Book: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Gap between first publication and film release: 12 years--1982 to 1994
Closeness to original characters: 95% (Mike)
Closeness to original story: 85% (Mike)
Kate says I read the novella a long time ago but don't remember it well enough to compare it to the movie. So my remarks are just about the movie.
I should first mention that it's harder for me to watch movies than episodes from shows. This doesn't make any logical sense since I will spend the same amount of time watching either, but investing in a single movie is a big deal to me. So the fact that I sat through all 2+ hours of The Shawshank Redemption and enjoyed it is quite something. It is rather slow in the middle 1/3rd but not in a boring way, just in a slow-moving way. (This was my second viewing, but the first viewing was so long ago, I barely remember the experience.)
Before I get to the characters, I should mention that the movie's lighting has the same brilliant yet quiet allure as The Green Mile (which viewing I do remember). Darabont's films look like films, not just television episodes that accidentally made it to the big screen.
Regarding the characters, Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne and the Amazing Morgan Freeman as "Red" are a good match. Of course, Morgan Freeman could narrate a driver's ed manual and make it sound like holy writ; as a voice-over narrator, there are few better. However, he doesn't come off as miscast. He is entirely believable as a cynical, hardened, uneducated criminal (with a gentlemanly soul).
Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne captures the persona of reserved, thinking man perfectly. At one point, Red gives this voice-over about Andy:
He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn't normal around here. He strolled like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place.The cool thing is that Tim Robbins makes you believe that description. It isn't just the writers hoping you won't notice that the actor doesn't work in the role. (I cannot imagine Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise in these roles--if that was indeed considered as the Internet Movie Database claims. For one thing, Tom Cruise always seems to play his roles with an underlying aura of "poor, poor me," even when the role doesn't call for it. Andy is a victim, but if he is played that way, he will lose the audience's sympathy. Robbins, thank goodness, doesn't play him that way.).
There are a few places where the criminals-with-hearts-of-gold stuff gets a little too sweet. But the day-to-day camaraderie in extreme hardship is quite believable (and seems to be a recurring motif of King's).
The movie plot is Joseph in Egypt (the prison parts) plus The Count of Monte Cristo plus The Sting: the bad guys' comeuppances are quite satisfying. But the main theme is the need to survive with a sense of hope, which translates into a sense of self-worth. The future/freedom/non-prison life represents hope, but for many of the characters--such as Brooks--that hope is more frightening than the known prison life, however harsh. (The scenes with Brooks are some of the most touching & melancholy; they are also the parts I remembered from my first viewing.) Although almost all the movie takes place in prison, it is really about preparing for life outside it.
Face to face with that other life, a person with vision becomes necessary as well as larger than life. Andy's gift is not just that he can free himself but that he can give a lifeline to someone like Red, who has the stamina and the guts but needs the dream to keep him strong.
Very cool movie.
Mike says when it comes to Stephen King, the shorter, the better. King's works of the last couple decades have become rather bloated and rambling. While he is a VERY talented writer, his main problem seems to be that he's Stephen King... As such, no one's really brave enough to edit him the way he should be. The end result are novels that weigh half a ton, with climaxes and resolutions that span maybe twenty pages.
The main problem with this is that King's novels rarely work as movies. In fact, the best movies are based on his shortest works. Shawshank is no exception, being one of the truly excellent films adapted from King's works, which was itself a novella included in the collection Different Seasons (Stand by Me was based on The Body from the same collection, and The Green Mile was also one of his shorter works) .
King's true strength lies in creating living breathing human beings, who have true bonds of friendship with other characters that are just as strongly written. At the heart of every King novel is a relationship: friendship, love, or family. Each character is flawed in their own way, but nearly always seek to overcome, or at least come to terms with, these flaws.
The criminal "family" of Shawshank is brought to the screen with surprising accuracy and care, and the relationships of this family come to life just as they should. While there was some tweaking, character combining, and in one case a major reinvention, the main cast of the novella are all perfectly cast and written in the film.
Andy is brought to live just as from the novel--hopeful, intelligent, and determined. Many of Red's descriptions of Andy are lifted straight from the text. As such, Tim Robbins was given the most accurate information on which to base his version.
Casting Morgan Freeman as Red was a true stroke of genius. In the novella, Red was a red headed Irish man who had murdered his wife for the life insurance money (by cutting her car breaks ). Morgan Freeman, however, makes this potentially BIG difference a minor one. The reason for the nickname is quickly joked away, and his ability to communicate the good heart of a man who made a great mistake truly makes the character work. Despite the difference in appearance, Morgan Freeman was the perfect choice (This actually gives me a lot of hope for another unexpected character race change" Laurence Fishburn will be playing Perry White in next year's Man of Steel).
The Warden and Guards of the movie are an amalgam of sometimes two or three characters, and the fates of a couple characters were changed (like the young prisoner Andy bonds with, who was transferred instead of killed), but these changes all strengthen the story and create a single narrative for the audience to follow.
The character of Brookes is the most drastically changed, or expanded, as his presence in the novella was a single paragraph! The story was essentially the same, but the moral of Brookes' story was expanded to help clarify the message of the movies as a whole. By making him a real part of the film, the audience cares about his fate, and remembers what happened to him when Red faces the same situation.
The story as a whole is fairly accurate to the novella. While some minor details were changed, such as the origin of Andy's new identity, and the accuracy of the true killer's confession, these alterations are truly for the better. A trademark of King's work is the uncertainty of everyday life. Sometimes we don't know something for sure, no matter how much we may want to. Unfortunately, this doesn't work as well in a film. So things were simplified and clarified, and tied or combined with other plot points to unify the movie. King likes to use a lot of plot threads, many times making things a tad more complicated than they need to be.
Shawshank is that rare, wonderful adaptation that not only succeeds in being accessible to readers and non- readers alike, but may actually outshine the source material itself.
The main problem with this is that King's novels rarely work as movies. In fact, the best movies are based on his shortest works. Shawshank is no exception, being one of the truly excellent films adapted from King's works, which was itself a novella included in the collection Different Seasons (Stand by Me was based on The Body from the same collection, and The Green Mile was also one of his shorter works) .
King's true strength lies in creating living breathing human beings, who have true bonds of friendship with other characters that are just as strongly written. At the heart of every King novel is a relationship: friendship, love, or family. Each character is flawed in their own way, but nearly always seek to overcome, or at least come to terms with, these flaws.
The criminal "family" of Shawshank is brought to the screen with surprising accuracy and care, and the relationships of this family come to life just as they should. While there was some tweaking, character combining, and in one case a major reinvention, the main cast of the novella are all perfectly cast and written in the film.
Andy is brought to live just as from the novel--hopeful, intelligent, and determined. Many of Red's descriptions of Andy are lifted straight from the text. As such, Tim Robbins was given the most accurate information on which to base his version.
Casting Morgan Freeman as Red was a true stroke of genius. In the novella, Red was a red headed Irish man who had murdered his wife for the life insurance money (by cutting her car breaks ). Morgan Freeman, however, makes this potentially BIG difference a minor one. The reason for the nickname is quickly joked away, and his ability to communicate the good heart of a man who made a great mistake truly makes the character work. Despite the difference in appearance, Morgan Freeman was the perfect choice (This actually gives me a lot of hope for another unexpected character race change" Laurence Fishburn will be playing Perry White in next year's Man of Steel).
The Warden and Guards of the movie are an amalgam of sometimes two or three characters, and the fates of a couple characters were changed (like the young prisoner Andy bonds with, who was transferred instead of killed), but these changes all strengthen the story and create a single narrative for the audience to follow.
The character of Brookes is the most drastically changed, or expanded, as his presence in the novella was a single paragraph! The story was essentially the same, but the moral of Brookes' story was expanded to help clarify the message of the movies as a whole. By making him a real part of the film, the audience cares about his fate, and remembers what happened to him when Red faces the same situation.
The story as a whole is fairly accurate to the novella. While some minor details were changed, such as the origin of Andy's new identity, and the accuracy of the true killer's confession, these alterations are truly for the better. A trademark of King's work is the uncertainty of everyday life. Sometimes we don't know something for sure, no matter how much we may want to. Unfortunately, this doesn't work as well in a film. So things were simplified and clarified, and tied or combined with other plot points to unify the movie. King likes to use a lot of plot threads, many times making things a tad more complicated than they need to be.
Shawshank is that rare, wonderful adaptation that not only succeeds in being accessible to readers and non- readers alike, but may actually outshine the source material itself.
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