Rehabilitated by cinema
Some movies stay with you, wherever you are, wherever you go. They make a tiny space inside you and stay there as quietly as possible. You don’t ever feel the need to let others know what role they play in your existence. But they are there for you. Always. You may mention them whenever the clichéd GOAT topic props up. With time, you may even stop doing that because you’ve learnt how different movies mean different things to different people. What is great for you might be good for others. What is good for others might be bad for you. Same films. Different opinions.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) has stayed with me the longest. I watched it when i was in 8th grade. I guess it was on HBO. I remember talking about it with my friends who hadn’t seen it the day before. I was trying to tell them how two characters in this film had spent nearly their entire adult lives in a prison only to be freed later. Once outside, one of them (Brooks) couldn’t cope with the change while the other (Red) managed to do better mainly thanks to one reason: He had someone waiting for him out in the world. Of course, i didn’t understand all these minutia as a school kid. Now, after having watched the film over 20 times since, i can safely create my own theories about the grand story expressed on the screen.
It’s weird how some scenes from the movie just show up in your mind while you are at work. Remember the famous scene where he bumps up the opera volume, much against the order, making all the fellow prisoners gawk in musical splendour? Or even the part where our hero finally reveals his mastermind with a hole in the wall? TSR is full of epic moments, one after the other. It’s ridiculous to learn that it was a BO failure and regained commercial ground due to DVD success. In fact, it held the record for the most DVDs sold before Finding Nemo (2003) swam away with the honour. But the actual justice happened with the rise of the Internet. That’s when people began to revisit TSR and acknowledge its beauty. Goes without saying, herd mentality affected this welcome change but an ignorant person won’t have the patience to go through 2.5 hours of awesomeness either. Precisely why those moments register into your self, your being, without you even realizing it. There are way too many aspects about this film—that sprouted in Stephen King’s mind and was shaped by Frank Darabont’s vision —which you can’t eliminate from your psyche.
And that’s why it’s great.
Speaking of which, i was going through the IMDb all-time greatest list recently and realized that The Godfather (1972) is back again trying to catch up with TSR. The former is at 9.2 today and the latter is at 9.3. This race is interestingly close because TSR displaced The Godfather as the #1 film on IMDb back in 2008 and has continued to stay numero uno while the #2 position has been fulfilled by several films over the past 9 years. Anyway, GOAT doesn’t matter as long as your ticket is winning. Let’s call it Messi Fan Complex. Or maybe Federerphile Syndrome.
PS. One more intriguing facet about The Shawshank Redemption is its all-male cast. There are barely any substantial female voice in the entire film. Also, happy Women’s Day.
