Movie Analysis: “The Shawshank Redemption” — Dialogue
Another in our bi-weekly series in which we analyze movies currently in release. Why? To quote the writing mantra I coined over 5 years ago: Watch movies. Read scripts. Write pages. You will note which one comes first. Here are my reflections from that post about the importance of watching movies:
To be a good screenwriter, you need to have a broad exposure to the world of film. Every movie you see is a potential reference point for your writing, everything from story concepts you generate to characters you develop to scenes you construct. Moreover people who work in the movie business constantly reference existing movies when discussing stories you write; it’s a shorthand way of getting across what they mean or envision.
But most importantly, you need to watch movies in order to ‘get’ how movie stories work. If you immerse yourself in the world of film, it’s like a Gestalt experience where you begin to grasp intuitively scene composition, story structure, character functions, dialogue and subtext, transitions and pacing, and so on.
Let me add this: It’s important to see movies as they get released so that you stay on top of the business. Decisions get made in Hollywood in large part depending upon how movies perform, so watching movies as they come out puts you in the same head space as reps, producers, execs, and buyers.
For this week’s movie, we go back in time to 1994: The Shawshank Redemption, screenplay by Frank Darabont, novella by Stephen King.
Our schedule for discussion this week:
Monday: General Comments
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways
For those of you who have not seen the movie, do not click MORE as we will be trafficking in major spoilers. But seriously, if you haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption, stop whatever you’re doing and watch it! If you have seen The Shawshank Redemption, I invite you to join me in breaking down and analyzing the movie.
This is a movie marked by some stellar dialogue and I could zero in on perhaps the most memorable line: “Get busy living or get busy dying.” But that’s an easy target. Instead I want to explore the last two words of dialogue in the movie: “I hope.”
As noted in my observations about the movie’s characters, I look at this story as being a Dual Protagonist narrative: Andy and Red become friends and they have a shared journey. However each has their own unique emotional and psychological fate.
Andy’s is about redemption. Wrongly accused of murder, spending 19 years in prison, conscripted to act as the financial manager of Warden Norton’s extortion schemes, Andy’s escape and eventual relocation to Mexico is the final act in his path toward redemption.
Red’s journey involves another theological theme: Resurrection. When we meet him, he is a cynic, the life force almost entirely suffocated by the imperious influence of institutionalization. Andy successfully fans the fleeting embers of positive energy with Red. And what is the opposite of cynicism? Hope.
So when Red chooses not to follow Brooks’ path — Get busy dying — and follow Andy’s path — Get busy living — he commits an act of hope. Hence the power of his last side of dialogue:
I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.
“I hope” is more than just the summation of his feelings at this point, it is an existential statement of how he has allowed the dying embers of his hopefulness emerge into the light, the wind and air causing it to ignite and propel him into action. It is an acknowledgement that he has changed, far removed from the cynical prisoner who told Andy, “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”
No. In the end, Red’s hope is resurrected… and he embraces it. Hence the power and beauty of the final two words of dialogue in the movie: I hope.
What about you? What dialogue struck you in The Shawshank Redemption?