Unlocking the gates to Shawshank
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Some films are just born crowdpleasers. Case in point: The Shawshank Redemption, which is about as good a prison movie as you can get. But this flick uses more than colorful characters, suspenseful situations, and subjective you-are-there point of view to tell a riveting story. Many layers are waiting to be unraveled, which CineVerse attempted to do last night. Here's what we discovered:
HOW IS THIS FILM DIFFERENT FROM OTHER PRISON MOVIES THAT CAME BEFORE IT?
• It features a voiceover narration throughout that guides the viewer along, with a likable, homespun voice and vernacular that helps weave a wholly absorbing tale and which creates a more personal, emotional story.
• Interestingly, the narrator is arguably not the central character – Red is a third-party witness to the story of Andy Dufresne, the character whom we most identify and sympathize with, especially considering that Andy, we know, is innocent. We get the story from Red’s point of view, which makes it more interesting because Red is more credible as a grizzled, weathered, experienced inmate.
• Unlike other films about incarceration, which usually concern themselves from the start with an elaborate escape plan plot, this picture doesn’t try to tip its hat that the later payoff will be an escape; we see many years and even decades go by in which Andy and his friends are imprisoned, presumably without hope. Therefore, the main meat of this story concerns both psychologically and physically coping with an interminable life in prison. There’s enough action and interesting subplots and characters here to make for a fascinating two hours, but, unlike The Great Escape, Papillon, Escape From Alcatraz, or Stalag 17, this film isn’t necessarily tightly woven around a suspenseful plot concerned from the start with escape.
• Additionally, although many of those aforementioned prison movies do contain colorful characters, the main and even supporting roles in The Shawshank Redemption are finely chiseled with interesting details and backstories that create a chromatic tapestry of personalities: it could be the film’s greatest strength.
• That being said, however, the misdirection employed here that keeps you from prematurely guessing that Andy will eventually escape, and the clever details related to how he does it, make for an incredibly satisfying third act in which the audience feels Andy’s uplifting sense of release, freedom and vindication. This is one of the best revenge/comeuppance films ever made, and you don’t have to have been a former inmate or wrongly accused individual to appreciate these emotions.
HOW ARE ANDY AND RED PERFECTLY JUXTAPOSED CHARACTERS BASED ON THEIR DIFFERENCES?
• Andy is white, Red is African-American.
• Andy truly is innocent and wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, while Red, as crowd-pleasing as he is, is a criminal who knows he has to pay his debt to society (in the original story, he cut the brakes on his wife’s car, leading to her death).
• Andy is younger, more sensitive and attuned to cultural sensibilities, more naïve and idealistic, book smart, and hopeful; Red is older, hardened and jaded, street smart, and more pessimistically realistic, which makes him dubious of hope.
• Red is a man who can get things in from the outside for others; Andy is a man who can get things out from the inside (his intelligence and hope) for others.
• Therein lies the crux of the film’s message: making Red, a doubting Thomas, see the light of hope, as exemplified in his savior, Andy. Andy redeems Red, not by helping him escape from the prison, but by making him believe in a life worth living outside the prison walls.
WHAT’S SIGNIFICANT ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE LAST SCENE TAKES PLACE IN MEXICO BETWEEN JUST THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS?
• The fact that their reunion takes place outside of the boundaries of the familiar (the United States) and within a paradise-like setting is important: it suggests that they’ve graduated to a metaphorical “heaven,” an afterlife-of-sorts on earth far removed from their familiar place of incarceration.
• It’s also wise to only show the two of them on the beach, as if this is their own private paradise that they’ve earned.
• In the original story, Red is following Andy’s hidden trail and is hopeful that he will rendezvous with his friend eventually some day. This ending was changed for the film because viewers responded more enthusiastically to a visible reunion between the two that was conclusive.
Other films and works directed by Frank Darabont
• The Green Mile
• The Majestic
• The Mist
OTHER NOTABLE FILMS BASED ON STEPHEN KING STORIES
• Carrie
• The Shining
• Misery
• Dolores Claiborne
• Stand by Me
• The Dead Zone
• Salem’s Lot
• 1408
Either get busy watching Shawshank or get busy dying...
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Our Favorite Films--an ongoing series spotlighting CineVerse members top-ranked movies--returns with Part 9 on August 26 with “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994; 142 minutes), directed by Frank Darabont, chosen by Len Gornik.
CineVerse September/October schedule ready for viewing
Friday, August 21, 2015
Curious to learn what's on the docket for CineVerse in September and October? Visit http://1drv.ms/1MIM2N3 to access the new calendar for the next two months.
Read more...Time and time again
Thursday, August 20, 2015
For some, it's hard not to be both cynical and sentimental while watching an old-fashioned romantic drama like "Somewhere in Time." The film has obvious appeal to hopeless romantics everywhere, yet can be as repellent as kryptonite is to Superman to others. Still, it represents a fascinating experiment as a pop culture phenomenon and female-friendly cult movie. CineVerse examined the picture last night and came away with these conclusions:
Superman meets Back to the Future meets Harlequin romance novels
Sunday, August 16, 2015
The Duke meets The Duchess
Thursday, August 13, 2015
The original "True Grit" features a more portly and slightly mellowed John Wayne in his signature rugged individualist type Western role. But the grizzled old veteran is still able to evoke a distinctive and memorable performance as Rooster Cogburn – a man who meets his match in a sprightly tomboy who seeks justice for her father's murder. Observations offered on this film, collected from last evening's CineVerse discussion, include the following:
A MOTIF IS DEFINED AS A DOMINANT THEME OR REPEATED DESIGN OR IMAGE. A GENRE IS DEFINED AS A CATEGORY, TYPE OR CLASS. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE COMMON MOTIFS OF TYPICAL WESTERN GENRE FILMS THAT ARE USED IN TRUE GRIT? FOR EXAMPLE, HORSES ARE A COMMON MOTIF IN TRUE GRIT AND OTHER WESTERNS. CAN YOU GIVE OTHER EXAMPLES?
• Homesteader community/frontier town
• Gunslingers
• Wide open spaces
• Desert landscapes
• The rough, dirty, darkly clothed and unkempt vs the cleaner, lighter-colored townspeople
HOW DOES ROOSTER COGBURN REPRESENT A SORT OF MYTHIC FIGURE – THE KIND WE’VE SEEN IN OTHER GENRES AND WORKS OF FICTION?
• He’s an outsider who wanders into an established town, not exactly trusted on either the good or bad side
• He lives by his own code of honor, bravery, dignity, like the samurai and the medieval knights
• He isnt’ afraid to take the law into his own hands; he merits own swift vigilante justice
• And yet, while he’s rugged and macho, he’s not a sexy, young stud of a gunslinger like we’ve seen in other westerns, and he isn’t self-conscious about his appearance or style
WHAT DOES COGBURN REPRESENT TO THE BAD GUYS?
• A caricature of the western hero: a one-eyed fat, old has-been who probably isn’t much of a threat
WHAT DOES COGBURN REPRESENT TO MATTIE?
• A father and grandfather figure in one, a bigger than life mythic hero
TRUE GRIT HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS A FILM THAT ECHOED JOHN WAYNE’S CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL VIEWPOINT. DO YOU SEE ANY EVIDENCE OF THIS IN THE MOVIE?
• “You can’t serve papers on a rat”—his form of justice is the way of the gun
• The movie seems to favor stricter laws and tougher treatment of criminals
WHAT DOES JOHN WAYNE BRING TO THIS ROLE AND WHY WAS HE ULTIMATELY THE RIGHT CASTING CHOICE?
• He’s played other loner, rugged, morally ambiguous heroes in the past, so we’re already emotionally invested in the values and archetypal traits he brings to a western hero character.
1969 WAS A BIG YEAR FOR WESTERNS:
• Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
• The Wild Bunch
• McKenna’s Gold
• Support Your Local Sherrif
• Paint Your Wagon
JOHN WAYNE WON THE BEST ACTOR OSCAR FOR THIS ROLE; THE ACADEMY SEEMS TO LIKE TO REWARD ACTORS WHO EITHER SIGNFICANTLY CHANGE THEIR APPEARANCE OR HAVE A DISABILITY OF SOME KIND. CAN YOU NAME SOME EXAMPLES?
• DeNiro in Raging Bull (from thin and buff to overweight and washed up)
• Daniel Day Lewis, my left foot (cerebral palsy)
• Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (autism)
• William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman (flamboyant homosexual)
• Charlize Theron in Monster
• Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray and Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (blind man)
• Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump (developmentally disabled)
• Jon Voight as a disabled Vietnam Vet in Coming Home
• Hillary Swank, masquerading as a boy in Boys don’t cry
• Frances McDormand as a pregnant Sherrif in Fargo
• Marlee Matlin as a deaf woman in Children of a Lesser God
The Duke as elder statesman
Sunday, August 9, 2015
A southern belle meets the black knight
Thursday, August 6, 2015
"A Streetcar Named Desire" likely proved to be a revelation to audiences in 1951, with its bold and frank adult themes and downbeat dénouement. CineVerse examined this classic adaptation of the play last night, and came away with these conclusions:
I have always depended on the kindness of CineVerse
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Our Favorite Films--an ongoing series spotlighting CineVerse members top-ranked movies--continues at CineVerse on August 5 with Part 6: “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951; 122 minutes), directed by Elia Kazan, chosen by Dan Quenzel.