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Interpretation
Englisch

Gymnasium Köln

2, Dr. Hildebrand, 2013

Tommy S. ©
2.40

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ID# 51130







Shawshank Redemption – the escape scene

The scene I analysed was the escape scene of the film “Shawshank Redemption” (1994)directed by ( Darabont). This scene involves the main character Andy Dufraine, his cell neighbour and friend Red, the prison director Norton, the captain of the guards, Hadley, and his officer, Heywood.

The beginning of the scene starts with the morning counting of all prisoners, where Andy Dufraine didn’t appear in front of his cell. I’ve chosen to analyse this scene because it involves several film techniques, which create together a new over al effect that helps to understand the acting of the characters.

In this scene, I’ll analyse in detail the techniques of dialogue, mice on scene, diegetic sound, non-diegetic music, and the non-diegetic dialogue of Red during Andy’s preparations for his escape, lighting, costume, and camera shots and angles.

The first part of scene involves the guards and the prison director, Norton, as Andy is found as disappeared at the morning counting out of his locked cell. As the alarm is released and Norton comes onto the scene, he is most of the the time shown in a close up shot from a low angle, and he has nearly all the time a frowned forhead.

This makes him shown as the clearly important person and he is angry about that that no one does what he is told to do. He appears as nearly crazy in his anger, as he gets the report of officer Heywood, that Andy wasn’t in his cell with the words: “Don’t say that again to me Hey-“ – “But, Sir he wasn’t” – “I can see that Hey!”.

But the most earth scattering fact for Norton is in my eyes that the guards didn’t already find out how Andy escape, Norton comes just to get the explanation, and he doesn’t come to find it. That’s the job of Officer Heywood, what causes the view from Captain Hadley to Officer Heywood, whereby over the head of Officer Heywood on the cell wall is hanging a picture of Albert Einstein, naturally with outstretched tongue, what shows, that the Officer has got the bad cards in this game.

But the second possible result of this picture of Albert Einstein is, that it could also show the face of Andy Dufraine to the guards, because he was actually a genius, as he has hidden the escape tunnel behind a big wallpaper of Rachel Welsh, a famous actress.

The problem was, that the guards and Norton trusted too much into Andy, because he has made their tax explanations, and the guards accepted the big wallpaper, even as it was against the prison rules. But finally, Norton begins to become very angry, and throws with three of Andy’s chess figures, two onto the guards, and one onto the wallpaper, what breaks a small hole into it, and the sound of the stone rumbling down the tunnel is very obvious, and in these moments, Norton is shown the first time without a frowned forehead, so the rumbling sound of the stone work a little like the felt sound, when somebody gets an idea.

It shows that Norton is only satisfied when he finds the solutions on his own. This makes him to a very monocratic person, who can’t trust into other persons then himself. Overall, the scene creates an effect on cheating, because Andy used his responsibility and seriousness to cheat other people.

As soon as the escape tunnel is found, the hunt after Andy begins. This is shown by a transition of Police cars with loud sirens running along the outside of the prison. Additionally, the scene is underplayed with fast string music, at about 147 beats/minute, what reminds me to a fast Marathon runner, what could represent a running away person, like an escaped prisoner.

The camera switches to a waste-water-basin in front of the prison, where police troops find Andy’s prisoner cloths, a bar of soap and his Rock hammer. As soon as the artefacts are collected, a photo is taken with a bright flash light and shows the scene in sepia, like in a Newspaper.

This shows that Andy’s escape is now well known all around the country and everyone would easily recognize him. Additionally, as soon as the photo is taken, the melody of the non-diegetic music swaps into the French Horns, and Horns are usually an instrument of hunters.

But also Andy won’t come back on himself, because he is running away with 147 beats/minute. The last part of the escape scene shows the escape itself. During the film shows the preparations of Andy’s escape, Red tells the spectator his version of how Andy did it in a non-diegetic monologue, because the prisoners wouldn’t have given newspapers with the articles about the escape.

But Red knew that Andy got a Geology Rock hammer and a big wallpaper of him, so he could explain himself the process. During Red’s monologue fall the words: “Geology is all about pressure and time.” To take it to Andy’s situation, Andy was always under the pressure avoiding the discovery of the tunnel over a long period of time, in this case, 19 years.

Otherwise he would have been faced serious consequences. It must have been an enormous process of digging at night time instead for sleeping, because at day time, it would have been very obvious because he would have been seen, but at night all lights were out, so he was in this time safe of discovery.

This pattern of his face repeats one time as he cracks the waste water channel to crawl through it into freedom, because he has to follow the lightning in the storm outside, otherwise he would have been heard. So he has to crack the channel with the thunder, and therefore he is in the moments of lightning bright alighted, but dark in between.

During the whole escape, the number on his prison cloths, which was good visual in the beginning, never becomes seen. This shows that Andy doesn’t dare to stop now anymore until he is in freedom. Finally in freedom and outside the prison in the waste-water-basin, he takes off his prison cloths, to really underline that he is now in freedom, and the climax of the scene is reached as the camera shows him in a birds eye shot, where he is fully alighted, what shows, that he has reached his goal to escape.

In Conclusion the analysed help to understand the protagonist, Andy Dufraine, who came innocent into the prison, and his antagonist, prison director Norton, who wants to keep sure that the corruptibility of him and his guards isn’t discovered, and therefore keeps an innocent person in custody.



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