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"Fear is a shackle. Hope is freedom"
This is a very curious and instructive moment of this great history.
Only instructive not for those who were going to escape from prison, of course.
Don't ever do it like Andy Dufresne did if you really want to escape from prison!!!)
This film is called "Escape ..." in the Russian translation, but in the original both the book and the film still have a different, not so unambiguous name The Shawshank Redemption, "redemption" can mean "redemption", "salvation", "liberation".
But we have called "Escape ...". OK. Those. Our viewer is initially ready and determined that the smart and nice guy Andy Dufresne will somehow still escape from prison. Maybe he killed his wife and lover in a fit of jealousy (and the viewer only understands in the second half of the film that he is innocent), but still, he is a great guy and atoned for his guilt by suffering, even if he had one.
So let's remember. The end of the movie. The only witness who could testify in Andy's favor is killed (dramatic vicissitudes sharply downwards). Andy comes out after another many days in the punishment cell.
He turns to Red with a very strange request to find something somewhere when he is released. At dinner, it turns out that Andy asked and received two meters of rope from his prison comrade. (The vicissitudes are even lower).
End of the working day. Director's office. He puts the documents in the director's safe, cleans his shoes so that they "shine like a mirror", and goes to spend the night in his cell.
In the morning it turns out that he is not in the cell. (Oh! This episode is masterfully solved! The guard opens the bars and changes in his face: “Mother of God!” What the viewer does not see inside the camera, and many at the first viewing must have had the thought: did he hang himself?? I had.) But no. Andy Dufresne just disappeared!
The director came to work in the morning, but instead of his polished shoes, he found Andy's worn-out shoes in the box.
And then Red tells us how he did it. That evening, Andy decided it was time to run. Instead of documents, he put a bible in the director's safe, in which he kept the alpenstock for all the years. With this alpenstock, he dug a hole in the wall for 20 years.
Then he puts on the director's polished shoes and goes to the cell. Red explains that the guards didn't notice what he was wearing and adds, "Do you often look at someone's shoes?" And this is a very controversial thesis.
Many people pay attention to shoes.
(I read a curious thought somewhere. It has long been known that the subconscious of both men and women very quickly determines the sexual attractiveness of someone at the first glance. It takes seconds. But sexuality is very subjective. In addition to sexual attractiveness, male and female the subconscious determines something else: the rank, the place in the "hierarchy" of an individual of the opposite sex. And in men, these are two markers: clean shoes and a neat, short haircut. And allegedly in many prisons, "first-rank" convicts try to stand out precisely by clean shoes. And what else? The clothes are the same, and women also have two markers: hair length and heel height.
The longer the hair and the higher the heel, the higher the "rank". Those. a man or woman may not be very attractive, but occupy a high "rank". Perhaps vice versa. And there is something in it. I remember the film "Moscow does not believe in tears." «I can't stand it when a guy has dirty shoes!»)
So. Again, many people pay attention to shoes. And for prison guards, paying attention to the appearance of a prisoner is also a professional duty. OK. Lucky this time Andy.
Farther. When the lights are turned off in the cells, Andy runs. He needed a rope to tie his belongings and documents to his leg. Through a dug hole in the wall, he got into some kind of mine-technical room. Then he still needs to get into such a thick sewer pipe. To do this, he hammers it with a stone and punches a large hole in it. (What is the pipe made of? If it is made of iron, then it cannot be pierced. You will only leave a dent. Cast iron? It is strong, but fragile. Do you have a cast-iron frying pan? Try to break it with a stone. wall. Approximately 2-3 cm. Perhaps concrete. But it can also be strong, besides, it is reinforced. But the sound is metallic on impact.) And then, what a coincidence, a bad weather broke out, a thunderstorm, thunder blows on the pipe are muffled by thunder! Punch a hole. Shit fountains up. Although there should not be any pressure in the sewer pipes, and, indeed, the drains flow by gravity along the very bottom. Andy crawls through the shit 500 meters and is free. And here he is again fabulously lucky, there is no grate at the exit! The jailers did not foresee this.
Wow! What an incredible lucky Andy Dufresne. How many times did he get lucky.
Let's count how many:
1. An alpenstock was carried to him, with which he scraped a hole in the wall.
And no one heard or noticed it.
2. And for 20 years this tool has not been discovered.
(One knowledgeable person who is a foreman spent many years in our prisons, told me that the so-called "technical" is such a routine procedure in our Russian prisons. When all the cells are being searched, walls, floors and ceilings are being rapped with wooden hammers.)
But either the Shawshank guards are dumb or something. They were careless in their duties. In general, lucky Andy Dufresne. Here such a hole in the wall was simply covered with a poster with a beauty.
3. The cell in which Andy lived is the last one. Corner. And behind the wall is not a neighboring chamber, but the very mine-technical room. And if there was a neighbor's cell behind the wall, what would Andy do? Here is the question.
4. None of his own did not snitch that Andy asked for a rope for incomprehensible purposes.
Did he really need her? No. Surely he himself was able to find or make something with which to tie belongings to his leg. But asking someone is the risk of incurring suspicion on yourself. Snitches in prisons are commonplace.
5. The director didn't check what Andy put in his safe. And could.
6. Security did not notice what Andy was wearing.
7. The sewer pipe was not very strong. He was able to punch a hole in her. We have already mentioned the absence of a grating at the exit.
8. There was a thunderstorm and thunder, which drowned out Andy's blows on the pipe. What if there was no thunder? What is he? Did you listen to the weather forecast before escaping?
But why did Andy wear director's shoes?? To come to the bank office the next day in good shoes? He could buy them. He bought the suit.
Hear-hear the correct answer! Andy Dufresne swapped shoes with the director to show that dick goodbye! Exactly!
But. Andy, firstly, is very smart, and secondly, he is careful. The viewer cannot draw any other conclusion. And this feint of his and with the bible in the safe, and with the shoes - this is some kind of recklessness, a completely unnecessary risk that his escape plan and many years of titanic efforts will go to waste! How could he be sure that there would be thunder at night? what can break the pipe? No. That there won't be more obstacles that he couldn't know about? No.
Show "fuck" to director is great. But the main thing is to escape! And then to hell with her, with this muzzle. The headmaster's discovery of the shoes made an obvious escape that might or might not succeed. And so he could still buy time.
In general, in vain he came up with this with shoes ...
… But not in vain!!!
Truth and credibility in cinema is such a delicate thing. It is like a layer of skin covering the structure, the skeleton of history. And this skeleton is much more important!
Recall another postulate: amateurs make films to express themselves and their “inner world”, and professionals make films for the audience. Does anyone doubt that Stephen King is a professional? Great professional.
Great stories must have great goals and the tools they use to achieve them.
One of the main tools is what Hollywood calls suspense! (“Anxiety of anticipation, restlessness, uncertainty”). This is when the viewer must wholeheartedly worry about the main character! The authors achieve this brilliantly. And the rope, and the pipe that needs to be broken, and the thunder, and the fountain of shit that should not be - this is what works for this very suspense.
Goals are ideas that history has to prove. The Shawshank story asserts two universal ideas. And he does it in the most convincing way. First: "freedom is better than lack of freedom." Everything is clear here. Trite. But banal truths are the most true. What a wonderful comparison Red makes! “The plumage of some birds is too bright. It's a sin to keep them locked up." But even this thesis is presented in history by no means as indisputable. The fate of the old man Bruks, who spent half a century in prison, is shocking. The release became a stress for him that he did not survive.
Second."The triumph of justice." Evil must be punished. Evil is embodied in the director of the prison. Imagine if Andy Dufresne had just escaped from prison, even with the money. The director would of course be upset, and even possibly reprimanded. But it would be difficult to call it a triumph of justice. The story would have been fresh.
But the viewer longs for the triumph of justice! And the authors give it to us in full.
And that's what shoes are for! Get ready, crud. Shoes bye-bye. Put on my shoes! Your house is a prison! The fact that Andy Dufresne is innocent is half the trouble. But the fact that the director of the prison is a criminal is the trouble. He is a murderer and a corrupt official.
And in the safe, instead of documents and bills, there is a hole from a donut (ie, an alpenstock). And the viewer feels physically that the director's blow is enough now (brilliant performance by actor Bob Gunton). You remember everything. Now he is being arrested. Scraps of director's brains on glass. Total destruction! Shoes as a metaphor. Andy exchanged with the director not shoes, but places, “ranks”. How worried the viewer! Will all the trials make Andy climb into the noose? Not! It was he who made the director of the prison put a bullet in his head.
Here is the answer to the question.
As for truth and plausibility… How much prisons and camps cost, how much people fled or tried to escape, and there were stories of escapes even more incredible…
Genius movie.