get busy living or get busy dying

Rating: 10/10 (25 February 2009)

In short supply are the movies which act as cathartic catalysts on a second –or-plus viewing as compellingly and strongly as on the first viewing. The other night, overpowered by feelings of despondency and ennui, I went to flick through my small collection of movies and on an impulse I picked up The Shawshank Redemption. I savored every moment of the movie even more than my first time a couple of years ago. I chalk it up to its beautifully crafted story, its virtuoso and powerhouse performances, and its underlying themes of hope, resolve, and ultimate salvation. This time, in his feature directorial debut Frank Darabont has tapped into the wellspring of King the horrible's and fashioned a juggernaut of a prison drama out of his novella Rita Hayworth and the shawshank Redemption. This movie stands out among other prison flicks in that it flies in the face of conventions. Contrary to our expectations and cheapened tastes, Shawshank does not intend to explore the horrors of prison life as its fulcrum but the way its inhabitants clutch at straws and pull out all stops to extricate themselves from the shackles of the gloom of their claustrophobic mental incarceration against all the odds turns out to be its thematic pull. And the movie pulls it off big time. Among a mosaic of characters, events, shenanigans and skullduggery, the movie mainly delves into the friendship struck up between two lifers. The friendship between Andy Dufresne, played convincingly by Tim Robbins, who is accused of murdering his wife and her lover and sentenced to serve two concurrent lives, and the veteran Red, the brilliant Morgan Freeman, carries the emotional and inspirational mood of the movie. When a busload of prisoners arrive at the max-security state penitentiary of Shawshank, the other felons bet on who is going to burst into tears at the first night of prison life. Red ups his antes on the seemingly brittle fresh fish Andy, who was a respectable banker in the outside and is like a fish out of water among a bunch of thick-skinned miscreants. Red loses since Andy turns out to be more redoubtable and impermeable than any prison wall several feet thick. Little do the fellow prisoners realize at first glance what an enigmatic character he is. For the first months he says next to nothing, meanders through other prisoners in the prison yard minding his own business and the movie speaks through by-turn humorous, poignant and thought-provoking narration of the omniscient Red who is known for smuggling things in and charging a 20% markup for the services he provides. However, Red's omniscience is not all-encompassing and Godly enough to bore into the Sphinx-like mind of the introverted Andy even after 19 years. On a tarring occasion, he overhears a guard complaining about the taxes he has to pay for an inheritance, he screws up his courage to offer him his expert advice on tax evasion. Now, he is treated as a special guest since he cooks the books for the prisons' powers that be who have hit pay dirt. His financial legerdemain proves to be a double-edged sword. Now he is the victim of his own success. A newcomer is willing to testify to his innocence in the court but the warden regards his accountant too valuable to be expendable. Andy survives several assaults and rapes. He never gives up. He never cracks under pressure. Life is very simple to him: get busy living or get busy dying. He makes the first choice and remains true to it through thick and thin. He lives with hope as his source of salvation. The emotional pull of the movie owes a great deal to the spirited and flawless performances of all the cast members. Morgan Freeman effortlessly inhabits his character as a real free man. Tim Robbins is superlative as a quintessential embodiment of hope and inspiration. James Whitmore, as the institutionalized prison trusty who is suicidal in the outside, turns in a superlative performance. Hats off to all the performers. The Shawshank Redemption is a prime example of the gap between the box office performance of a movie and its popularity. This movie famously bombed in the box office, barely covering its budget. But overtime it gained in such popularity that it has snatched the coveted toppest ranking place in IMDb from such hot favorites and topdogs like Godfather, Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, the last two of which eclipsed Shawshank in 1994 Academy Awards. Perhaps in 1994 the movie lacked the requisite word of mouth that it is enjoying now. All in all, Shawshank is a compulsively watchable movie with bits of pleasure withheld in every watching only to be relished on next occasions.