achieves this through visual and sound techniques that show Andy’s transition from powerless to powerful and also his kindness. To begin, a mid shot shows Captain Hadley complaining that the government will tax a lot of his recent inheritance. An over the shoulder shot shows the prisoners
The director uses the sun as a harsh and hard key light to give the scene a feeling of hot unpleasantness with no signs of the prison seen on the roof. The main background element is the sky, a symbol of freedom. The director employs the technique of dialogue when he has Red say, “They felt like free men.” The head guard even grabs a beer himself, dissolving the barriers between the guards and the criminals a little. Finally, we cut to a medium close up of Andy sitting away from the rest with a little smile on his face. The director keeps touching back on the theme of corruption and brutality in prison but illustrates how Andy survives by trying to feel normal. Feeling normal allows him to keep his hope alive as he survives through the everyday struggle of prison. The overall effect of the sequence being that the audience is looking out for Andy as we have become emotionally connected to