Daily Dialogue — February 11, 2015

“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.”

— The Shawshank Redemption (1994), screenplay by Frank Darabont, short story by Stephen King

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Elation.

Trivia: Frank Darabont wrote the script in eight weeks.

Dialogue On Dialogue: This movie is an example of how great movies often have multiple themes. Get busy living, or get busy dying. Institutionalization. Greed. One of the most important is hope.

Early on, Red tells Andy: “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

For years, Andy is the living embodiment of hope and his daily practice in hope slowly breaks down Red’s cynicism. So when Red goes to that field and digs up the cash Andy has left for him, Andy writes this in his letter: “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

So it is a fitting capstone to this motif that as Red and Andy reunite, filled with elation, the final words in the movie are Red’s: “I hope.”

If you have any suggestions for this week’s theme, please post in comments.