TOOTSIE (1982)

Neha says

8 reasons why you should see Sidney Pollack’s 1982 drag comedy Tootsie that was voted as the second funniest American movie of all time by the AFI…

REASON # 1- Dustin Hoffman is a class act and while he plays a character Michael Dorsey quite like himself – “ a method actor” he also plays a female character Dorothy Michaels a.k.a. Tootsie quite unlike himself. His timing, energy and the nuances he brings to both his characters has you glued. In fact he is so convincing as a woman that I even forgot that it’s a man playing the part. You simply applaud his emotional commitment to his Mrs. Doubtfire- Dorothy Michaels.

REASON # 2- For a good comedy you need a fun premise and Tootsie milks its mad premise for all its worth without getting gimmicky or resorting to cheap laughs. What if a man parading as a woman to get a job on a soap opera falls in love with his female co-actor Julie (Jessica Lange) whose father Les (Charles Durning) falls in love with her/him? What a crazy pickle!!!

REASON # 3 -- Larry Gelbart’s script is a winner. While a comedy of errors is par for the course, Tootsie has a real story to back its fun premise. First we meet Michael Dorsey, an out of work actor whose perfectionism is misconstrued for an attitude problem. When his girlfriend Sandy (Terrie Garr) is rejected for the part of a female nurse on a daily soap opera Michael believes it’s his dream role. He auditions for the part, gets it and begins to live, eat, breathe Dorothy Michaels on and off the camera. While his female co-star thinks of her/him as a good female friend, he/her develops feelings for her. But in the process of being a woman he also develops a sensitivity and an understanding for the gender stereotyping that women have to contend with. When Julie’s father falls in love with her/him things get complicated. In a weak moment Dorothy tries to kiss Julie, Julie thinks she/he is gay and the film without loosing its focus even addresses homosexuality in the 80’s as well. Why does power make a woman feel masculine? Why should a woman be given derogatory nick-names like Tootsie i.e. darling while the same doesn’t hold for men? What are the subtle motivations that triggered the battle of the sexes? The film tackles all of this but doesn’t loose its primary goal of being an entertaining, breezy and sharp drag comedy.

REASON # 4- What sublime comedy!!! Be it the scenes with Michael Dorsey/ Dorothy Michaels with his/her agent played by director Sydney Pollack himself or all those hilarious comic moments that have her/his male co-actor and Julie’s father, Les making a pass at him/her. Wonderfully witty and unforced with memorable punch lines that are a byproduct of set-up and arise out of a heated discussion or an uncomfortable moment. Add to that the comic timing of its talent and the way in which they draw from each other’s energies without overcooking a gag moment and what we have are real comic sequences that we could anticipate happening to anyone in such a messy situation.
REASON # 5- Director Sydney Pollack needs no introduction but with his own unique style he brings a skillful tautness to the comedy and compassion to the relationships that emerge out of Hoffman’s “man in dress” farce.
REASON # 6- A great supporting cast as well. Bill Murray, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Geena Davis do their bits to complement the tour de force Dustin Hoffman.
REASON # 7- Even in the mask of a comedy, if there is a small little message in there then I like to give movies like these a brownie point. Michael was all “yang” before this “female experience” post which he had a better balance of yin and yang. His female counterpart is all “yin” but a single mother and bread earner of the family makes her nurture the yang in her. All of this yin/yang business is wonderfully summarized by Michael when he says “I was a better man with you as woman than I ever was with a woman as a man, you know what I mean?” It’s one of the most poignant and revealing comic moments that defines this film.
REASON #8- Tight, sharp and well paced, Tootsie has an infectious charm and confidence to it that never lets up. I’m still chuckling!!!

Ira says

“I don’t believe in hell. I believe in unemployment”, says Hoffman distractedly, as he feverishly packs his clothes for a weekend get away with the woman he’s fallen head over heels for. Seconds before he was searching for his pink nightgown and his buddy and roommate Jeff played by Bill Murray was staring at him in disbelief.

Now, if you thought Mrs. Doubtfire was funny, and if you haven’t seen Tootsie, you are seriously missing out! This is one of my all time favorite comedies (romance in there too) and a film that shows you just how darn talented, and versatile an actor Dustin Hoffman is (multi-time Academy Award nominee and two time Academy Award winner for Kramer vs. Kramer & Rainman). Hoffman stars as Michael Dorsey, a New York based, struggling actor, part time waiter and part time acting coach. Michael is a talented actor but unfortunately, he’s preceded by a reputation for being ‘volatile’ so no one really wants to work with him.

As Michael reveals in the crisp opening credits, a montage of acting lessons and miserable auditions, unemployment is a serious problem for actors (hell, I can tell you that! Not just in New York City circa the 1980’s but anytime and everywhere). So, when the competition is tough, when you just aren’t old, young, short, or tall enough, have been out of work for 4 months and totally desperate, you are pretty much ready to do what it takes to land a part. For Michael Dorsey that means finding a way to raise money to do a play and finally get the opportunity he feels he deserves. Little does he know what that would take.

When the creators of a popular American soap opera, (or daytime drama, as director Ron Carlisle, played suavely by Dabney Coleman would prefer) Southwest General hold auditions for the role of their female hospital administrator, they unexpectedly find someone or ‘something’, unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. A middle aged, feisty, independent, strong-minded actress named Dorothy Michaels whom they cast her right away. The only thing is, Dorothy is a man. Hoffman rather. Dorothy’s a hit, a champion for women everywhere, a new symbol of independent female characters on American TV, TRP’s are up and fan mail is pouring in. Only thing is Michael is living a lie, pretending he’s a woman in real life as well, and is meanwhile falling hopelessly in love with his co-star Julie Nichols played by Jessica Lange.

Love, sex, chauvinism, feminism, farce, absurdity, social commentary, and hilarious moments of irony, conflict, and desire come together in this intelligently wrought screenplay and through Pollack’s vibrant, energetic storytelling which always feels so personal, intimate and alive. I loved the sound score and the real time Manhattan flavor Pollack creates and I loved his leading man/woman. Hoffman plays a woman with comfort, spunk, and absolute control. With a superb supporting cast including Pollack himself, who plays George Fields, Michael’s agent (apparently Hoffman convinced him to do the role and it’s a good thing because they have some of the best and funniest scenes together!), Bill Murray as Jeff, another struggling artist, in this case a writer, Teri Garr as a hysterical actress named Sandy, and George gayness as Dr Brewster, a slimy, old school, deluded doctor on the TV show, this one is an ensemble, gender crossing riot. An actors delight, (all its principal characters are thespians after all and cross dressing as Michael says, being the biggest often most frightening challenge for an actor), but also a satirical, clever, unpredictable, laugh out loud film that kick started the trend of cross dressing in Hollywood and became a hallmark for drag films that have got humor, bite and soul.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

Neha says

It’s a scary future and trust Kubrick to make it churn and burn with violence as crime rates soar and society remains agonizingly at the mercy of hoodlums and the havoc they create. It sounds like comic book splash but Kubrick has other plans. The film follows the story of one such vicious and juvenile delinquent Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) who epitomizes the word “brutal” as stealing cars, bashing up rival gangs and “filthy, old, dirty drunks” on the streets, robbing homes and raping women brings him as much pleasure as Beethoven and Mozart’s classic notes do, Alex may be the self appointed leader of a quartet of like-minded cronies but when two of his gang members, Dim (Warren Clarke) and Georgie (James Marcus) no longer want Alex to call the shots and speak up, they need to contend with Alex’s wrath in a slow motion, superbly stylish fight sequence by the waterfront where Alex sets the record straight regarding who is the boss. Dim and Georgie quietly bide their time and take the impulsive Alex unawares during a robbery gone wrong, bashing him up and leaving him for the cops to find. Alex is tried and convicted with a 14 year jail sentence. Parallely the Government implements a crime reform program where criminals are conditioned to suppress their violent instincts through medicine and a series of hypnosis sessions. Alex sees this as a ticket out of prison even though critics of the program believe (and this is fascinating) that in the absence of choice, individuality and the ideology of liberty is severely compromised. But when Alex returns to the real world reformed or for some repressed by Government intervention he needs to confront demons from his past, deal with anti-Government agents who want to use him against the Government and wrestle with his instinctive evilness and his inability to do something about it.
“Duality as the Ultimate Reality” -Anthony Burgess
From the cryptic title to the brutal and nihilistic “ultra-violence” on display; from the trippy and contrast-rich color palette to the stylish and futuristic spatial design; from the carefully layered themes, motifs and symbols to the use of classical music where excerpts from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and even “Singin in the Rain” become psychological triggers to propel the plot forward; from Malcolm McDowell’s career-best and nightmare-inducing portrayal of Alex (Can’t get the climactic scene with the Minister of the Interior feeding a bedridden, hospitalized Alex out of my head!) to the use of language in the film- a strange mix of slang, Shakespearean pentameter and English cockney that may at first alienate and create a wall between us and the savagery before us but as we get accustomed to this alien world and the so called performance art of these hoodlums as they dress up and revel in the twisted satisfaction derived from their violent antics we also get subliminally dependent on a befriending voice-over where Alex doesn’t miss a beat to call himself “your friend and narrator.” Yes you eventually start to care for a character you’d love to loathe! As we watch Alex transform into a convict, we see the film easing out its Shakespearen undercurrent and in that process this character of Alex becomes potently real and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 bestselling novel transforms into a cautionary social commentary that warns of both the dehumanization of society and the politics of Government that may “sell liberty for a quieter life.”
I love how Act 1 and 3 are inverted mirror images of each other. Where in Act 1 we see Alex in his home, streets and a small country cottage called ironically “home” (well he sure is at home when he’s evil!) preying on his unwilling and unwitting victims in Act 3 we see him revisit the same places and his victims who willingly and wittingly prey on him. These symmetries do wonder’s to ingrain the themes, contrasts and dilemma’s of the story.
Intriguingly worded in the quote above duality is the driving motivator of the story- good vs. evil, neutrality vs. commitment, man vs. government, moral choice vs. science, humanity vs. violence, intellect vs. intuition and at a metaphysical level the gripping impact of these opposing forces succeed in showing us the dynamics of the world and the often crude reality of it. Many a time repulsion to the radical sort of “evilness” we see unfold before us leads to an implicit understanding of its opposite- humanity. The long and short of it is sometimes you need to be starkly reminded how not to be to instinctively know how to be! Sadly at the time of its release many people missed the subtext of the film and were entertained and even mimicked the brutality which led to the film being banned in England.
Bold, eccentric, bitingly satirical, dark and disturbing-this is a Stanley Kubrick special that reminds us why Kubrick was indeed one of the sharpest, futuristic and most experimental film makers of his time.

Ira says

Disturbing, deeply affecting, and quite, quite brilliant. A Clockwork Orange is quite unlike anything you or I have ever seen and either of us is likely to see. A dystopian story about Alex, a young sociopath brainwashed by an authoritarian British government, Kubrik’s film version of Anthony Burgess’ classic novel is unabashedly, aesthetically, and masterfully violent, graphic, satirical, moving, confounding and evocative. A dense, unforgettable masterpiece, and a film you cannot shake off. For a long time to come.

The films opens in the Korova Milk Bar and an extreme close-up of the riveting, artfully painted, freakish Malcolm Mcdowell playing Alex our protagonist, as the camera zooms out slowly, we meet his four droogs sitting against the avant garde backdrop of a trippy stark, white, blue and red bar and you instantly realize, you aren’t going to be getting your familiar morning cuppa at the movies here. As the discordant notes of Kubrik’s fabulous sound score strike up, jarring your ears, resounding through the screen and in your head, and that crystal clear, absolutely pitch perfect, deliciously articulated voiceover begins, appy-poly-logies, but you are going to be sucked in, whether you like it or not.

Unafraid to hit you with stylized, almost beautiful violence, frightening cackles of laughter, Kubrik slams you head on with his hoodlums at play; ‘filliying with travelers of the night, hogs of the road’, young adolescent boys with a penchant for the macabre, a love for the senseless, a fetish for physical assaults, and brutal rape. These boys aren’t just boys, they’re strangely but similarly attired members of a teen subculture, they’re gazing at the camera with an unsettling intensity, they’re drinking milk that’s spiked with mescaline and they’re just about to plan another night of the ‘good old ultra-violence’.

A world of dystopian disturbia and searing social, political and moral satire ensues. Bashes, blows, nudity, expletives, Alex’s weird mesmerizing language, take over your senses because Kubrick is just unapologetic, in his writing, storytelling and characterizations. Singing in the Rain isn’t singing, and in no rain of any happy kind here. As lyrical as it was in Butch Cassidy last week, it’s as polar opposite in this one. As inspiring as you may have found Beethoven’s 9th symphony as you may have till now (I know I did and have ever since my music appreciation course at college), that’s as disconcerting as it will become for you here. And as much as you appreciate the wild, whacky, and experimental in Kubrik’s visual landscape, camera work, frames and interpretation, that much cleaner, detailed, clear, focused, sharp and intended is his plot progression and narrative. The structure-less takes form, and every scene has a meticulous role to play in the grander scheme of a very important film.

So much has been said about A Clockwork Orange, so much will be and the very form and content itself allows for numerous, and diverse interpretations. Universal themes of authority figures, teen rebels, individuality, morality, the very nature of society, culture, and human nature, Alex’s anti-hero character, his obscure, cryptic, language called Nadsat, and the dystopian vision of a futuristic Britain, are all as relevant today in a modern context, symbolic of counter culture, subculture, and a secret criminal code or jargon much like a modern day mafia and the clash between society and individual. But the real genius here is in how that dystopian universe comes alive on screen and that’s where this one becomes special because its in the hands of a one of a kind director. Kubrik’s storytelling roars, it doesn’t just sail along pleasantly; it hurtles along steadily, with a startlingly consistent force and an absorbing, increasingly layered narrative structure.

Fantastic music, (always such a crucial part of the directors’ films), accompany almost ninety percent of the films action, arc and plot graph. A pop colour driven, experimental, 60’s style, techno inspired production design and great art direction balance hard hitting, often uncomfortable, bizarre imagery. (Remember the trippy scene in the music arcade where Alex picks up two young women and takes them back to his bedroom?) And top of the game performances led by an outstanding McDowell; add the tour de force and life in the film. Notice how every actor seems to be speaking at a raised tone of voice. No, its not because Kubrik doesn’t think we can hear them, its because he wants us to hear them, drink them, chew them, spit them, digest them. And FEEL them. What really struck me too was the sheer energy of the performances themselves. As an actor, I can tell you, each scene, each mini scene in fact, must’ve been exhausting. And exhausted you feel by the end of watching it all. Stripped, drained, bashed, at times as jumbled up in your head as Alex’s Nadsat words sound to you, but still as riveted by each image Kubrik controls and holds in front of you, you cant help but be shaken up. And, trust me, it wont be easy to shake it off.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)

Neha says

We all know a certain Mr. Steven Spielberg loves the theme of war- starting with his home movies about World War II when he was a young adolescent to his blockbusters- Remember the Nazi treasure hunters in Raider’s of the Lost Ark or those battle sequences in Empire of the Sun and more so the holocaust inspired and acclaimed Schindler’s List.. His 1998 Saving Private Ryan would not have had the same impact had it not combined Spielberg’s unflinchingly brutal vision of frontline chaos with his Schindler’s List cinematographer Janusz Kaminski’s edgy, documentary-style frantic and realistic execution. The film’s one juicy hotdog!!! The meat of the story has Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) on a public relations mission of finding a Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) the sole survivor of 4 brothers in the army. On either side of it, there are gruesome, gigantically drawn, graphic battle sequences that leave you numb with horror with an uncanny real time report of battle mayhem. If I didn’t know better and if there was no Tom Hanks in the frame-I might have just as easily assumed it was archival footage. Guts and blood spill, dismembered body parts, the smell of fear and the primitive survival instinct, the screams of soldiers crying out for their “mamma’s”, the tide turning red with blood in the Normandy beachfront encounter and those dramatic moments where sounds and voices drown out with Miller feeling like he’s smack bang in the madness of hell. It’s these visceral moments that haunt with their urgency, immediacy and that kinetic energy that in no small part is a product of the gritty camera, the razor sharp editing, the eerie sound design and effects and the uniformly excellent cast who do so well to nail that unpredictable randomness of war. The second mega battle sequence in the final act employs more strategy but Spielberg makes all the tactics collapse, reminding us that in chaos there can be no control.

The film raises some important questions as well- Is one man’s life more valuable than others? Is a public relations mission worth risking a soldier’s life? The army may want to get James Ryan to his mother but don’t the others have mothers as well? We see the characters in endless discussion and while Spielberg doesn’t resolve these dilemma’s what he does do is use them to reflect the way in which war dehumanizes man. Hanks does well to show us how distant he is and how he must be to do the awful things that need to be done. Jeremy Davies give the most memorable performance as a French and German translator Corporal Upham who really is the audience surrogate here with no real sense of what it entails to be behind enemy lines but as he joins Miller’s mission we see the realities slowly transform him. At first he fights it when he convinces the contingent to let a German soldier go but in the ultimate scenes of the film, face up against the heartlessness of war, his transformation is as convincing as it is required. Matt Damon when cast was unknown but he makes an impact. I can’t forget that one scene between him and Hanks where he tries to remember the faces of his dead brothers by reliving a memory that came so tangibly alive through just his words and emotions. Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant, Edward Burns as the argumentative Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew and Vin Diesel as Private Caparzo do well in familiar but freshly presented character roles.

It’s an original, real and frightening re-enactment of history and Spielberg excels in painting it in all of its brutal glory with a pro technical team, solid cast and a thought provoking premise that leaves us with that one recurring phrase used in the film- FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition). That’s the crux of war and that sure is the world of Saving Private Ryan.

Ira says
Technical Sgt. Mike Horvath: What are your orders?
Captain Miller: Sergeant, we have crossed some strange boundary here, the world has taken a turn for the surreal.
St. Horvath: Clearly, but the question still stands
Captain Miller: I don’t know. What do you think?
Sgt Horvath: You don’t want to know what I think.
Captain Miller: No, Mike, I do.

‘Thinking’ is something war rarely allows you the time to do. At least not while a battle rages on endlessly, unstoppable, deafening, and bloody, as in those stunning first 25 minutes of Spielberg’s epic film where through gritty camera work and superbly executed action, Omaha beach is left spotted and crowded with corpses and the ocean is bathed with blood. Not while you watch a man, friend, comrade, and fellow soldier burn, cry, be torn apart and lose his breath by your side or in your arms, or while you listen to ‘orders’, realizing those eloquent words of great war poets, echo with a grueling, harsh reality of a soldiers life; ‘ours but to do and die’, and not while you stand by helplessly watching as things get FUBAR i.e. f***** up beyond all recognition.

And yet, it’s amazing how much Spielberg’s World War 2 war epic, Saving Private Ryan, makes you think. With one of the most unique premises to come out of a war story, here is a film that questions morality, honor, duty and service in an evocative and powerfully humane way. When a troop of men under Captain Miller’s (Tom Hanks’) command set out to find Pvt. Ryan, to get him safely home to his mother, war for them becomes a ‘public relations mission’ and yet is still war, a constant minefield of danger and risk. Losing 2 men along the way, through perilous territory, literally on ground and psychologically, characters, relationships and dynamics begin to clash against each other. When the troop finally finds him, Ryan (played by an alive and strong Matt Damon, great casting choice), clearly saddened and upset by the news of his brothers’ death, refuses to leave his station of duty, not being able to see the ‘sense’ in why he should be thus privileged. Why none of the others, who fought as hard as him, should go on without a chance. And that’s when Captain Miller, played with a firm, quiet inner strength and mesmerizing solidness by Hanks, is at a loss. The one in command, suddenly vulnerable and unsure, needs a second viewpoint, help, and advice from a friend. Which is what Sgt. ‘Mike’ is to him. And what many of these men are to one another. ‘Brotherhood between soldiers’ as young Upham, a field mapper and rookie who’s taken into Miller’s troop as translator because of his knowledge of German & French, would call it. When Upham tells his fellow soldiers he wants to write a paper on this subject of ‘army brotherhood’, they scoff at his naiveté, idealism, and ignorance. The irony is the brotherhood exists, but becomes precarious, challenged, by national sentiment, by internal tensions, and by the system of hierarchy in the army through the course of the film. Relationships are hugely important in Spielberg & Rodat’s story.

Even as the action never stops, feels real, and accessible, so do Spielberg’s characters. Each etched sharply, each memorable, each drawing our empathy and somehow making us connect to them. Its not just relationships between the men themselves, but between country and them, home and them, and between these young soldiers and their mothers (we hear a soldier cry out to his mother at least three distinct points in the narrative, a clever and fascinating thread that is fully fleshed out in the wonderful Church scene where WADE recalls his childhood memories of living with his mother). I’m not saying Rodat gets Freudian and analytical on us, I just liked how he touches on that umbilical relationship and on the idea that war, a futile loss of innocent lives, is a reminder of something primal, taking you back to the innocence of being a child, and forcing you through the horrors of its surroundings, to grow up before your time.

When Tibbs (Poitier), colored cop from Philadelphia enters at the heels of the murder of Sparta’s most powerful and wealthy man, Mr. Colbert, he’s at first mistaken for his killer and brought in for interrogation by the slimy, eager to please Wood purely on the grounds of being a black boy sitting alone at a station in the heat and darkness of the night. In a brilliantly edited, tense scene at the station that follows, within seconds, tables turn and where Gillespie first taunts and mocks Tibbs, trying to size him up, Poitier glares at Steiger in a penetrative silence. As he flings his badge across to him moments later, an embarrassed Gillespie must turn from uncouth to civil. And Jewison kickstarts his film, pitting the white and the black of it, strongly against one another.

In this case, the mission is one man, so who’s to decide which life is finally more important than the next. War creates a limbo of anonymity along with its sense of national sentiment and Spielberg doesn’t make these ideas easy for us to answer. His atmosphere is real, raw, waiting to explode, yet simmering with uncertainty. The deaths of Carpazo and later Wade simmer with potent questions, difficult choices, and the inevitable conflict each leader has to face when it comes down to losing one of his own for the ‘greater cause’. in the quiet interlude of the Church where the men take rest, Spielberg chooses shadows, candlelight and clean frames creating a nostalgic, haunting tone that counterpoints much of the rest of the film. And in that unforgettable dog tags scene, as Miller’s men flip through their fellow soldiers identities, reduced to metal plates with names on them, for a moment you forget who’s the enemy and who’s on the same team. Then when Hanks, in a fit of desperation, having lost a man and found a wrong soldier, starts calling out for ‘RYAN’ at random, stumbles onto a partially deaf character, you laugh out of nervousness, releasing all that energy Spielberg builds to that moment.

The power of Spielberg’s storytelling for me is not just in the brilliant technical aspects, fantastic cinematography and action sequences, sharp, thoughtful editing, realistic, grey production and art design, or in the absolutely amazing sound score, sound editing and mixing, its in these characters. And I liked how Spielberg doesn’t lose touch, or let us lose touch with them, no matter what. Not when we yearn to know, almost as much as his juniors who Miller really is, where he’s from or what he did, not when and how we finally discover he is a school teacher to 8th graders and not when you feel Hanks whispers to you as he does to Pvt. Ryan close tot the end of the film, “Earn this. Earn it.” Spielberg, for this one, one of the most raw, moving, well –performed, absorbing war entertainers Hollywood has made in the past couple of decades, you have.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994)

Neha says
Writer-director Frank Darabont’s 1994 moving period prison drama ( based on Stephen King’s short story “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”) may have tanked at the box office, grossing just $ 28 million; may have been overshadowed by the other 1994 news makers that include Forest Gump and Pulp Fiction and may have landed itself a consolation prize in the form of 7 Academy nominations but in the league of cult classics that have names like Casablanca, Office Space and It’s a Wonderful Life you have one more- The Shawshank Redemption, a film that stood the test of time and has through home video, numerous cable TV airings, critical acclaim, word of mouth found it’s audience and it’s rewarding place in many a top 100 lists. It’s far too good a film to be ranked at # 72 on the AFI list but like the many mysteries of life the parameters that determine these rankings continue to baffle me.

Following the story of Shawshank Prison inmate Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) wrongly incarcerated for the murder of his wife and her lover, we see how Darabont manipulates the conventions of the genre, where violence, injustice, gang rivalries, corruption, homosexuality and physical abuse, along with a ruthless prison guard prototype in the way of Captain Hadley (Clancy Brown) and a “discipline and bible” loving, crooked, self righteous Warden Norton(Bob Gunton) present insurmountable obstacles but Andy lies redeemed by both a friendship with another inmate Red (Morgan Freeman) and his inner fortitude and patience. He refuses to surrender his hope for change or be “institutionalized” The gentle and understated manner in which Darabont contrasts the dark and doom of prison life with the foresight and cunning intellect of an Andy who manages to use the system to beat it, never wavering from Andy’s journey, reinforces how sometimes a story needs to be ultra specific for it to break the confines of character and become universally accessible. At some point the myriad ideas of faith, survival, friendship, freedom, redemption, love, loneliness, isolation, life and death, fear, persistence and optimism took me on my own personal journey of discovery and contemplation and when a film is able to do that so unpretentiously it’s a pot of gold. When you see Andy crawling his way through a sewage tunnel coming out on the other side triumphant in spirit or when you’re on the receiving end of powerful dialogues like “I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy living or get busy dying” you want to revisit it time and again to simply be inspired.

When the film released it was criticized for its 142 minute long length and slow pacing but for me I was too involved to even feel it. The necessary pace captures the passage of time so crucial to the story, character arcs, growth of a life-long friendship between Andy and the reflective Red and that churning endurance that eats away at the nmates, quietly and unhurriedly earning my sympathies. It’s only when you reach that dramatic and rewarding culmination where Darabont unleashes that contained energy do you completely appreciate the journey. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman add that heart, soul and humanity to their characters while James Whitmore is endearing as life-long inmate come prison librarian Brooks. Clancy Brown and Bob Gunton capture that misplaced moral superiority in their brutal characters with a penetrating satanic flair that makes a stronger case for the more empathetic characters like Freeman and Robbins. Technical credits are 1994 standard. The musical score is stirring; the production design and layout of the prison, the prime set piece of the story is top notch and does well to create a lived in atmosphere and the camera work never lets the setting get monotonous to the eye.

A true cinematic inspiration! Surrender to the experience and walk away the better for it! A film that reminds me why I love the movies as the writing, direction, performances, message of hope and spirit and technical chops come together in dynamic synergy to give us a love letter that celebrates being human.

Ira says

I remember watching The Shawshank Redemption for the first time when I was thirteen years old. And I remember how affected I was, and how, for many years hence, often to the bewildered expressions on my schoolmates faces, I would quote it as one of my absolute favorite films. Hell, I somehow feel a pang of righteous possessiveness even today, seeing it at the #1 spot on the IMDB list, hearing it quoted by people as their favorite film. It was mine way back when I was a rebellious, brooding, teenager! After all, that is the beauty of a truly great film, and no matter how often I watch it, no matter how much my list of top 10 favorite films has adapted over the past decade and a half, it still manages to hold its own for being one of the very few movies that makes me laugh, cry and feel magnificently uplifted. (Elephant Man and Chariots of Fire being the other two from my childhood that have the same impact). So much has been said and so much will be said that I feel I need to re-look, reassess and give you something fresh. And this time while watching, I chose to do so through a funny, not often recounted moment.

“Lord it’s a miracle! A man just disappears like a fart in the wind”. Desperate, comical, absurd, wonderful, exhilarating and bursting with the capacity of the human spirit to endure and overcome, Norton’s frustration when he discovers Andy Dufresne has escaped from Shawshank prison after 19 years, without a trace, and through a finely fool proof method, is priceless. And more than that image of Andy crawling through shit to freedom, ripping his shirt off and bathing himself in the pouring rain as a free man, more than even the lingering opening scene, inter-cut between Andy waiting for his wife and her lover and the courtroom where he is being convicted, where we don’t know whether he actually did it or not, (Everybody in Shawshank’s innocent, after all), and more than the unforgettable final image of the happy reunion between two central figures, tinier moments stand out and tickle you in Darabont’s story.

A story that explores not just themes of law, morality, humanity, friendship and the triumph of the human spirit but also of the darker, greediest, often inhumane, violent, primal, brutal, aspects of human nature. On Andy’s first night in prison, when Red loses his bet on him being the first one to crack and cry, groups of prisoners chant taunts and teases and one passing voice yells, “I don’t belong here either. They run this place like a f****** prison”. The sarcasm is sharp, frontal, visceral and almost escapable. And even while here is something astonishingly sincere and graceful about Darabont’s storytelling, the tone of satire and anger is just beneath the surface. And this time, I found myself to moments like these. Red being rejected from his parole, again and again. Old Brooks, prison librarian who’s spent half a century inside those walls attacking a fellow inmate Heywood, desperately hoping they would keep him in prison. Tommy Williams, a new young prisoner, taken under Andy’s wing meeting his ultimate fate.

Prison is a funny, strange and frightening, place, a place that turns innocent men, ‘straight like arrows’ in real life into crooks on the inside, a place that has the capacity to hurt and make life hell, a place as Red explains, you hate, get used to and then somehow, start to depend on. A place that gets all kinds of men and all kinds of criminals and spreads them out on the same clean slate. And that slate gets miserable, confining, and painful, with the ability to drive a man mad.

Andy & Red’s friendship and the performances of Robbins & Freeman (two actors that didn’t get their due that year because of Hank’s our de force, Forrest Gump) are what root this one and help it turn on its wide axis. Freeman’s voiceover, consistent, felt and moving in its simplicity begins the film, it also carries it. And I truly mean that. Things would’ve been different, incomplete, and somehow hollow without his voice over (a tool Darabont places in the hands of the only actor I believe who could’ve carried its force). Freeman lends his voice and narration loveliness, a lyrical but lofty timbre and an even optimism that carefully steers away from the sentimental and seeks the simply sincere.

Theirs is a friendship, which is unlikely and absolutely real, genuine and touching, one that stands the often-grueling test of time. From the moment they first meet, to the way they find instances to surprise or help one another, to Andy’s ability to stay untouched and infuse an inexplicable sort of calm to those men around him. While they drink beer on a sun kissed rooftop, tasting freedom for a few brief seconds, or while they listen to opera on the prison speakers resounding through the open field or even while Andy creates a centre of books and music, of learning, of the men’s redemption if you will, Red is the one though closest to Andy, who seems furthest to him. And even as the years pass and you can feel how close these two men are, you can’t also help feel how different they are. And that’s what really for me is special about this one. The way the narrative and Darabont’s writing, camerawork and editing constantly pit these two sides (along with the third of Hadley & Norton) against each other. Through the layers of politics, violence, corruption, greed, awful truths, scams, conspiracies and the friendships within the prison walls, 2 men, 2 views, 2 worlds, the outside and the inside, 2 realities and 2 ways of looking at life, emerge.

Hope is a dangerous thing Red insists. And Andy, thrown into a dark cell for a month, Mozart in his head, will never agree with him. Hope is all we have, and that is the truth. Get busy living people, he says.Do that people, and find films like this one, it won’t happen often.