July | 2015 | Asian and Entertained

100 Movies … 100 Posts: #72. “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994)

Posted on July 24, 2015 by babemoby

This is post #29 in my series, 100 Movies … 100 Posts. In this ongoing series, I’m watching and writing about each film on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest movies from #100 to #1. I’m not just writing a review of each movie. I am going to write a piece about whatever I find most pressing, as a critique of the film, an address of the issues it brings up, or my own experiences with the film. It will serve as an examination of the list itself and of political issues in Hollywood and the film industry.

Without further ado, #72 “The Shawshank Redemption”

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“The Shawshank Redemption” is many things. It’s one of the most emotionally powerful films in the history of cinema. It’s arguably the greatest film adaptation of a Stephen King story (“The Shining” might be the closest competitor). It was nominated for Best Picture in 1995, along with fellow AFI 100 films “Pulp Fiction,” and the winner of the award, “Forrest Gump.” It’s No. 1 on IMDB’s top 250. It’s an excellent look at the problems that plague the U.S. justice and prison systems. Most importantly, it’s an education on how to pronounce “Dumas.”

The three big names involved with the film are a testament to its quality. Tim Robbins wasn’t a household name in 1994, though he’d previously starred in 1990’s “Jacob’s Ladder.” Since then, he’s got an Oscar to his name for his role in “Mystic River,” but “Shawshank” is certainly the first movie that comes to mind when Robbins’ name is mentioned. The role of Andy Dufresne was delicate and complex, but Robbins managed to nail it. The performance is obviously something special, as Robbins hasn’t been the most prolific of actors since 1994, but people still remember him. Morgan Freeman is one of the greatest actors in Hollywood’s history. In his most well-known films, he usually doesn’t star, and despite getting the costar label in this one, he does get his own arc at least, and it might be his greatest role. It’s always great to see him in movies, and it’s even a treat to hear when he gets work as a narrator, like in “March of the Penguins,” as he also has one of the smoothest voices you’ll ever hear. Lastly, there’s director Frank Darabont, who can also be attributed to the greatness of the first season of “The Walking Dead,” which went downhill after he left. The first episode is among the best episodes of dramatic TV you’ll ever see. He’s also responsible for two other great King adaptations, “The Green Mile,” and the underrated “The Mist.”

Robbins really does deserve special mention for bringing the character of Dufresne to life, as with his backstory, it could have gone horribly wrong if not handled to perfection. In the 1940s, Dufresne winds up at Shawshank Prison, a reformatory for the most notorious of offenders, for the murder of his wife and her extramarital lover. Since the film follows Dufresne, and expects the viewer to believe he is guilty of the murders, as due to the circumstances surrounding the crime, it appears highly likely that he was the one who committed them, it was up to Robbins to make the character someone the viewer is willing to follow and somewhat likable while also knowing that he’s guilty of a horrific act. So, it took a great actor to keep the film from falling apart. Freeman’s Red is somewhat similar, but even though he was admittedly guilty of the crime he’d been incarcerated for, it’s somewhat forgivable considering how long he’d already been in prison by the time Dufresne arrives. Obviously, the film is asking viewers to spend several hours only with people who’d committed horrible crimes (prison staff included), but that’s not something easily made into an enjoyable experience.

And the film certainly does plumb the depths of human depravity, though not from the criminals, as the viewer never witnesses the crimes they’ve committed, with the exception of Dufresne. Instead, the darkness of human nature is most exhibited in the prison warden and the guards. Clancy Brown as Captain Hadley is delightfully prickish, but also terrifying like when he beats a new convict to death because he freaked out about his first night in the slammer. Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) is great as a hypocritical white collar man who preaches obedience through the Bible while freely making backdoor deals selling the prisoners as a labor force while collecting all the profits. “Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank,” he says to the fresh meat as they arrive.

Beyond the actions of the guards, the movie goes into just how bad U.S. prison conditions were in the ’40s. Prisoners are commonly threatened with rape from other prisoners, there are worms in the food, the guards take tremendous liberties with the prisoners, and overall, the goal of prison is to demoralize and dehumanize the criminals, not to rehabilitate them into functional citizens so they can be reintroduced to society, but to remove the rebelliousness, and therefore the humanity, so what’s left is an empty shell who can barely cope with life once released. Actually, that makes it sound like prison hasn’t changed much since the ’40s. Certainly, something needs to be done with violent people, as they can’t be allowed to be among the general population, but as seen in other countries with much lower rates of violent behavior, there must be a way to do it better than the U.S. is currently doing and has done for a very long time.

So, Dufresne, being an intelligent individual, a former accountant, learns quickly that the prison’s goal is to remove the humanity from its prisoners, and makes every effort to try to retain his own humanity, as well as that of his fellow prisoners. He befriends Red, as Red is a man who knows how to get things, to procure some simple items: a rock hammer and some stones so he can build a chess set … and Rita Hayworth (he procures a poster of her at least). Dufresne’s fight for humanity is a strong theme throughout the film, and the times when he has great successes are the peaks that counter the dark valleys of the film. When he procures beers for his fellow prisoners through a deal with the guards and when he locks himself in the warden’s office and plays Italian opera through the PA system for the entire prison to hear, it’s almost a divine experience. This theme can be relatable to everyone, as all people experience difficulties that threaten to steal their humanity, and there are life-sapping problems that are inherently part of every system (government, work, etc.) that people will encounter, not just prisoners. Darabont deserves major credit for masterfully orchestrating those highest points interwoven with the lowest ones.

“I understand you’re a man who knows how to get things…”

The reality of dehumanization crystalizes when the old man, Brookes, whom James Whitmore portrays beautifully, is released from prison. He threatens to kill one of his friends so he can stay, because he’s become so accustomed, even comfortable with life in prison, and he’s so old that he knows he will have trouble functioning in a world that has changed and sped up so much since he was free that it’s completely foreign to him. He doesn’t have anyone he knows in the free world. He gets a job in a grocery store but can’t keep up the pace the boss wants. He has no hope of anything other than a fractured life, and he kills himself rather than waiting to die.

When Dufresne isn’t stirring up trouble, he’s finding ways to get in good with the guards and the warden. As a former accountant, he understands taxes, and when he offers to help the captain with his taxes, word spreads quickly. Within a few years, he’s doing taxes for all of the prison’s guards, the guards on the opposing recreational baseball teams, and the warden himself. This allows Dufresne to gain trust and get away with things none of the others would have been able to. Mostly, he uses this as leverage to improve the prison for the other cons, and help prevent his fellow inmates, as well as future residents from losing their souls.

The film as a whole is incredibly well-put together. Darabont managed to capture the essence of the ’40s even though the film takes place almost entirely in the prison. The pacing is perfect, as there’s something important happening in every scene. Everything is timed perfectly, so moments are allowed to linger but the movie still keeps moving, and there’s no waste. The audience’s emotions are manipulated magnificently with how information is withheld until the right moments to reveal the truth, and the viewer will often expect the film to go in one direction, but then will shift into the opposite direction. The film has a very rare dramatic perfection that is difficult to achieve for a lot of reasons, yet it still manages to keep a sense of humor, though it is very dark.

The one moment where it stumbles slightly in terms of narrative, and this is probably nitpicking, but when the prisoner arrives at Shawshank who knows the truth that Dufresne didn’t kill his wife and her other lover, because he just so happened to meet the guy who actually did, it seems like such a convenient coincidence that it’s a bit off-putting. But that prisoner’s fate saves it from being too tacky. And the movie does have such that spiritual, ethereal, serendipitous King quality that makes it not so bad. Then again, it’s never really made totally clear that the transferred prisoner is telling the truth, even though everyone around him seems to believe it.

You wouldn’t think some guys sitting around drinking beer would make for great cinema, but thanks to Darabont’s direction, it’s a heavenly moment.

There are also some aspects of the movie that are politically questionable. The black characters in other King adaptations actually fare worse (especially “The Green Mile”), but in this case, Red needs Dufresne to teach him how to not just be a prisoner but to hold out hope for release and to keep on living to maintain his humanity, whereas prior to their acquaintance and for most of the story until the end, Red appears to be content living the rest of his life in prison. Maybe he’s just resigned to the likelihood that he won’t ever get his release, but it shouldn’t take a white character to teach a black character that it’s okay to continue living. Even so, at least Red has his own character arc and narrates the story, and he’s still a good character, but there are some problems there.

While prison rape is still common today, the way it’s presented in the film likely promoted resentment towards gay men. It’s difficult because that’s an inherent part of prison life, and in an examination of the prison system, it’s important to address, and it’s something that needs to not happen. But a lot of heterosexual men fear gays. Many straight men view gays as predatory and think all of them want to rape the heteros and turn them gay or something, and with the popularity of this film, the portrayal of rape in prison undoubtedly must have contributed to that idea if not begun the perpetuation of it. There’s a part where Red warns Dufresne about some commonly known rapists, referred to derogatorily as the Sisters, which has ugly connotations. Dufresne asks if they’re homosexuals, to which Red replies that first they’d have to be human before they could be homosexuals. That’s a very problematic line for many reasons. The insinuation is that they’re dehumanized to the point that they feel no remorse about rape, and that’s probably an accurate assessment of prison rapists. But the viewer could just as easily connect their dehumanization to homosexuality. No doubt, this is how people in prison talk, and public attitudes toward LGB people have shifted drastically since 1994, but people probably didn’t walk away from this film with positive thoughts about gays.

When Dufresne finally hatches the plan he’d been working on the entire time, unbeknownst to the viewer, behind lovely Rita, away from the prying eyes of the guards and the warden. It unfolds like a masterfully planned heist. When Dufresne crawls through the wall, in and out of the shit pipe, and into the river in the rain, it’s one of the iconic images in film (so iconic, it’s on the poster). The warden gets what he deserved with an extra helping of shit from Dufresne, and Dufresne makes off with a new identity and the warden’s money. Everything comes together and every thread from throughout the movie is tied up to great satisfaction. After Red is released from prison, it’s incredibly difficult to keep the eyes dry when he finally meets Dufresne again, a rare moment where that sappy, sentimental ending is truly earned by the journey that preceded it.

One of the greatest “oh shit!” moments ever.

“The Shawshank Redemption” is a masterclass in quality filmmaking. There really aren’t enough superlatives in the english language to describe it. There are many films that are great upon first viewing but start to unravel or lose their luster upon the fourth or fifth watch through. This is one of the few that’s a pleasure every single time. Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’, and whether you’ve seen it 100 times or not at all, get busy watchin’ this movie.

Luckily, Abe Koby escaped Shawshank Prison so he could write this post.

Next up, #71. “Saving Private Ryan”

Everything Could Have Been Awesome: “Selma”

Posted on July 6, 2015 by babemoby

A film about one of the most important figures in the last century and U.S. history, Martin Luther King Jr., which had been a long time coming anyway, couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. Especially since it covers a time of great upheaval and restoration for civil rights, it had to be intentional that director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo decided to make that film, “Selma,” in 2014, when the world finally started paying attention to the ongoing problems of racial division in the U.S. It’s not as if trouble between law enforcement and the black community had taken a hiatus since police had beaten Rodney King in 1991 until black teenager Trayvon Martin had been shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. But between the late 1990s and the early part of this decade, the general public of America had moved on from racial tension as if it wasn’t happening anymore. In other words, people (and the media) who weren’t affected closed their eyes and pretended it went away.

The atmosphere in the 1960s shared many similarities with today’s racial climate. Black people had had the “Right to Vote” for nearly 100 years, but Jim Crow laws prevented that from truly being the case. Black people were often arrested for crimes they didn’t commit, and crimes against black people often went unsolved because police didn’t bother investigating them, such as attacks on churches.

Through gerrymandering and voting restrictions, the U.S. today isn’t far off from Jim Crow laws that kept blacks from voting back in the first half of the 1900s. Now police are gunning down unarmed black people, and there are again attacks on black churches. It’s becoming more common that black men who were arrested decades ago are being released because there was no real evidence to convict them in the first place (such as a man who was convicted of stabbing his friend in New York, although he was at Disney World, in a 1994 case). They’re receiving some small modicum of justice now, but where was justice before decades of their lives were stolen from them?

Certainly, the Martin case and the unrest in Ferguson last year spurred on the making of this film, while so many racially charged events have been in the news since its release. Without question, “Selma” was the most politically relevant film of 2014, and especially among the field of contenders for best picture at the Oscars. The film is a defiant challenge to society about the recent struggles that have been made the backdrop of public life in the U.S. over the last few years.

King was not so sure about that ascot.

One of the ideas DuVernay addresses is the concept of “respectability politics,” the notion that a minority class has to live up to some standard of “decency” set impossibly high by the ruling class in order to gain respect as human beings. She opens the film with Oyelowo’s King fussing over having to wear a fancy ascot to meet with President Lyndon B. Johnson. “Wait till the brothers back home see me like this. They’ll have a laugh,” he quips to his wife, Coretta Scott King (Carmen Ejogo). The ascot, in all its ridiculous glory, symbolizes King’s attempts to gain equality and respect for black people. Among the early scenes of the film are a black woman played by Oprah Winfrey (and people shouldn’t joke about her inclusion in the film. She’s proved herself to be a more than capable actor in other films) being unfairly denied her right to vote and the bombing of a black church, which resulted in the deaths of four young girls. Those events, which both took place in Alabama, set the stage for King’s big push toward the historic march.

Standing in the way of progress is LBJ, portrayed by Tom Wilkinson. Actually, he’s not so much standing in the way, but with his concentration set on the ill-intentioned Vietnam War, he doesn’t want to have to deal with the civil war about to break out in his own country. He shows his resistance toward King’s pleas for help, and the president even tries to appease King, offering him a position in Washington trying to get him to drop his activism.

DuVernay attracted a lot of criticism for her portrayal of Johnson, whom few people had ever seen reason to stick up for previously but suddenly were showing concern for his legacy. But it makes sense, as the director is attempting to show the resistance from the streets to the highest authority that black people faced (and still face) in their fight for equality. A figure like Johnson isn’t just easy fodder, but he is the ultimate representative of authority that is at worst antagonistic and at best apathetic toward the struggles of people of color. Johnson publicly came out in favor of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, but the only two people who know for sure how those meetings between Johnson and King went are the two men who were present.

The subsequent events King is hindered by serve to show not only his resolve, but also his doubts, as he winds up in jail, a member of his movement is killed by police, there are cracks within his movement. But he proves himself to be a master strategist as well, using the idea of respectability to get the attention of the public, in order to force Johnson to act in order to save public perception. The movie gives a rather complete portrait of the man, even touching on his marital struggles and his well-documented proclivities for affairs with other women. Oyelowo is good at the part. It’s obvious that he put a lot of effort into studying King. He especially shines in King’s vulnerable moments, as he’s constantly challenged by the weight of what he’s trying to achieve, and trying to weather the danger that he and his fellow marchers face.

The man.

Because Johnson questions King, as King organizes the 50-mile march from Selma, Alabama, to the capital in Montgomery. King sends his people out knowing that Sheriff Jim Clark (Stan Houston) with his temperament toward black people is going to react with violence. In a way, that’s what King is hoping for, as a photo of a black woman being beaten by police on the front page of newspapers across the country is what’s going to get people’s attention, the president’s most of all with his reputation on the line. Johnson tries to put the blame on King for stirring up trouble, knowingly putting people in harm’s way. Even though King knows his cause is righteous, the viewer can see in King’s eyes that he’s wondering if Johnson is right that he’s going about it the wrong way.

The police are beating up Oprah. Who wouldn’t be upset seeing that on the cover of their morning news?

DuVernay uses King’s voice to offer exposition on the relationship between the law, justice and equality. King explains to one of his aides that gaining equality in the law doesn’t mean anything if there’s still poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunities. That’s one concept that resonates in today’s supposedly “colorblind” society. Disparity of income and education, and the proliferation of the drug trade in urban life overpower laws against desegregation. If poor communities are comprised of mostly people of color and rich communities are mostly full of white people, how does that equate to desegregation? Kids in better schools have more opportunities to learn and succeed. Disadvantaged youth are fighting an uphill battle from the start.

The film captures the fearful time the black community had to be facing before the historic march. Watching black people being beaten and arrested during peaceful protests and marching defenseless into the teeth of angry white police with batons and guns who wanted to hurt and kill them has to make the viewer respect the boldness of those folks. That’s where the film unleashes its greatest power.

The film is unfortunately, not without flaws, mainly in its portrayal of white politicians. It makes sense for them to be antagonistic. No one should believe that LBJ or Alabama Gov. George Wallace were saints either in public or behind closed doors. But the way they are played, they come off as so evil, cartoonish even. Wilkinson is an incredible character actor most noted for playing despicable, slimy characters, like in “Michael Clayton,” which he received an Oscar nomination for. He plays Johnson as a hard-ass bulldog among his own people, but with aa weasely and full of excuses when meeting with King. Perhaps that’s what he was like, but he was probably more subtle in the way he conducted business that he wished he could have avoided.

If Wilkinson seemed a bit off, then Tim Roth’s performance as Wallace is on another plane of misguidedness. A charismatic actor who commonly plays over-the-top villains, as in “Pulp Fiction” and “Lie to Me,” comes off like Quentin Tarantino might write a white supremacist for one of his own films. Giving a speech, head cocked arrogantly to the side, while flanked on both sides by dual Confederate flags about how the negro should not be allowed to share schools with white children is just so overly exaggerated. To continue the Tarantino references, Don Johnson’s performance in “Django Unchained” offered a subtler character. At least he was a charming evil bastard. But even if Wallace was as superlative as Roth made him out to be, the part might have been better if it had been underplayed. The most despicable politicians are the ones who subtly and sneakily work their propaganda in a way that people with less extreme points of view will succumb to their charms. The ones who come out with vile hate speech to rile up their base can easily be written off as “one of those” people. On the other hand, perhaps the point is to show what black people experienced in that time period, and the full-on hate from the podium was how it came across.

Tim Roth’s Gov. George Wallace is a little too much like a Tarantino white supremacist villain.

Dylan Baker as J. Edgar Hoover, although his screen time was limited, tops off the trifecta of villainous actors playing politicians in the film. As stated earlier, it makes sense for the politicians to be antagonistic, but making them full on Batman villains might be a step too far. It doesn’t leave room for a nuanced view of politicians and politics, where supposed “nuance” is actually a murky cover for passively oppressive tactics. The actors with their acting history alone should have made them obvious poor choices.

The movie stands as a reminder to those who would use King as a weapon against so-called “SJWs” that King did not change the world by peacefully laying down and waiting for racist white people to realize the error of their own ways. He riled up his people who were facing oppression. He used atrocities committed against his people for political gain because a revolution does take sacrifice. King made the choice to make the march across the bridge into harm’s way to show the world what he and his people were fighting against. He didn’t redirect the march away from hostility because if he had done that, no one would have cared. Just like when the people of Baltimore rioted earlier this year after word came out about Freddie Gray being killed by the police instead of peacefully protesting, because no one pays attention to that. It took getting in the way of people going about their daily business and interrupting their lives, without killing anyone. Whether the attention they received was generally positive or negative, they got people’s attention, which they wouldn’t have gotten any other way. And as Spike Lee posed the question to viewers in “Do the Right Thing,” which do people see as worse, black people burning down a white owner’s restaurant or white cops killing a black man?

Why riot? The answer is simple: How else do you get people's attention when you're sick of being oppressed?

Why riot? The answer is simple: How else do you let the world know when you’re sick and tired of being oppressed that you’re not going to take it anymore?

This wasn’t DuVernay’s first film, but it was the first to gain widespread recognition, and even though she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, it was quite an achievement for her to get the movie nominated for best picture, being the first black woman to do so. And the subject of the movie was fitting, especially as women in general, and especially black women, have had a difficult time gaining recognition in Hollywood.

This was a film about MLK done the right way. Oyelowo has said it took eight years to get the film made because movie studios wanted to include some sort of white savior character, even though it does include white people from northern states who traveled to Alabama to join the protests, and they do play an important role (by getting killed!) in the events, but the film belongs to King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conferece. So that is a triumph in itself.

“Selma” is a grand film about MLK himself, but also about the difficulty in executing a revolution. It’s a strong reminder that “freedom isn’t free,” as goes the adage Americans like to spout ad nauseum. It was easily one of 2014’s best films and deserved recognition. In terms of filmmaking, perhaps it lagged behind other strong contenders like “Boyhood” and “Birdman,” but as with “12 Years a Slave” last year, it’s difficult to compare films with such potent, serious subject matter with films that go in other directions. But even as it’s good to see films about black people getting such praise, it would be nice to see movies starring and directed by black actors and directors where racism isn’t the main theme. Society shouldn’t stop talking about racism, in fact society needs to spend more time acknowledging that problem, and Hollywood needs to continue making movies concerning racism. But to see true equality in entertainment, the movie industry needs to stop equating movies about black people with movies about racism, and just consider movies about black people as movies. Chris Rock’s “Top Five” would have been an excellent inclusion over “Theory of Everything,” for instance. Certainly racism needs to be acknowledged as an aspect of the black experience in the U.S., but surely it shouldn’t be the only aspect worthy of awards recognition. The U.S. needs black super heros; black adventurers; black comedians; black action stars; and even black quiet, quirky, sensitive, aging men going through mid-life crises on equal billing as the white ones. That will be equality in the movies. With the next feature film DuVernay is possibly slated to direct being “Black Panther” (about the Marvel super hero, not the civil rights group), hopefully Hollywood will soon be moving in that direction.