"Shawshank Redemption": quotes from the film, the difference between the film and the book

“Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” is one of Stephen King’s few short stories in which there is no fiction. This is a solid work in which elements of thriller and drama are perfectly combined. But Frank Darabont, a longtime admirer of the works of the great writer and part-time friend of his, who decided to stage a feature film on the story above, slightly changed the work, supplementing The Shawshank Redemption with quotes and other nuances, while much, but not too significant, from the viewer was left overs. We will analyze the main memorable quotes from the film and discuss inconsistencies of the adapted script, for which Frank Darabont was nominated for an Oscar, with a book version.

First, a few words about King's style

King without the horror genre is not King. So many claimed, until "Lightwork", "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", "Corpse," etc. were published. But even here the horror master does not really shine with statements. Yes, he is a master at creating thoughtful images, but the endings of his works are often lame. And although in the work we are discussing with the ending, everything is more than okay (King often doesn’t come across things in which the ending turns out to be in a rainbow light), the unique quotes “Shawshank Redemption” do not shine. The plot is excellent. Live dialogues, reasoning and other thoughts are presented expertly. But for some reason, there are no separate phrases that sink into the soul. What did Frank Darabont do with this?

Frank Darabont and his ability to “bring charm”

Take even the Green Mile. The story itself would not have thundered on such a scale if not for Darabonte’s mastery. The ability to write an artistic script based on a work while separating the grains from the chaff, leaving the main core intact, and then decorating it with his bright quotes, twists and events and even personally putting a film on it, was not given to every director. Frank is just one of those. And therefore, all the most striking quotes in the film belong to him. And although King in his work presented everything that is necessary, it was Darabont who could put the most basic thoughts into short quotes in “Shawshank Redemption”.

A few words about the plot

If few read the story, then the film, of course, was watched by everyone. For those who have been doing this for a long time, recall that the main plot in “Escape from the Shawshank”, a 1994 film, revolves around the successful banker Andy Dufrain, who was sent to the Shawshank prison for nothing. He did not kill his wife and lover, but he was forced to spend almost 20 years in this prison (from 1947 to 1966), until he escaped from it, digging a hole in the wall with a geological hammer and crawling over a narrow sewer pipe about half a kilometer away. Andy closed his secret passage with a large poster of the next currently known actress. The first was Rita Hayworth, hence the name of the book version. After she was replaced in turn by many actresses, including Merlin Monroe.

Dance around the "Hope"

It is generally accepted that without hope there is no fate. In order to achieve something, a person must always hope for something. Hope, hope for it, hope for relatives, for the future, for oneself, in the end. But here, in “Escape from the Shawshank”, a 1994 film, however, as in the story itself, there is a confrontation between two sane people, one might say - the antipodes. One of them is Andy Dufrain, who still believes in hope and does not part with it until the very end. The other is the storyteller himself and his friend, Ellis Boyd, named Red, constantly bending the line, which in some places and conditions, “hope” as such can only do harm.

In particular, after another imprisonment in a punishment cell after he switched on songs of some Italians to the whole prison from a record player, Andy is asked at breakfast, they say, how did the time go there alone? After which the following dialogue took place between Red and Andy:

“Mozart made me company,” Andy answered the question.

- You were allowed to take the player to the punishment cell?

- No, but he was here and here (points to his head and chest). Music is good because it cannot be separated from you. Have you ever thought so about music?

After a brief silence, Red says:

- In my youth I played the harmonica, but then I lost interest. This makes no sense.

What Andy answers:

- Here is the deep meaning. Music is needed so as not to forget that there are places in the world not made of concrete, that there is something in the soul that they cannot reach and cannot touch, it is only yours.

Red, staring at him, asks:

- What are you talking about?

“About hope ...”

To which, after a moment, Red replies:

“That's what I will say, my friend, hope is a dangerous thing.” It can drive a person crazy. Here it is useless. Better get used to this thought.

But Andy remained true to his basic statement to the end: “Fear makes you a captive, hope gives you freedom.” And he, as it turned out, was one hundred percent right.

He makes another key statement after a 60-day imprisonment in a punishment cell appointed to him after he broke into Director Norton and demanded a review of his case. It was then that he hinted to Red about where he was going to spend the rest of his days in the near future: “I want to go where it is warm and there is no memory ...”, that is, on the Mexican coast of the Pacific Ocean, where he will not be tormented by memories of the terrible days spent them in prison.

All this was invented by Darabonte himself. There are no such quotes in the book in any dialogue.

Movie discrepancies with the book version

The most important inconsistency is Andy's term of serving. Sowing in 1947 (as in the book), in the film he escapes as early as 1966, after serving 19 years. In King’s story to dig a tunnel, Andy took a lot more time. In the novel, King writes:

... When Andy got to the Shawshank in 1948, he was 30 years old. He was a short, charming man with sandy hair and small narrow palms ...

Actor Tim Robbins, who played Andy Dufresna, was 2 meters tall. And in the story his hero managed to escape only in 1975, when he was already 58, having been in Shawshank for 28 years.

During the period of Andy’s imprisonment, several prison leaders were replaced . Other staff also changed. In particular, the security chief, Byron Headley (the most malicious warden, who was played by Clancy Brown in the film), left the prison in 1957 from the book. Here are excerpts from the story:

... George Dunay left the stage to the noise of the newspaper, shouting: "scandal!", "Corruption!", "Emergency!" Stemos came to the post, over the next six years, Schenk resembled hell. Beds in the infirmary and loners in the punishment cell were never empty.

Stamos left in 1959. / ... / Byron Headley left two years earlier. This bastard had a heart attack, and he resigned, to the great joy of all Schenk. At the beginning of 1959, a new commandant, a new assistant commandant and a new security chief appeared in prison. / ... / ... until that winter of 1963 came. By then, we had a new commandant, Samuel Norton ...

As we see, the turn came to Norton only in 1962 or 1963. In the film, he was the head of the prison all the time and Captain Headley was always with him.

The inconsistencies also include:

1. Headley did not kill the fat man on the first night. In the book, King did not allow such arbitrariness.
2. Nobody collected stones for chess for Andy. There is no question of any chess in the story. Andy himself collected the pebbles in the prison yard (or in the cell wall?), After which he polished and presented them to friends, in particular, to Red.
3. King Andy and Red never played checkers.
4. During his first meeting with Andy, Norton held Andy’s Bible in his hands, never opening it, and returned it to Dufresn’s hands with the words: “Read the Bible. In her is salvation. ” And if he had revealed it, he would surely have discovered a hammer in it. Before the escape, Andy leaves the Bible with a hammer stencil in Norton's safe, writing on the first page: "You were right, salvation was in the Bible." It was all invented by Darabonte. In a story about this - not a word.
5. The old librarian Brooks was released in 1952. In the film, he hanged himself, in the book he simply died of loneliness in a nursing home the following year after his release. Therefore, Red, after he was granted amnesty, could not live in the room in which Brooks had previously lived.
6. The bird in the story was not with Brooks, but with another prisoner - Sherwood Bolton, and it was a dove, not a crow, who lived with him from 1945 to 1953. When Bolton was amnestied, he released him out the window. The pigeon was later found to have died of starvation, because he, allegedly, was not adapted to exist in his usual world. By this, King drew an analogy with prisoners who were accustomed to living in prison for many years and who were weaned from life in the wild.
7. In the book, Dufresn did not teach Tomi William, who revealed the truth about the murder of his wife.
8. In the story, Tommy William was not killed, but simply transferred to a prison with less strict conditions of imprisonment, something like our “colony of settlement”, which shut his mouth so that he would refuse testimony if a hearing on the review of the Dufresn case takes place.
9. Andrew didn’t clean his boots for the boss. I didn’t steal his clothes. He didn’t steal money from him and did not hand over anyone to the police and newspaper men. He just ran away. And he made a fortune from his initial savings that he and his wife had - from 14 thousand bucks. He knew how to manipulate the securities market well, and his entire fortune was recorded in a different name. In this he was helped by a good friend in the wild. In the film, he took all the money from the head of the prison, because he also spent everything through a front man, allegedly, Norton’s business colleague. After the escape, he withdrew all the money from the account of Norton's company under the guise of this same companion - Randal Stevenson. In the book, after his escape, he was supposed to become Peter Stevens. Darabont only slightly retained the name.
10. In King’s novel, Andy never contacted Red’s “business rivals” in prison to give him harmonica. There was no talk of any harmonica and playing it.
11. The head of the prison only shot himself in the film. There was nothing like that in the book, because the fact that Andy handed it over to the newspaper was a fiction of Darabonte.

An interesting fact is that in the book with Andy for some time, in 1959, an Indian was sitting, because of which he could not continue his work on doing a manhole under the banner. The Indian, subsequently, spoke of Andy himself and his cell as follows:

… - I liked him. Never jokes. But he didn’t want me to live there. This can be understood. Terrible drafts in the chamber. It's cold all the time. He does not allow anyone to touch his things. I left. Nice guy, not mocking, not joking. But the drafts are terrible ...

From which we can conclude that even then the hole was done through, judging by the same drafts and cold in the chamber. Why then did Dufrain wait until 1975? This is a mystery. Red had some thoughts on this subject, but, in general, this remained unknown. Maybe it took much more time to expand the hole, or maybe he could not decide on a half-kilometer “march-throw” through a narrow sewer pipe? ..

Red's release

One cannot but mention the key and final dialogue between Red and the representative of the parole commission. The film shows several times how, at some intervals, Red appears before this commission, and each time he is denied parole. This, as well as further dialogue, is completely an invention of Frank Darabonte.

“After forty years in prison, do you feel better?” - the employee of the commission asks Red. To which Red answers:

- Recover? You need to think, ”and after a moment of thought, he continues,“ you know, I have no idea what this means. ”

When he wants to explain to him, he interrupts him:

“I know how you understand this.” For me, this word was invented by politicians so that young people like you can go to work in a suit and tie. What do you really want to know? Do I regret what I did?

- Are you sorry?

- Not a day goes by that I do not repent. Not because I'm here, and you think it's fair. I remember how I was then. A young and stupid young man who committed this terrible crime. I want to talk to this kid, to say how everything really is. But I can not. The guy is gone This old man is all that remains of him. We have to put up with it. “Corrected” is an empty word. Come put stamps on your forms, son, and don’t take my time ...

After these words, Red was released. And the story ends on how he goes to Andy in Mexico. In the film, they met on the ocean.

Conclusion

And we would like to end with a quote from “Shawshank Redemption” about the same hope, said by Andy himself: “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best, but good will never die ...” We hope, dear readers, that you too she will never leave.