Beaten To Redemption
I was watching the end of The Shawshank Redemption--the part where Tim Robbins escapes by crawling five hundred yards through sewage. Morgan Freeman's narration goes "500 yards--that's the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile."
I was going to note that they must think we're so dumb we don't know half a mile is 880 yards. But someone beat me to it. Check out the trivia section here at the Greatest Movies website--500 yards isn't even a third of a mile.
Now if only I could convince people it's not one of the Greatest Movies, we'd be getting some place.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:43 AM
5 Comments:
OK but maybe it was a comment on the unreliability of narrator as character -- putting mistakes on the backs of characters is the last refuge of te sloppy author
The 500 yard Shawshank Blooper was never a concern of mine. I immediately recognized it as being quite "shy" of half a mile, but it didn't matter. Maybe Red's including the endzones, or the parking lots between stadiums. Or maybe he just has a different notion of what constitutes "just shy". Doesn't matter...
...especially since that's not what this reply is about.
It's about your concluding sentence, "Now if only I could convince people it's not one of the Greatest Movies, we'd be getting some place."
Truthfully, I don't know if "THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION" is one of the "Greatest Movies". For one thing, I've only seen the middle portion about twice. And I haven't sat through the beginning since it was released in 1994.
But I've seen the ending about 15 times.
And I'll say this:
I believe this may be the most perfectly realized - read: "directed" - ACT THREE in the history of movies.
The reason I've seen it so often is, if I chance across it, I can't pull myself away. It's like having poetry unfold before your eyes and ears. The struture, the shot selection, the acting, the editing, the music, and - yes - the narration...
...I can't find a thing wrong with it.
It's elegiac.
And it's a prison movie!
And I don't even like prison movies!
But this 3rd ACT makes me marvel.
Frank Darabont has yet to - and may never - create another such perfectly crafted sequence.
But I think he's earned a lot of tries after putting together one of the "Greatest ACT THREE's in Movies".
Todd
P.S. A word about the final shot. While there has been much debate as to its nature - real or imagined? - the answer seems perfectly UNambiguous to me. The shot preceding it is Red staring out a bus window, with the final words: "I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. (beat) I hope." The word "dreams" leads to a dissolve to an impossibly idyllic image - how could it be anything but Red's "hope" imagined?
I agree, the final act is well done--by far the best part of the film. I was tuning in for it specifically when I heard the half mile bit.
I consider the film enjoyable but flawed, and I'd leave it at that if this bizarre cult hadn't grown up around it.
Go to IMDB and you see that more than a quarter of a million people (or should I say just shy of half a million) have voted on it, and named it the second greatest film of all time. This is ridiculous. The minor pleasures of this film probably wouldn't place it in the top ten films of the year it was released.
As per your suggestion, I did go to IMDB to look up "THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION" and, yes, being ranked as the #2 movie of all time is ridiculous. [NB: Your "just shy of half a million" line made me LOL.] Then again, this is a poll that shows "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" in the #4 slot, so how serious can we take it? What, was there a ballot-stuffing rush from Eli Wallach fans?
That being said, your comment that "The minor pleasures of this film probably wouldn't place it in the top ten films of the year it was released" was, to me, almost equally ridiculous.
The year was 1994. As a starting point, the Oscar nominees for Best Picture were:
1. Forrest Gump (which won)
2. Four Weddings and A Funeral
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Quiz Show
5. The Shawshank Redemption
Given, the Oscars don't necessarily reflect which films were the most "pleasurable" to watch, but "Shawshank" was easily more entertaining than at least 3 of the other nominees.
One thing's for sure: "Quiz Show" had nothing remotely as memorable as:
"Get busy living or get busy dying."
That's damn right.
Todd
P.S. Though it's somewhat beside the point, I don't believe I'm in the minority in this opinion. However, there IS one aspect of the movie in which I find myself in a distinct minority: I believe the original title of the story, which was the original title of the Stephen King "novella" upon which it was based, was, in fact, superior to its conventional-Hollywood-wisdom truncation. The original title was "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption", which I find to be both more intriguing and more memorable. Then again, I can't fault Raquel Welch circa 1,000,000 BC as the ultimate "Sugar Britches".
Funny, I've always felt that way about the title too. Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption sounds cool, and has a good rhythm. The Shawshank Redemption just sounds confusing.
By the way, I've just posted a list of ten films from 1994 that I think are better than Shawshank.
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