Daily Dialogue — April 12, 2012

ANDY: Tell you where I’d go. Zihuatanejo.

RED: Zihuatanejo?

ANDY: Mexico. Little place right on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That’s where I’d like to finish out my life, Red. A warm place with no memory. Open a little hotel right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat and fix
it up like new. Take my guests out charter fishing. (beat) You know, a place like that, I’d need a man who can get things.

Red stares at Andy, laughs.

RED: Jesus, Andy. I couldn’t hack it on the outside. Been in here too long. I’m an institutional man now. Like old Brooks Hatlen was.

ANDY: You underestimate yourself.

RED: Bullshit. In here I’m the guy who can get it for you. Out there, all you need are Yellow Pages. I wouldn’t know where to begin. (derisive snort) Pacific Ocean? Hell. Like to scare me to death, somethin’ that big.

ANDY: Not me. I didn’t shoot my wife and I didn’t shoot her lover, and whatever mistakes I made I’ve paid for and then some. That hotel and that boat… I don’t think it’s too much to want. To look at the stars just after sunset. Touch the sand. Wade in the water. Feel free.

RED: Goddamn it, Andy, stop! Don’t do that to yourself! Talking shitty pipedreams! Mexico’s down there, and you’re in here, and that’s the way it is!

ANDY: You’re right. It’s down there, and I’m in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.

— Red (Morgan Freeman), Andy (Tim Robbins), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), screenplay by Frank Darabon, based on a novella by Stephen King

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is inspiration, suggested by Summer Johnson.

Trivia: Rob Reiner loved Frank Darabont’s script so much that he offered $2.5 million for the rights to the script so he could direct it. Darabont seriously considered Reiner’s offer but ultimately decided that it was his “chance to do something really great” by directing the movie himself. Reiner wanted Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise to play Red and Andy respectively.

Dialogue On Dialogue: One of my students pointed this out to me. Red says, “Talking shitty pipeddreams” to Andy to belittle Andy’s dream of getting to Mexico. How did Andy escape? By crawling through a shitty pipe, the sewage line. Did Darabont know the connection? Or just one of those great bits of movie magic?

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