The Shawshank Redemption
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Frank Darabont
Tim Robbins
Morgan Freeman
Bob Gunton
William Sadler
James Whitmore
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Andy Dufresne, a mild mannered New England banker, is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. Despised at first by the other inmates because of his introverted manner, Andy slowly forges an unlikely friendship with Red, a seasoned lifer and his gang. Soon, Andy also becomes popular with the prison guards, including the vicious Captain Hadley who offers him protection against the jail's rougher convicts in exchange for financial counseling. The prison warden also takes advantage of Andy's banking knowledge by exchanging privileges for creative bookkeeping. Over a twenty year period, Andy is able to maintain his sanity and dignity in prison not by physical force but by mental force. His smarts and confidence keep him going and he is able to teach the other prisoners that hope is the ultimate means of survival.
Director
Frank Darabont
Cast
Tim Robbins
Morgan Freeman
Bob Gunton
William Sadler
James Whitmore
Gil Bellows
Dion Anderson
Ron Newell
Harold E Cope
Joseph Pecoraro
Claire Slemmer
Alan R Kessler
Alfonso Freeman
Neil Summers
Don Mcmanus
Brian Brophy
Brian Libby
Ned Bellamy
Scott Mann
Jude Ciccolella
Larry Brandenburg
Mark Rolston
John D Craig
Gordon C Greene
James Kisicki
Robert Haley
Charlie Kearns
Ken Magee
Paul Kennedy
Mack Miles
John E Summers
Dana Snyder
Alba Domini Leone
Bill Bolender
John R Woodward
Chuck Brauchler
Eugene C Depasquale
David Proval
Gary Lee Davis
Rohn Thomas
Renee Blaine
Neil Giuntoli
John Horton
Jeffrey Demunn
Frank Medrano
Brian Delate
Dorothy Silver
Joseph Ragno
Morgan Lund
Rob Reider
Cornell Wallace
Paul Mccrane
Donald E Zinn
Clancy Brown
V.j. Foster
Crew
Peter Allen
Therese Amadio
Kokayi Ampah
Kokayi Ampah
Tim Amstutz
Deborah Aquila
John Archibald
Petra Bach
Lee Baird
Bobby Baker
Dennis Baker
Kelley L Baker
Johnny Barbera
Robert L Barnett
Daniel W. Barringer
Kevin Bartnof
Cookie Beard
David Behle
Bruce Bell
Bill Bernstein
Earl Betts
Glen Blanton
Brian Boggs
Mike Boudry
Kevin P. Boyd
Julian Bratolyubov
Robin Brown
Roy Bryson
Rex Buckingham
Carol Buckler
Keith Bunting
James Burke
Richard Burton
Willie Burton
Brian Buzzelli
Jeff W Canavan
Rick Canelli
Manny Centeno
Michael Cerone
Don Cerrone
Jorgen Christensen
Jeff Clark
Kelley Collopy
Robert Conrad
Tony Corapi
Tom Cotter
Chris Cozzi
Fred Culbertson
Fred Culbertson
William Culbertson
Gerrit Dangremond
Frank Darabont
William P Davis
Zack Davis
Roger Deakins
Roger Deakins
Eugene Depasquale
Jeni Lee Dinkel
James Ellis
Chick Elwell
Jane Estocin
Jack Evans
Barrett Fleetwood
Richard Ford
Susan Fraley
Richard Francis-bruce
Alfonso Freeman
Dick Furr
Patricia A Galvin
Carlos Garcia
Harold Garnsey
Jerry Gatlin
Max Gerber
Blair Gibeau
David Gilby
Sally Givens
Liz Glotzer
Chad Goodrich
Antoinette Gordon
Marilyn Graf
Ron Grafton
James Graham
Ray Greene
Michael Greenwood
James Gribbins
Thomas Guidugli
Mickey Guinn
Ed Gutentag
Richard Hall
Bruce Hamme
Dexter Hammett
Dick Hancock
Kevin Haney
James Harrington
Andy Harris
Barbara Harris
Carey Harris
Scott E Hart
Todd Hatfield
James Hawthorne
Robert Hawthorne
Jim Henry
Michael Herbick
Jack Hering
John M Heuberger
Ellen Heuer
Beth Hickman
Anne Hilbert
Shelley Rae Hinton
Joe Hodges
Ronald Hogle
Philip Ivey
David Leslie Johnson
Jesse V. Johnson
Dale Johnston
Doc Kane
Kris Kearney
Michael Kelem
Jack Keller
Stephen King
Stephen King
William Kingsley
Jeremy Knaster
Neil Knoff
Quincy Koenig
Eve Lapolla
Taneia Lednicky
Alan Michael Lerner
David V Lester
David V Lester
Larry Lester
Marvin E. Lewis
Robert J Litt
Jose Lopez
Robert Lusted
James C Makiej
Bobby Mancuso
Bill Manger
David Mardner
Terence Marsh
Bill Martin
Lori Martino
Niki Marvin
Roland Maurer
Elizabeth Mcbride
Ken Mccahan
Donnie Mcfinely
Frank Mckeon
David Mcquade
Karin Mercurio
D Lynn Meyer
Sebastian Milito
Douglas G Miller
Russell Milner
Gary Mishey
Scott Mizgaites
Mark Moelter
Sue Bea Montgomery
Bill Moore
Tom Morga
Leslie Morris
Adam Moyer
Glen Murphy
Christopher Neely
Ken Nevin
Thomas Newman
Hope Nielsen
William R Nielsen
Thomas J. O'connell
Billy O'leary
Margaret J. Orlando
David Orr
Richard L Oswald
Tom Park
Thomas Pasatieri
Eva L. Prappas
Pamela Priest
Charley Quinlivin
Mickey Quinn
Chuck Ramsey
Isadoro Raponi
Judity Reed
Sioux Richards
Scott Ruetenik
Dennis Sands
Judy Scarboro
Van Scarboro
Brent Scarpo
Thomas Schellenberg
Joe Schultz
Ben R Scott
Michael Seirton
Jane Shannon
Tom Shaw
Joseph Short
Janelle Showalter
David Smith
Peter Lansdown Smith
Donald Snyder
Don Speakman
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Nominations
Best Actor
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Editing
Best Original Score
Best Picture
Best Sound
Articles
The Shawshank Redemption (2 disc Special Edition) - The Shawshank Redemption (2 Disc DVD Edition)
The scenario is set in the late 1940s at a foreboding Maine penitentiary known as Shawshank, and is told through the eyes of Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), a lifer with a valuable knack for smuggling contraband into the prison, and who has just come off a fruitless parole hearing. Amongst the latest arrivals to the prison community is Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a youngish bank executive who has wrongly taken the fall for the double murder of his wife and her lover. Red presumes that this unprepossessing figure will be the first of the "fresh fish" to crack under the strain of confinement.
To Red's initial consternation, and eventual admiration, Andy adapts to his circumstances without a whimper, even in the face of homosexual assault by a cluster of cons that has targeted him. Circumstances lead to his using his skill with finances to get in the good graces of the prison administration, including its corrupt, bible-toting warden (Bob Gunton) and brutal head guard (Clancy Brown). The course of the narrative follows Andy through nearly twenty years within Shawshank's walls, as he tries to keep his dreams of eventual freedom alive and to spur morale amongst the prison's populace. Events are brought to a head when the warden, eager to keep his gifted money manager close at hand, brutally squelches evidence that could mean Andy's exoneration. Dufresene's efforts to return the "favor" take the story to its conclusion.
With its somber scenario, a daunting running time at two hours and twenty minutes plus, plus a title that defied commercial exploitation (King's literary title of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption had initially been retained), the film struggled to find a theatrical audience, and reviews were mixed. Its five subsequent Oscar nominations started its original word-of-mouth push, and VHS rentals and cable took care of the rest over the coming years. Screenwriter Frank Darabont very capably realized the King story--part of the same anthology that inspired Rob Reiner's Stand By Me (1986) and Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil (1998)-- and made one of the most assured directing debuts in recent memory.
Freeman had the daunting task of propelling this somber story, and he acquitted himself brilliantly, vesting Red with the requisite weight and depth to involve the viewer from start to finish. His efforts in the triad of decades-spanning sequences involving Red's parole hearings are genuinely unforgettable. Robbins also does a remarkable job, making Andy necessarily opaque and inscrutable, yet wholly aware of his and others' need to hang on to some sense of humanity in the most dehumanizing of situations. The supporting cast is uniformly fine, notably Gunton and Brown, as well as an inmate population including James Whitmore, William Sadler, Gil Bellows, and David Proval.
The extras package leads off with a pair of documentaries that celebrate the creation of the film and its subsequent phenomenon. Hope Springs Eternal: A Look Back At The Shawshank Redemption, was created for the DVD, and Shawshank: The Redeeming Feature, had been lensed for British television in 2001. Between these offerings, and the 2004 appearance on TV's Charlie Rose by Darabont, Freeman and Robbins to mark the theatrical re-release, you'll find a certain amount of repetition of the same anecdotes, so don't take them in on the same sitting. An amusing change of pace is provided by the inclusion of The Sharktank Redemption (2000), an independently made, 24-minute satire short that transposes the situation to trapped interns at a high-powered West Coast talent agency. (The surrogate Red is played by Freeman's son Alfonso, and the parody works in no small measure due to his pronounced physical and vocal resemblance to his father.)
The supplemental materials are rounded out by an entertaining full-length audio commentary from Darabont, a stills gallery, storyboarding sequences, promotional artwork, a DVD-ROM weblink, and the original and re-release theatrical trailers. The image quality and Dolby 5.1 audio are essentially unchanged from the high quality of Warner's earlier single-disc, no-frills release.
For more information about The Shawshank Redemption: Special Edition, visit Warner Video. To order The Shawshank Redemption, go to TCM Shopping.
by Jay S. Steinberg
The Shawshank Redemption (2 disc Special Edition) - The Shawshank Redemption (2 Disc DVD Edition)
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Frank Darabont was nominated for the 1994 award for Best Adapted Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America (WGA).
Niki Marvin was nominated for the 1994 Golden Laurel Award by the Producers Guild of America.
Roger Deakins won in the feature film category of the Outstanding Achievement Awards (1994) sponsored by the American Society of Cinematographers.
Winner of the seventh annual Scripter Award, given by the Friends of the University of Southern California Libraries, for the best film adaptation of a book.
Released in United States Fall September 23, 1994
Limited Release in United States September 23, 1994
Expanded Release in United States September 30, 1994
Wide Release in United States October 7, 1994
Expanded Release in United States October 14, 1994
Expanded Release in United States October 21, 1994
Re-released in United States February 17, 1995
Re-released in United States February 24, 1995
Expanded re-release in United States March 31, 1995
Released in United States on Video April 11, 1995
Released in United States May 1994
Released in United States September 1994
Released in United States February 1995
Shown at Cannes Film Festival (market) May 12-23, 1994.
Shown at Deauville Film Festival September 2-11, 1994.
Shown at Berlin International Film Festival (Panorama) February 9-20, 1995.
Based on the novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" written by Stephen King and published in the collection entitled "Different Seasons," published by Viking Press in 1982.
Feature directorial debut for Frank Darabont whose screenwriting credits include "The Fly II" (USA/1989) and "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (USA/1994).
Completed shooting September 10, 1993.
Began shooting June 16, 1993.
Released in United States Fall September 23, 1994
Limited Release in United States September 23, 1994
Expanded Release in United States September 30, 1994
Wide Release in United States October 7, 1994
Expanded Release in United States October 14, 1994
Expanded Release in United States October 21, 1994
Re-released in United States February 17, 1995 (New York City and Los Angeles)
Re-released in United States February 24, 1995
Expanded re-release in United States March 31, 1995
Released in United States on Video April 11, 1995
Released in United States May 1994 (Shown at Cannes Film Festival (market) May 12-23, 1994.)
Released in United States September 1994 (Shown at Deauville Film Festival September 2-11, 1994.)
Released in United States February 1995 (Shown at Berlin International Film Festival (Panorama) February 9-20, 1995.)
Frank Darabont was nominated for outstanding directorial achievement by the Directors Guild of America (1994).