The Shawshank Redemption (1994) trailer

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Red: [narrating] I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

This week I want to talk about how even in the midst of darkness, hope and freedom can still spring eternal. The film shows that even in the face of terrible abuse, a person can still keep their humanity and be an inspiration to those around them.

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is wrongfully convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover, and is sentenced to life imprisonment in the notorious Shawshank prison. Although not initially suited to his new environment, he becomes friends with Red (Morgan Freeman) and slowly over the next two decades builds a life for himself within the prison walls.

Andy brings a measure of freedom to those around him by building a library, and through that a whole community, which brings light to the whole prison. He helps his fellow inmates become better people through his modelling of what true, inner freedom is and shows that true freedom isn't a matter of walls or chains, or the lack of, but a matter of how someone deals with nearly overwhelming odds.

All references come from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/?ref_=nv_sr_1

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