How long does shawshank redemption last

In a way, it turns out that he was right to control Andy so meticulously because Andy does indeed hold the keys to the warden's " judgment.

After his escape, Andy releases the details of the scandals, and when the authorities come for Norton, he shows that he's too weak to endure the torturous experience he himself has presided over. He commits suicide rather than be sent to prison. In the book, he simply resigns after a nervous breakdown, but the movie's depiction is perhaps an even more insightful reflection of the warden's false righteousness. The warden's memorable movie ending makes a bit more sense when you consider how much more significant the character is in the film than in the book.

In a way, he earns his drama. In the book, three wardens serve in the position at different times through the decades, making any individual warden much less integral to the plot. But the presence of the same warden throughout Andy's entire tenure at Shawshank in the movie — and the relationship that develops between the two — much more convincingly calls for a dramatic demise. Though he's certainly an adversarial force in the book, Warden Norton is the main antagonist in the film, and his actions drive much of the plot and the development of Andy's character during his time in prison.

Ultimately, the warden isn't being genuinely kind to Andy, only rewarding him when he complies and punishing him viciously when he steps out of line. He intimidates and manipulates Andy and even sacrifices the lives of others in order to keep Andy in prison, using the former banker's expertise to cover up hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of corruption.

Of course, it's this directive that allows Andy to create the fake identity he eventually uses after he escapes from prison.

If you chuckled when Andy asked Red the origin of his nickname and Red responded, "Maybe it's because I'm Irish," perhaps it just seemed like a goofy joke for Morgan Freeman's character to make. But if you're familiar with the source material, you'll realize this as yet another instance of the screenplay sticking close to the original dialogue. Red's character was Irish in the novel, not African-American.

The sought-after Morgan Freeman even shied away from the role at first because he read the novella and thought , "I can't play an Irishman. Instead, he made the part his own and even earned an Oscar nomination for it. Another small but significant difference between Red's trajectory in the novel and the film is that he finds the box by searching himself in the book, with less direct guidance from Andy's clues than he has in the film.

In fact, in the book, he spends weeks searching for the box under the volcanic rock near the old stone wall from Andy's years-old description, all during the downtime from his shift bagging groceries at the store. In the film, he takes a ride out into the country, and though he has to walk around for a while, he locates the box with relative ease. Or maybe it's just luck — he was due for some. While the Shawshank film strayed remarkably little from its source material, it did include some extra moments that were uniquely suited to the medium and wouldn't have played nearly as well on paper.

It's hard to imagine how one could add much of consequence to the original story, but director Frank Darabont managed it beautifully several times. In one of these scenes, Andy has just received a slew of responses and donations regarding his request for funding for an expanded prison library.

The new materials — funds, used books, vinyl records, and more — have piled up in the prison's office, and Andy has been directed to empty it out before the warden returns. Instead, he locks himself in and places a classical music record on the vinyl player, turning on the prison intercom to blast it over the loudspeaker for the other inmates.

The entire prison stops what they're doing in order to listen, and "for the briefest of moments," Red says that "every last man in Shawshank felt free. The unique advantage of film, which Darabont used to great advantage in this moment in particular, is that it can be a conduit for this special gift that can never be taken away. Captain Byron Hadley Clancy Brown , like the warden and others, is also an essential character in the film who didn't play as significant a part in the novel.

In the movie, Hadley gets arrested for his part in the crimes committed at Shawshank, allegedly crying like a baby when they take him in. In the novel, however, the guard doesn't do nearly as much for the plot and simply disappears from his post midway through the story rather than sticking around to get arrested at the end after suffering a heart attack. Before the situation with the warden escalates to massive fraud, the death of Tommy, and the continued and worsening abuse of Andy, the movie's version of Byron Hadley is one of Andy's chief adversaries.

While other guards take a shine to Andy and treat him with some measure of respect and even genuine kindness, Byron is constantly a stick-in-the-mud at best and a tormentor at worst. As with the warden, it's a little bit hard to believe that he remained at his post for over 20 years, but it's not impossible and makes for a more convincing rivalry and a more satisfying eventual defeat. The closeness of the film to its source material was counterbalanced by some of the casting choices.

Like Red, who was cast as Black rather than Irish, Andy himself looks a little different onscreen than fans of the book might expect. In the novel, Andy is written as a more diminutive man — short, well-kept, and exacting. His fastidious nature, at least, is evident in his behaviors and interactions, from his hobby of collecting and whittling rocks to his success as an accountant of sorts for the entire prison staff.

He even creates a seamless fake identity for himself out of thin air with the limited resources available to him in prison. But in terms of stature, Andy as played by the 6'5" Tim Robbins looks a lot different from the way he's described in the book, and sticklers can certainly argue over any metaphorical significance to his character. Less of a literal underdog, perhaps?

In the film, it takes Dufresne 19 years to tunnel out from the prison. Freshwaters escaped in just two, and did not manage to break free from the actual penitentiary but rather a lower security farm camp. This article is more than 5 years old. Frank Freshwaters in and Photograph: Reuters. It would have left an ending open to interpretation. In a deleted scene for the movie, Red shows intense anxiety and breaks into a panic attack while in a grocery store.

In one of the most memorable lines from the movie, Red states:. First, you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, so you depend on them. Red breaking parole and making his way out of the country to meet a friend who may or may not be there is something that sounds far-fetched, and almost too good to be true. Another old timer at Shawshank, Brooks was imprisoned in the facility in He was finally granted freedom in , half a century later.

Brooks had trouble adjusting to his new life. The pace of the world was too much for him and he longed for the confines and familiarity of Shawshank. In the end he killed himself with the final words:. Red also faces similar situations after he gets out of jail.

After Red breaks parole and makes a run for Zihuatanejo, he ends with the final words:. It almost feels like the Director wants to say something here. Frank Darabont wanted to state subtly that breaking parole is just an allegory for death.

Red chose death over living a life hw was never going to get used to. What Red gained through death was a metaphysical form of a guilt free eternal life, where he would no longer be hounded by his past sins.