请从此页开始答题： Review of The Shawshank Redemption 1. Background Adapted from Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption , the Shawshank Redemption is not a Reiner movie per se . It is a production of Castle Rock Pictures (Reiner's film company), and ranks among the best filmed versions of any King stories to date . Published in 1994 , it nearly defeated Forrest Gump in the Oscar award.Filmed on location in a disused Ohio prison, the Shawshank Redemption is set in a place of perpetual dreariness. What little color there is drab and lifeless (lots of grays and muted greens and blues) , and there are times when the film is a shade away from black-and-white (give credit to cinematographer Roger Deakins, a longtime Cohen brothers collaborator) . First time feature director Frank Darabont helms a fleet of impressive performances. In this movie , Red narrates a fantastic story happened to Andy , a reserved banker , who is wrongly judged and put into Shawshank Prison for life sentence . Andy survives from the si sters’ sexual harassment , then voluntarily offer financial service to those guards and warden ; on the basis of the clout he thereby acquires , Andy subsequently transforms the prison library into a source of learning and contact with the outside world for all the inmates . After the dubious death of the young mate , aware that his release is out of the question , Andy strengthens his will to gain freedom by his own hands. 39 years later , in a storming night , crawling through the tunnel he chipped for unknown years and a 500 hundred yards sewer, Andy manages escaping and finally arrives Zihuatenejio , a fairy place in Mexico by the Pacific Ocean . The Shawshank Redemption is not a depressing story .There is a lot of scalding irony and humor in it, and warmth in the friendship that builds up between Andy and Red .学号：姓 名：系：专业：班 级：装订密封线考生答题不得出现红色字迹，除画图外，不能使用铅笔答题；答题留空不足时，可写到试卷背面；请注意保持试卷完整。

There is even excitement and suspense, although not when we expect it. But mostly the film is an allegory about holding onto a sense of personal worth, despite everything. If the film is perhaps a little slow in its middle passages, maybe that is part of the idea, too, to give us a sense of the leaden passage of time , before the glory of the final redemption . As to the perfect performance in this movie , the several leading characters makes great contributions.Tim Robbins, as Andrew Dufresne, plays the wrongly convicted man with quiet dignity. Andy's ire is internal; he doesn't rant about his situation or the corruptness of the system that has imprisoned him. His unwillingness to surrender hope wins him the admiration of some and the contempt of others, and allows the audience to identify with him that much more strongly.Ellis Boyd Redding (Morgan Freeman), or Red , as his friends call him, is the self-proclaimed Sears and Roebuck of the Shawshank Prison (for a price, he can get just about anything from the outside). His is the narrative voice and , for once, the disembodied words aid, rather than intrude upon , the story . Serving a life sentence for murder, Red is a mixture of cynicism and sincerity - a man with a good soul who has done a vile deed . His friendship with Andy is one of The Shawshank Redemption's highlights.Ultimately , the standout actor is the venerable James Whitmore, doing his finest work in years . Whitmore's Brooks is a brilliantly realized character , and the scenes with him attempting to cope with life outside of Shawshank represents one of the film's most moving and effective sequences.2. ThemeThe Shawshank Redemption has nothing to do with love , but a film about friendship , hope and freedom .Hope, more than anything else, drives the inmates at Shawshank and gives them thewill to live. Andy’s sheer determination to maintain his own sense of self-worth and escape keeps him from dying of frustration and anger in solitary confinement . Hope is an abstract , passive emotion , akin to the passive, immobile, and inert lives of the prisoners. Andy sets about making hope a reality in the form of the agonizing progress he makes each year tunneling his way through his concrete cell wall . Even Andy’s even-keeled and well-balanced temperament, however, eventually succumb to the bleakness of prison life. Red notes that Tommy Williams’s revelation that he could prove Andy’s innocence was like a key unlocking a cage in Andy’s mind , a cage that released a tiger called Hope.This hope reinvigorates Andy and spreads to many of the other inmates in the prison. In his letter addressed to Red, Andy writes that “hope is a good thing,” which in the end is all that Red has left . Red’s decision to go to Mexico to find Andy is the ultimate proof of Red’s own redemption, not from his life as a criminal but from his compromised state, bereft of hope and with no reason to embrace life or the future. Red’s closi ng words, as he embarks tentatively onto a new path , show that hope is a difficult concept to sustain both inside the prison and out .Never a moment dose Andy cease his hope . It is still impressive that the peaceful and quiet smile appears on Andy’face when he watch his inmates drinking his cool beers freely and when he immersed in Mozart’ Le Nozze di Figaro . His inner hope stimulates him keeping forward regardless of the cruel reality . And hope is his gift to his friend Red, who no longer even tries to impress the parole board at his hearings . The power of hope can never be neglected . Hope is a good thing , maybe the best of things , and no good thing ever dies .3. Conflicts3.1 Bible VS Rock hammerWarden Norton embodies the hypocrisies and contradictions of the penitentiary system . The national exposure and adulation he gets for his “Inside-Out” program belies and conceals the corruption that prevails during his tenure and the campaign of threats, intimidation, abuse, and excessive cruelty he employs to maintain control of the inmates. At times aligned with images of death , his face is compared to a cold slate tombstone—Norton is a self-deluded despot who justifies his exploitation and the promotion of his self-interest at the expense of others in the name of his faith and the fire-and-brimstone Bible passages he often quotes."Salvation lies within," advises Warden Norton at one point . Norton disguises his hypocrite . In western world , the Bible leads the mortal to the Paradise . Ironically , Norton commits suicide when his ugly deal publicized to the media . “HIS JUDGMENT COMETH AND THAT RIGHT SOON .” Norton pays his life for his vicious doings .As to a rock hammer , nobody would connect it with chipping a tunnel out the prison , since it is believed to spend 600 years to finish the task . Andy spends no more than 19 years . It is the rock hammer , to be more precise , his faith and hope , not the bible , saves him out . Bible can not save everyone , but to teach them to self-save .3.2 Hope VS Institution“Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free .” The old Brooks is a typical example to be institutionalized . He serves as a librarian in the prison for 50 years or so and he becomes used to it . He fears the outside world . He gets used to lock himself in the prison . Everything changes so that Brooks dosen’t know how to live in an alien outside world . Poor Brooks hangs himself . “Believe what you want. These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. After long enough, you get so you depend on 'em. That's "institutionalized."” Red’ words is to the point , and also it defines his very being . He fears . He would rather be the very guy in the prison instead of nobody outside .When he finally realizes the hope underlying in Andy’ mind , he begins to treat things differently . The power of hope defeats institution .4. Analysis of the intrinsic cause ---Andy’ charactersBefore his prison life , he is a superior banker , lived a life with fame and fortune . The impression Andy leaves is calm and upright , introverted and uptight , wordless and thoughtful ,meticulous and patient .He is extraordinary in his work , but fails in his marriage . “ANDY DUFRESNE, mid －20’s, wire rim glasses, three－piece suit. Under normal circumstances a respectable , solid citizen ; hardly dangerous , perhaps even meek . But these circumstances are far from normal . He is disheveled , unshaven , and very drunk . A cigarette smolders in his mouth . His eyes, flinty and ha rd , are riveted to the bungalow up the path .” His wife , had an affair with a famous golf pro , and asks divorce . Though Andy is nearly mad at his wife’s misbehav ior , he doesn’t surrender or beg her to stay . He raises a bot tle of bourbon and knocked it ba ck.. Andy just stands and listens, devastated . He doesn’t look like much of a killer now ; he’s just a sad little man on a dirt path in the woods , tears streaming down his face , a loaded gun held loosely at his side . A pathetic figure , really .Andy confesses his inner heart with Red one day . To his wife , Andy is a hard man to know , like a closed book . Andy loves her , but he just doesn’t know how to express it . He always seems lonely and sober , never talked much . Facing such a humiliatio n , he drowns his sorrow in liquor . He isn’t mad enough to kill his wife , though that idea comes to him once but eventually he gives up .He always bears everything quietly , and receives everything without any complaints . Even in the courtroom , where everything goes against him , he still speaks in soft, measured tones . Andy quietly accepts his unjust imprisonment for two life sentences , calmly . Maybe he won’t be sentenced all life if he defends for himself andbehaves a little more innocent , however , he dose not . Maybe he talks more with his wife , he would have a perfect family , however , he dose not . That is his characters , otherwise , he would not be so thoughtful but lonely . It is partially his characters led to his misfortune . To some extent , Andy is the product of a society that stresses hard work and dedication to ascribed statuses.At the same time , it is his characters help himself survive in the brutal prison . He is patient , meticulous . Andy is that kind of bird that can never be trapped in a cage . All prisoners in Shawshank are institutionalized except Andy . He strolles like a man in a park without a care or worry in the world , looked as if “he wore an invisible coat that could shield him from the prison” . Unlike the o ther prisoners at Shawshank , Andy tries to maintain ties to his life outside the walls and simply refused to resignedly accept his role as a prisoner . Andy tells Red at one point , “Better to have Sunday expeditions here (in the prison yard)than no Sunda y expeditions at all .”Nothing can stop Andy’ pursuit for freedom . When it goes to the ending part , Andy’ willing becomes more stronger . Maybe his plan begins as soon as he steps into the prison . He closely approached Red to get a rock hammer , which used to chisel a hole to the outside . His hobby of carving rock sculptures covers his real purpose and shields the sound of chiseling the wall . Andy vividly illustrates his intention to possibility . When the inmates tarring a prison proof , Andy offers unsolicited advice to one guard having financial problems , advice grounded in his own past as a banker ,on condition that three beers apiece for his co-workers .Then he earns a special status in Shawshank by becoming a tax consultant to the guards and warden . His talent slowly earns him the respect of his fellow inmates and even the prison staff . He starves off the forces of institution and remains a free man in spirit if not in flesh . He keeps writing to the State Senate and request funds directly from them Once every week .10 years letters finally made Andy be able to rearrange the prison library , where he gets touch from the outside world . He gradually gains more and more freedom , more and more advantageous to his plan . After39 years in prison , when everything is preparatory , Andy gets escaped away from the prison in a storming night . He indeed fulfills his ambition . He obtains his freedom .Andy’s persistence , patience , prudence ,as well as his wise contribute to his glorious redemption . Without them , Andy would be institutionalized and never dream for hope and freedom .References--- James Berardinelli 2007-07-31The Shawshank Redemption review --- Roger Ebert 2007-07-31The Shawshank Redemption review--- Stephen Edwin King 2006-7 人民文学出版社--- 王镇平AN ADV ANCED VIDEO COURSE 85-89。