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肖申克的救赎
The Shawshank Redemption
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导演：弗兰克·达拉伯恩特（Frank Darabont）
主演：蒂姆·罗宾斯（Tim Robbins） 摩根·弗里曼（Morgan Freeman）
内容简介：
本片在逃狱电影中突破了类型片的限制，拍出了同类作品罕见的人情味和温馨感觉，因而在公映时成为卖座鼎盛的黑马。蒂姆．罗宾斯扮演被误控杀妻而判入狱二十年的银行家，他定下了逃狱大计，但表面上不动声色，反而利用他在税务上的专业知识跟狱方职员打成一片，又跟囚犯中的老大摩根．弗里曼结成好友，从根本上改变了狱中文化。全片剧情结构精密，全男班的演员个个表现出色，从头至尾掌握住观众的注意力。
Some birds aren't meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are just too bright.
有些鸟儿是永远关不住的，因为它们的每一片羽翼上都沾满了自由的光辉！
Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
希望是美好的，也许是人间至善，而美好的事物永不消逝。
以下是电影对白：
the shawshank redemption (1994) is an impressive, engrossing piece of film-making from director/screenwriter frank darabont who adapted horror master stephen king''s 1982 novella rita hayworth and shawshank redemption (first published in different seasons) for his first film. the inspirational, life-affirming and uplifting, old-fashioned ｓｔｙｌｅ hollywood product (resembling the birdman of alcatraz (1962) and cool hand luke (1967)) is a combination prison/dramatic film and character study. the popular film is abetted by the golden cinematography of roger deakins, a touching score by thomas newman, and a third imposing character - maine''s oppressive shawshank state prison (actually the transformed, condemned mansfield ohio correctional institution).
posters for the film illustrate the liberating, redemptive power of hope and the religious themes of freedom and resurrection, with the words: "fear can hold you prisoner, hope can set you free." darabont''s film is a patiently-told, allegorical tale (unfolding like a long-played, sometimes painstaking, persistent chess game) of friendship, patience, hope, survival and ultimate redemption by the time of the film''s finale.
it was nominated for seven academy awards, including best picture, best actor (morgan freeman), best adapted screenplay, best cinematography, best editing, best original score, and best sound - but it failed to win a single oscar. and the film''s director failed to receive a nomination for himself!
in the prologue before the film begins and pre-title credits play, a scratchy car radio (on the soundtrack) plays the song: "if i didn''t care" performed by the inkspots:
if i didn''t care, more than words can say,
if i didn''t care, would i feel this way,
if this isn''t love, then why do i thrill
and what makes my head go round and round
while my heart stands still...
to economically compress events during the credits sequence, a scene outside a cabin is intercut with a courtroom trial scene. [the year is 1946] a car is parked outside a cabin [belonging to a golf pro engaged in an affair with an adulterous wife]. during a dark, quiet night in the wooded area near the cabin, a driver (the woman''s husband) reaches for his oily, rag-wrapped gun in the glove compartment where bullets are also concealed. to fortify himself, he takes a swig of bourbon from a glass bottle. in the courtroom, the driver is identified as andy dufresne (tim robbins). he is interrogated by the d.a. (jeffrey demunn) and charged with murder: "mr. dufresne, describe the confrontation you had with your wife the night that she was murdered." the well-dressed, mild-mannered defendant calmly speaks: "it was very bitter. she said she was glad i knew, that she hated all the sneaking around. she said she wanted a divorce in reno...i told her i would not grant one." the d.a. rephrases andy''s response with his actual words: "''i''ll see you in hell before i see you in reno.'' those were the words you used, mr. dufresne, according to the testimony of your neighbors."
obviously, andy''s wife (renee blaine) was having an affair with glenn quentin (scott mann), the golf pro at the snowdon hills country club. according to andy, he felt confused and drunk, loaded his gun with bullets, but then after quickly "sobering up," he had second thoughts. on his way home, according to his testimony: "...i stopped and i threw my gun into the royal river."
the next morning, the bullet-riddled bodies of andy''s wife and her lover - in bed - were discovered. andy''s "very convenient" testimony and unbelievable profession of innocence, coupled with the fact that "the police dragged that river for three days and nary a gun was found," seem rather suspicious to the d.a. the water washed away all evidence of his innocence. his closing summary to the jury, illustrated with a brief flashback-montage of the adulterous couple''s passionate lovemaking, points to andy''s undeniable guilt:
we have the accused at the scene of the crime. we have footprints, tire tracks. we have bullets strewn on the ground which bear his fingerprints. a broken bourbon bottle, likewise with fingerprints. and most of all, we have a beautiful young woman and her lover lying dead in each other''s arms. they had sinned. but was their crime so great as to merit a death sentence?...a revolver holds six bullets, not eight. i submit that this was not a hot-blooded crime of passion. that, at least, could be understood if not condoned. no - this was revenge of a much more brutal and cold blooded nature. consider this. four bullets per victim. not six shots fired but eight. that means that he fired the gun empty and then stopped to reload so that he could shoot each of them again. an extra bullet per lover, right in the head.
the "icy and remorseless" man is sentenced by the maine judge (john horton) to "serve two life sentences back to back - one for each of your victims." the gavel marking the sentence pounds the screen to black.
the next scene commences with noisy, iron bars sliding open, and another door opening into a room where five men sit at a table. an unexpected scene, this is the parole hearings room of maximum-security shawshank prison, where a black prisoner/lifer (#30265) named ellis boyd "red" redding (morgan freeman), after serving twenty years of his sentence, receives his cursory annual review [in the year 1947]:
reviewer: you feel you''ve been rehabilitated?
red: oh, yes sir. absolutely, sir. yeah, i''ve learned my lesson. i can honestly say that i''m a changed man. i''m no longer a danger to society. that''s the god''s honest truth.
a mechanical stamp marks "rejected" in red ink on his parole records. in the prison''s exercise yard following the "same ol'' s--t" review, red begins his ubiquitous voice-over narration (of his recollections) - a voice-over that continues for the remainder of the film. he is the prison''s respected retriever:
there must be a con like me in every prison in america. i''m the guy who can get it for you. cigarettes, a bag of reefer if that''s your thing, a bottle of brandy to celebrate your kid''s high school graduation, d\*amn near anything within reason. yes sir, i''m a regular sears and roebuck.
prison sirens blast as a ritualistic prison event is heralded - the arrival of fresh, new prisoners in a drab-gray school bus. red recollects back: "so when andy dufresne came to me in 1949 and asked me to smuggle rita hayworth into the prison for him, i told him - ''no problem.''" a well-orchestrated, helicopter/aerial shot moves up from the arriving bus, ascends the main tower of the prison, and peers down into the prison courtyard where ant-like prisoners scurry toward the fenced-in arrival area to gawk and jeer while the new arrivals disembark:
andy came to shawshank prison in early 1947 for murdering his wife and the fella she was bangin''. on the outside, he''d been vice-president of a large portland bank. good work for a man as young as he was.
andy, dressed conspicuously in his banker''s suit, is seated in the back of the bus. as the bus turns the corner into the prison, there are five blue-uniformed guards waiting there - the chief captain of the guard, byron hadley (clancy brown) motions the bus into position. chained together, the prisoners exit from the bus, walk in single-file, and are lined up for inspection. andy appears tormented and terrified as he nervously walks into his new surroundings while surrounded by shouting spectators who shake the fence. the old-timer inmates bet "smokes" on the new ''horses'' and who will break first - floyd (brian libby) bets on "that little sack of s--t...eighth from the front, he''ll be first." heywood (bill sadler) chooses "that chubby fat-ass there, the fifth one from the front." red votes for andy ("that tall drink of water with a silver spoon up his ass" at the end of the line:
i must admit, i didn''t think much of andy first time i laid eyes on him. looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over. that was my first impression of the man.
andy glances up at the imposing walls above him - walls that will close in on his life - as he is marched in. in an admitting area, the prisoners meet mr. samuel norton (bob gunton), the self-righteous, bible-carrying warden:
you are convicted felons. that''s why they sent you to me. rule number one: no blasphemy. i''ll not have the lord''s name taken in vain in my prison. the other rules you''ll figure out as you go along.
hadley cusses right into the face of a disrespectful prisoner who has asked: "when do we eat?" the guard inhumanely jabs his baton into the gut of the man ("you maggot-dick motherf--ker!". the warden finishes his short, pompous introduction: "i believe in two things - discipline and the bible. here you''ll receive both. put your trust in the lord. your ass belongs to me. welcome to shawshank."
to remove all vestiges of their identity (or contamination) from the outer world, the new cons are made to undress, then hosed down in a steel cage with high pressure water spray, and deloused with scoops of white delousing powder. as part of their degrading processing, they are given prison clothes and a bible, and marched exposed and naked to their individual cells, their new homes in the cellblock - a three-tiered structure of concrete and steel.
the first night''s the toughest, no doubt about it. they march you in naked as the day you were born, skin burning and half blind from that delousing s--t they throw on you, and when they put you in that cell, when those bars slam home, that''s when you know it''s for real. old life blown away in the blink of an eye. nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it. most new fish come close to madness the first night. somebody always breaks down crying. happens every time. the only question is, who''s it gonna be? it''s as good a thing to bet on as any, i guess. i had my money on andy dufresne. i remember my first night. seems like a long time ago.
as part of their entertaining betting game, the inmates taunt and ''bait'' the "fishees" or first-timers - and "they don''t quit till they reel someone in." the one nicknamed ''fat-ass" (frank medrano) is mercilessly teased by heywood: "this place ain''t so bad. tell ya what. i''ll introduce ya around. make you feel right at home. i know a couple of big ol'' bull queers that''d just love to make your acquaintance, especially that big white mushy butt of yours." when the squeamish, hyperventilating victim wails and pleads despairingly: "oh god! i don''t belong here! i wanna go home," the prisoners chant: "fresh fish!" the oppressed fat-ass blubbers his complaints to hadley and is beaten with an unceasing rain of baton blows and kicked in the face until he lies still on the cold floor. the captain of the guard commands his lackeys: "call the trustees. take that tub of s--t down to the infirmary." red loses his cigarette bet to heywood:
his first night in the joint, andy dufresne cost me two packs of cigarettes. he never made a sound.
the next morning after a head-count in front of their individual cells in the cellblock, the prisoners are marched to the mess hall for breakfast. as andy moves through the room, one of the ''bull queer'' inmates named bogs diamond (mark rolston) gives him a salacious glance. as he begins eating a scoop of oatmeal on his metal tray, andy picks out a squirming white maggot with his fingers. a neighboring, elderly inmate brooks hatlen (james whitmore) inquires: "are-are you going to eat that?" with everyone expecting that brooks will eat the wiggling creature, he instead offers the "nice and ripe" maggot to a baby crow (named jake) nestled in the inside pocket of his droopy blue sweater - he is its caretaker until it matures and flies away to freedom: "fell out of his nest over by the plate shop. i''m gonna look after him until he''s big enough to fly."
heywood gleefully gloats about winning the bet and collects cigarettes as payment from everyone: "i want ''em all lined up just like a pretty little chorus line." but his victory is won with a deadly toll and price for fat-ass - "dead. hadley busted his head up pretty good. doc had already gone home for the night. poor bastard laid there till this morning. by then, hell, there was nothing we could do." in the communal shower room, bogs - one of the prison''s sisters, asks andy a leading question:
hey, anybody come at you yet? anybody get to you yet? hey, we all need friends in here. i could be a friend to you. (andy breaks away without responding) hey, hard to get. i like that.
andy''s assigned job is to work in the prison laundry room, where he "kept pretty much to himself at first. i guess he had a lot on his mind, trying to adapt to life on the inside. it wasn''t until a month went by that he finally opened his mouth to say more than two words to somebody." while red plays catch in the prison yard, andy ("the wife-killing banker" ambles over to break the month-long silence:
red: why''d you do it?
andy: i didn''t, since you ask.
red: (chuckling) you''re gonna fit right in. everybody in (here) is innocent. didn''t you know that?...rumor has it you''re a real cold fish. you think your s--t smells sweeter than most. is that right?
andy: what do you think?
red: i''ll tell ya the truth. i haven''t made up my mind.
having learned that red "knows how to get things," andy officially meets red when he makes a simple request for a rock-hammer - to resume his geologic "rock-hound" hobby from his "old life," although red questions whether the tool will be used instead for self-protection against bogs or for tunneling out of the prison:
red: i''m known to locate certain things from time to time.
andy: i wonder if you might get me a rock-hammer.
red: ...what is it and why?
andy: what do you care?
red: what if it was a toothbrush? i wouldn''t ask questions. i''d just quote a price. but then, a toothbrush is a non-lethal object, isn''t it?
andy: fair enough. a rock-hammer is about six or seven inches long. looks like a miniature pick-axe.
red: pick-axe?
andy: for rocks.
red: rocks. (andy flips him a sample rock) quartz?
andy: (squatting down and inspecting the ground) quartz. here''s some mica, shale, limestone.
red: so?
andy: so i''m a rock-hound. at least i was, in my old life. i''d like to be again, on a limited basis.
red: or maybe you''d like to sink your toy into somebody''s skull.
andy: no, sir. i have no enemies here.
red: no? wait a while. word gets around. the sisters have taken quite a likin'' to you, especially bogs. (bogs watches andy from afar)
andy: i don''t suppose it would help any if i explained to them i''m not homosexual.
red: neither are they. you have to be human first. they don''t qualify. bull queers take by force. that''s all they want or understand. if i were you, i''d grow eyes in the back of my head.
andy: thanks for the advice.
red: that''s free. you understand my concern.
andy: well, if there''s any trouble, i won''t use the rock-hammer. ok?
red: then i guess you wanna escape. tunnel under the wall, maybe? (andy laughs) did i miss something here? what''s funny?
andy: you''ll understand when you see the rock-hammer.
they decide on a price of $10 (which includes red''s normal mark-up percentage of twenty percent) for the "specialty item," and andy assures red that if he is caught with it during a surprise inspection, he won''t mention his procurer''s name. red explains the rules of his business ("you mention my name, we''ll never do business again, not for shoelaces or a stick of gum" and the origin of his nickname: "maybe it''s because i''m irish." as andy strolls away, red remarks on his carefree, shielded attitude:
i could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. he had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn''t normal around here. he strolled, like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world. like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place. yeah, i think it would be fair to say i liked andy from the start.
andy''s request is smuggled into the prison through a load of laundry at the loading dock, passed to red in his new stack of clean sheets and blankets, and then distributed to andy through brooks, the prison librarian delivering books to each cell. red is convinced that the rock-hammer would be useless in tunneling out: "it would take a man about six hundred years to tunnel under the wall with one of these." in the prison laundry room during a typical day, andy is summoned to fetch some hexlite from the stock area. there, he is assaulted by bogs diamond and two other men (the sisters) who taunt him and beat him senseless: "that''s it. you fight. it''s better that way." according to red, "prison is no fairy-tale world" and the vulnerable newcomer is repeatedly victimized (and gang raped?) during his first two years.
things went on like that for a while. prison life consists of routine, and then more routine. every so often, andy would show up with fresh bruises. the sisters kept at him. sometimes he was able to fight ''em off, sometimes not. and that''s how it went for andy. that was his routine.
then in the spring of 1949, after two years of imprisonment, the worst in red''s memory for andy, red and andy are selected from volunteers to begin a week''s work ("outdoor detail" to resurface the roof of the license-plate factory. in the fresh air of the outdoors - without walls, fences, or bars - while the cons pour and spread bubbling tar on the roof, captain hadley complains bitterly about government taxes that he will owe after receiving an inheritance from his rich brother''s estate. out of a million bucks, hadley will only see $35,000 and most of that will be taxed: "uncle sam, he puts his hand in your shirt and squeezes your tit till it''s purple." after overhearing the bitching, andy boldly saunters over to the captain and inquires: "mr. hadley, do you trust your wife?" furious with his audacity, hadley grabs andy and jerks him toward the edge of the roof to throw him off, until ex-banker andy adds - while dangling precariously:
because if you do trust her, there''s no reason you can''t keep that thirty-five thousand...if you want to keep all that money, give it to your wife. the irs allows a one-time only gift to your spouse for up to sixty thousand dollars...tax-free...you do need someone to set up the tax-free gift for ya, and it''ll cost ya, a lawyer for example...i suppose i could set it up for ya. that would save you some money.
for his part of the bargain in the uplifting scene, andy victoriously requests "three beers apiece for each of my co-workers...i think a man workin'' outdoors feels more like a man if he can have a bottle of suds. that''s only my opinion." the walls dissolve for the men as they sit in the sun and drink cold bottles of beer from iced buckets - feeling like free men again appreciating one of the simple pleasures of life - for a short while:
and that''s how it came to pass, that on the second-to-last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate factory roof in the spring of ''49 wound up sitting in a row at ten o''clock in the morning, drinking icy cold bohemia ｓｔｙｌｅ beer, courtesy of the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at shawshank state prison...the colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous. we sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. we were the lords of all creation. as for andy, he spent that break hunkered in the shade, a strange little smile on his face, watching us drink his beer...you could argue he''d done it to curry favor with the guards, or maybe make a few friends among us cons. me, i think he did it just to feel normal again, if only for a short while.
while playing chess with his ''friend,'' (a "civilized, strategic" game which andy relishes but red hates), andy asks red to help acquire alabaster and soapstone rocks from outside the prison yard to be carved into chess pieces: "the years i got. what i don''t have are the rocks." in his bunk later that night, andy carves a chessman for his new chess set - the piece is a noble-looking knight. with one end of his rock-hammer, he carefully scratches his name into the concrete wall, adding his mark to the other names there. [an important plot point is missing from this sequence in the film - shown later.]
in an abrupt scene change, the film gilda (1946) is being projected for the prisoners in the auditorium - the film clip begins when casino owner ballin mundson (george macready) shows off his singing "canary" - his new wife named gilda (rita hayworth) to his right-hand man johnny farrell (glenn ford). one of red''s earlier flashbacks/recollections was that andy had asked for "rita hayworth" in 1949. in an anxious tone during the screening, andy makes his request: "can you get her?" distracted by rita flinging back her red mane of hair, red replies: "it would take a few weeks...i don''t have her stuffed down the front of my pants right now, i''m sorry to say. but i''ll get her. relax."
on his way out of the auditorium, andy is again ambushed by the sisters and dragged into the projectionist''s booth. although he fights back valiantly, breaking rooster''s (gary lee davis) nose with a heavy film reel, he is threatened with a sharp steel spike if he doesn''t perform oral sex for them. using his wits, andy counters with a deion of his strong bite reflex: "anything you put in my mouth you''re gonna lose." instead of sexually brutalizing him, they "beat him within an inch of his life. andy spent a month in the infirmary. bogs spent a week in the hole." when bogs returns to his cell after a week in solitary confinement and suddenly flips his light on, captain hadley is there to pummel the defenseless predator and turn him into a vegetable: "two things never happened again after that. the sisters never laid a finger on andy again. and bogs never walked again..."
as a "nice welcome back" for andy when he returns from the infirmary, the cons gather rocks for their now-respected hero: "by the week andy was due back, we had enough rocks saved up to keep him busy till rapture. also got a big shipment in that week. cigarettes, chewing gum, sippin'' whiskey, playing cards with naked ladies on ''em, you name it, and, of course, the most important item..." - wrapped in a long, circular cardboard tube - "rita hayworth herself." andy finds the wall-sized poster/pin-up of the 1940s love goddess in the tube on his bed with a small note: "no charge. welcome back."
during a surprise inspection (termed "tossin'' cells" of andy''s room - with his rita hayworth poster exhibited on one wall - his cell is torn upside down in a futile search for contraband - the only thing slightly illegal is his rock carvings. the warden takes andy''s bible out of his hand and expresses support for the prisoner''s devotion to ure. andy''s favorite passage is: "watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh." (mark 13:35) the warden prefers: "i am the light of the world. he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (john 8:12) the warden strolls over to the poster and mildly disapproves "...but i suppose exceptions can be made." as he leaves, he almost forgets to return andy''s bible, handing it back with a meaningful phrase: "salvation lies within." [this scene in particular contains details which - only in retrospect - are extremely significant and hold many layers of meaning.]
shortly thereafter, andy (#37937) is summoned to the office of the warden, where his wife''s framed, needle-point sampler is prominently ed on the wall, reading: "his judgement cometh and that right soon..." to better use his education, andy is transferred from the laundry area and "reassigned" to brooks, the prison''s librarian for over 37 years. the broken-down prison library is stocked with cast-off reading material: "national geographics, reader''s digest condensed books, louis l''amours, look magazine, erle stanley gardners." another guard named dekins (brian delate) requests financial help - "settin'' up some kinda trust fund for my kids'' educations." later, brooks regales the other cons with andy''s re-birth as a respected financial planner: "all andy needed was a suit and a tie and a little jiggly hula gal on his desk, he would''ve been mr. dufresne, if you please."
andy has unrealistic hopes about expanding the library''s book acquisitions when he considers asking the warden for funds. norton is reluctant to "spend the taxpayer''s hard-earned when it comes to prisons." usually, additional prison funding is only approved for "more walls, more bars, more guards." although not directly supportive, the warden promises to mail persistent andy''s weekly letters to the state senate. now valuable as a financial accountant, he is allowed to set up an office in the library where he "did tax returns for half the guards at shawshank. year after that, he did them all, including the warden''s. the year after that, they rescheduled the start of the intramural season to coincide with tax season. the guards on the opposing teams all remembered to bring their w-2''s." at tax time during the month of april, andy uses red as an assistant tax preparer.
then one day in the year 1954, brooks goes beserk when his parole comes through - he holds a knife at heywood''s throat so he''ll be judged crazy and not be released into the frightening real world: "it''s what they''ve done. i got-i got no choice...it''s the only, it''s the only way they''d let me stay."
he''s just institutionalized...the man''s been in here fifty years, heywood, fifty years. this is all he knows. in here, he''s an important man, he''s an educated man. outside he''s nothin'' - just a used-up con with arthritis in both hands. probably couldn''t get a library card if he tried...these walls are funny. first you hate ''em, then you get used to ''em. enough time passes, it gets so you depend on ''em. that''s ''institutionalized''...they send you here for life and that''s exactly what they take, the part that counts anyway.
just before he departs the prison the next dawn, brooks also releases his full-grown pet crow/raven jake at the library window: "i can''t take care of you no more, jake. you go on now. you''re free." the old con steps cautiously through the main gate of shawshank, clutches the bar on the bus seat in front of him as he is transported to portland where it is even terrifying to cross the street: "(voice-over) dear fellas: i can''t believe how fast things move on the outside. i saw an automobile once when i was a kid but now they''re everywhere. the world went and got itself in a big d\*amn hurry." he is placed in a half-way flop house called the brewer, and is employed as a grocery-bagger at the foodway market. lonely, afraid, melancholy, and disoriented in the outside world, he has difficulty sleeping. he worries about the fate of jake as he feeds pigeons in the park. he even contemplates shooting the foodway manager, but he''s even too old for that. as he packs his few belongings into a bag, he narrates, in voiceover, that he plans on leaving: "i don''t like it here. i''m tired of being afraid all the time. i''ve decided not to stay." he climbs up onto a chair and then onto a table and carves a message into the wall with his pocketknife: "brooks was here." and then he kicks out the table from under his weight and hangs himself - his feet dangling. the end of brooks'' ''dear fellas'' note is read outloud by andy in the prison yard following his death.
to andy''s amazement after six years of request letters, boxes of books ("a charitable donation" are delivered to the supervisor''s office accompanied by a check for two hundred dollars from the state comptroller''s office. one of the guards, wiley (don mcmanus) grins and congratulates him: "good for you, andy." when the guards leave momentarily, andy savors his victory - he leafs through a stack of used record albums in a wooden crate and finds a boxed set of mozart''s opera "the marriage of figaro" - le nozze de figaro. in another redemptive act similar to the one on the rooftop, he places the record duettino: sull''aria on a phonograph player in the office, locks the doors and broadcasts the opera on the p.a. system throughout the entire prison to share a moment of freedom and make the prison walls dissolve. guards in a bunkhouse and prisoners on the open yard are stunned and hypnotized by the music as it floats from the loudspeakers over them and breaks the routine of prison life. the music transcends the day-to-day numbness - andy reclines back in his chair, with his arms on the back of his head and a sublime smile on his face, ecstatically experiencing the music and dreaming of freedom:
i have no idea to this day what those two italian ladies were singin'' about. truth is, i don''t want to know. some things are best left unsaid. i like to think they were singin'' about something so beautiful it can''t be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it. i tell you, those voices soared. higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. it was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. and for the briefest of moments, every last man at shawshank felt free.
incensed by andy''s disobedience - he increases the volume rather than turning it off, the warden punishes andy with "two weeks in the hole for that little stunt." andy is unphased by the harsh consequences since the music freed his soul, but red is fearful of becoming too hopeful:
andy: i had mr. mozart to keep me company. (he points and taps his head) it was in here. (and he gestures over his heart) and in here. that''s the beauty of music. they can''t get that from you. haven''t you ever felt that way about music?...here''s where it makes the most sense. we need it so we don''t forget...that there are places in the world that aren''t made out of stone, that there''s, there''s somethin'' inside that they can''t get to, that they can''t touch. it''s yours.
red: what are you talkin'' about?
andy: hope.
red: let me tell you something, my friend. hope is a dangerous thing. hope can drive a man insane. it''s got no use on the inside. better get used to that idea.
andy: like brooks did?
in 1957, red is brought before the parole board for his annual review after thirty years as an inmate serving a life sentence - and again is rejected. andy has also served ten years of his own sentence: "you wonder where it went. i wonder where ten years went." andy presents red with a "parole-rejection present" - a harmonica - something red played as a younger man but then lost interest for in prison. to mark the passage of time through various poster-girls, andy also receives "a new girl" for his ten-year anniversary - marilyn monroe astride a subway grating with her dress blowing up - from the seven year itch (1955). in the dark anonymity of his cell, red holds the harmonica briefly to his mouth and only dares to blow into it once - he reacts by gripping it inside his clenched hand.
when a work crew knocks through a wall during the library expansion and creates a huge gaping hole through which light shines, red narrates how the state appropriations committee voted an annual payment of five hundred dollars to andy on account of his persistent letter-writing campaign to improve prison life: "and you''d be amazed how far andy could stretch it. he made deals with book clubs, charity groups, he bought remaindered books by the pound." the convicts sort through the books for the new library to be named: brooks hatlen memorial library. heywood mispronounces "the count of monte crisco...by alexandree dumb-ass." by 1964, "andy had transformed the storage room smelling of rat turds and turpentine into the best prison library in new england, complete with a fine selection of hank williams" - heywood''s favorite singer. due to andy''s efforts in improving the prison and freeing the minds of the inmates, warden norton sanctimoniously takes all the credit for his "famous inside-out program" with the media:
...no free ride, but rather a genuine, progressive advance in corrections and rehabilitation. our inmates, properly supervised, will be put to work outside these walls performing all manner of public service. these men can learn the values of an honest day''s labor while providing a valuable service to the community - and at a bare minimum of expense to mr. and mrs. john q. taxpayer!
the program is a scam for the warden - the real criminal - who skims money off the top from different building projects, and accepts bribes and kickbacks for not using his "slave labor" to "underbid any contractor in town." andy becomes a valuable asset as he keeps the laundered, financial records for the warden: "and behind every shady deal, behind every dollar earned, there was andy, keeping the books." manila envelopes with money are stashed in the warden''s wall-safe - hidden behind the religious slogan sewn in the needle-point sampler. andy''s function is to camouflage the "river" of corrupt money:
what you hear isn''t half of it. he''s got scams you haven''t even dreamed of. kickbacks on his kickbacks. there''s a river of dirty money running through this place...i channel it, filter it, funnel it - stocks, securities, tax-free municipals - i send that money out into the real world and when it comes back...by the time norton retires, i will have made him a millionaire.
to avoid the inevitable paper trail that would lead the fbi and irs to andy or the warden, the smart ex-banker/convict creates a guilty and "silent, silent partner" named randall stevens - a phantom person only on paper: "he''s a phantom, an apparition...i conjured him out of thin air. he doesn''t exist, except on paper...mr. stevens has a birth certificate, driver''s license, social security number...the funny thing is, on the outside, i was an honest man, straight as an arrow. i had to come to prison to be a crook."
when the sirens sound and a new busload of prisoners are brought in with a new generation of modern-day prisoners, one of them is black side-burned tommy williams (gil bellows) who "came to shawshank in 1965 on a two-year stretch for b and e. that''s breakin'' and enterin'' to you. cops caught him sneakin'' tv sets out the back door of a jc penney. young punk, mr. rock ''n'' roll. cocky as hell." at a meal, andy - now one of the oldtimers - suggests that tommy find "a new profession" since his thieving career hasn''t been very successful. with a "young wife and new baby girl," tommy seeks andy for help in fulfilling "a high school equivalency" education. andy, who doesn''t "waste time on losers," rejects tommy''s call for help until he promises "one-hundred percent - nothing half-assed."
to pass the "slow-time" of the prison, andy adopts tommy as his "new project" or disciple. as his mentor, he teaches him the alphabet to restore his hopes and dreams through education - it was "a thrill to help a youngster crawl off the s--theap...in prison, a man''ll do most anything to keep his mind occupied." in a slow pan around andy''s cell, the rock chess pieces on his chessboard are almost entirely carved, and a new, colorful poster-girl adorns the wall - raquel welch as a cavewoman from the film one million years, b.c. (1966). but tommy has a short fuse when he fears he has failed the equivalency exam. |
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发表于 2006-4-20 21:00
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