Introduction
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Commentary
The editing heightens the sense of impending tragedy. Red's worried face DISSOLVES into Andy sitting miserably on his bed; CU of the rope in his hand, TILT UP to his impassive face, DISSOLVE to Red. FADE to BLACK. Chapter 19: He's not here CUT to morning. At the morning's head-count, Andy doesn't emerge from his cell, and the chief bull guard Haig is glaringly angry: "You'd better be sick or dead in there, I shit you not. Do you hear me?" The scene cuts away as he exclaims: "Oh, my Holy God" at the entrance to the cell. CUT to the warden opening up his shoebox to pull out his shiny black shoes - and instead finding Andy's worn work boots. Sirens sound. The warden can't believe Haig's words: "He just wasn't here." He wants all men on this level to be questioned, especially him, pointing to Red. Red is brought into Andy’s cell and is asked if he knows anything. Truly, Red doesn’t. Astounded by the inmate's disappearance, Norton mocks what an evangelist might say:
The chess piece reveals Andy's miracle - the rock punctures a small hole in the poster and disappears into the supposedly solid wall. The warden pushes his finger - and then his whole hand and arm into the torn side of the Raquel poster. He rips off the poster - from the perspective of inside the tunnel, the camera pulls back to reveal the passageway through which Andy escaped. CUT to searchers, dogs and river:
Flashback A flashback reveals how Andy accomplished the amazing feat. When he first carved his name into the concrete wall in 1949, a chunk of the concrete fell to his feet - and stimulated him to patiently and meticulously carve a way out:
That last night in 1966 in the warden's office, while Norton is dialling the combination to open the wall safe, Andy conceals the real black ledger and files in the back of his pants and puts replicas into the safe. He wears Norton's black, shiny shoes back to his cell, and his prison clothes cover Norton's shirt and tie underneath. As part of his well-executed plan, he places the incriminating records and his chess pieces (and the warden's clothes) into a large, sealed plastic bag, ties the bag to his ankle with the six foot rope, and . . . Commentary When Andy does not appear, all, including Red and the audience, fear that he has hanged himself. As Red comes out of his cell, he looks towards Andy's cell. And when Haig looks into the cell and raises his eyes, we are misled. "Oh, my Holy God!" CUT to Norton opening the shoebox. A full-on headshot of Norton marching along tier two encapsulates his fury and determination. When the rock goes through the poster, we are not allowed to see this, only the astounded faces of Norton, Red and the guards. The strings are held on one solemn note. The warden pokes his hand right into the hole and then we see him, Red and a guard from inside the hole, zooming out. The strings break into a lively jig. CUT to five police cars speeding towards the prison, then to the search in the creek, with men finding Andy’s items and photographers snapping them, the worn out rock hammer prominent on the black and white photograph which the camera zooms into. Now the film backtracks to allow us to see how he did it. A montage reveals the methods.
Andy squeezes into the tight tunnel shaft. When he emerges through the wall, he times his attack on the sewer pipe with the crashes of thunder; then inches his way head-first through the raw sewage passage:
He emerges from the dark tube and lands in the waist-deep creek filled with cleansing water. In the film's most familiar image, Andy strips off his prison shirt and T-shirt in the middle of the creek and extends his arms up from his half-naked body to the sky - victorious and liberated. The camera pulls back from overhead as the rain washes down on him in droplets. The next morning while his escape is being discovered, the camera follows an anonymous man's shiny black shoes as he enters the Maine National Bank in Portland: "Until that moment, he didn't exist - except on paper." He had "all the proper ID" - identified as the 'phantom' Randall Stevens - when he withdrew and closed all his accounts and accepted a cashier's cheque, purportedly to live abroad. A final request is made to add a package to the bank's outgoing mail.
The package is delivered to the offices of the Portland Daily Bugle. The day's newspaper - which figuratively and literally blows the bugle of judgment on the warden - is tossed down on Norton's desk as he reads it - with the scandalous headlines: "Corruption, Murder at Shawshank - D.A. Has Ledger - Indictments Expected." Police sirens sound in the distance as they approach the prison. Norton glances at the needle-point - now read as prophetic: "His Judgement Cometh and That Right Soon" and opens the safe, finding Andy's black-covered Bible, the Warden's gift, instead of the black ledger with evidence of evil-doing. The inside cover is inscribed with Andy's handwriting: Dear Warden, You were right. Salvation lay within. Andy Dufresne The Bible is, coincidentally, opened to the first page of the Book of Exodus. From there, the pages are hollowed out in the shape of a rock-hammer to conceal his wall-chipping tool. Outside the prison, the D.A. arrests a dumbfounded Captain Hadley who "started sobbing like a little girl when they took him away." Looking down on the scene, the warden opens his desk drawer where a handgun sits. Commentary Andy is metaphorically reborn as he emerges from the dark tube (birth canal) - at the other end of his journey is the primitive 'mother figure' Raquel Welch - and lands in the waist-deep creek filled with cleansing water = baptism. The film has much religious symbolism. Effective long shot of a floodlit prison, panning down to show him emerging from the pipe into the creek, so emphasising the distance. Rain pours down on him, washing him clean. He is laughing. The orchestra has built up to a resounding crescendo during the escape. A brief CUT repeats Norton looking down the tunnel. MONTAGE of police arrival, arrest, heightening tension. A repeat shot of four police cars speeding towards the prison. Hadley is handcuffed. Norton observes this from his office upstairs; he pulls open a drawer to reveal a gun = OUTPOINT Chapter 21: The arrest CUT to DA and police climbing the stairs – great high angle shot. CU on gun as Norton loads six bullets. Men hammer on his door. He points the gun at the door. We are led to think that he is going to fight it out, an opinion reinforced by the six bullets and the voice-over, "Norton had no intention of going that quietly." He suddenly puts it under his chin, and blasts a hole through his head - off camera. The glass window behind his desk shatters into pieces that are speckled with blood, and the gun falls to the floor. Red provides an afterthought:
During mail call a few days later, Red receives a blank postcard picturing a Texas round-up cowpoke on the back of a giant jackrabbit with the exaggerated caption: "Cattle Punching on a Jack Rabbit." Another allusion to Harvey the Rabbit? (see p.21) It's postmarked from Fort Hancock, Texas, "right on the border. That's where Andy crossed" to fulfil his dream of freedom in Mexico. Andy is at the wheel of a red convertible on a winding road next to the coast. His legend becomes larger than life for the inmates left behind:
Commentary The camera tracks upwards to show the blood-spattered, broken window; slow PULL BACK to show Norton dead.
The helicopter shot turns out into mid-ocean. Outside the walls, in the prisoners’ graveyard, Red is weeding and the men are raking up hay. The colours are warm, autumnal. The headstone is an apt place for Red to meditate: "Sometimes it makes me sad. . . " Chapter 22: Red's third parole 1967: For the third time, Red attends a parole hearing after serving 40 years of his life sentence. Times have changed; there are four men and one woman on the board. Wiser and more open about his rehabilitation, he answers them straightforwardly with regret for a crime he committed in a past era:
Red is approved for parole when an automatic stamp marks his papers APPROVED in red ink. Like Brooks before him, the old inmate walks out of the prison gates, rides the bus to Portland, and is led to the same room in the hotel where Brooks had committed suicide. He notices the epitaph scrawled high up on the wall near the ceiling. It is a difficult adjustment to have a job bagging groceries in the Foodway with the freedom to "take a piss" whenever he needs to.
Will he follow in Brooks' fatal footsteps? He pauses at the window of a pawn shop and notices two different, symbolically-contrasting objects: the camera pans across a row of handguns and ends the shot focusing on a compass:
Red hitches a ride in the open bed of a red pickup truck to the country town of Buxton. He walks up the road. Commentary Red appears resigned to staying the rest of his days in prison. His friend has gone. He’s too old now to make a new life for himself. And he’s negative. The camera closes in on him and holds him on screen for a long time.
The metallic click of the approval stamp comes as a surprise. He’s escorted to the gates and looks around in wonder. In the bus, he clutches his suitcase as Brooks had clutched the seat in front.
The strings hold a pensive note while the piano tinkles. Both handguns and compass have symbolic meaning. Again, we are led to believe that a bad deed is to be done. He rides in the back of a red truck cf. Andy's ride to freedom in an open red convertible Note how he removes his jacket – this is a long walk, and hot. DISSOLVES emphasise this. Chapter 23: The rock He walks into a field, navigates with the compass in hand to a long rock wall and the big oak tree, and locates a large piece of gleaming black volcanic glass. Under a rock pile is a tin lunch box with an ocean liner on its front. Cautiously, he looks around, sits up against the rock wall, and opens the box. Inside is a plastic bag with money in an envelope ($1000) and a letter: Dear Red,
With his coat slung over his shoulder, Red walks back through the field - grasshoppers spring into the air all around, symbolic of the new-found liberation he is soon to experience. He makes his decision and skips parole. Before leaving the hotel to join Andy, he carves his name next to Brooks' signature: "Brooks Was Here." "So was Red." He has internalised Andy's words:
He purchases a Trailways bus ticket for Fort Hancock, Texas and expectantly looks out the window toward the sun at the start of his Thru-liner journey through the golden New England countryside toward Texas:
Commentary Red finds the big piece of obsidian – appropriate for a rock hound. The old tin with an ocean liner on it - foreshadowing his travels to come. Town not named in case someone else finds it - Andy is always cautious. "Not for an old crook like me" = the same words Brooks uses in his letter re his suicide.
beach, where Red walks bare-footed on the sand toward an old wreck of a boat. With simple hand tools (a hammer rests on the boat!), Andy is patiently and meticulously sanding the old paint from the boat's ancient surface. He slowly turns and sees his friend approaching - and jumps off to greet him. The camera pulls back, revealing the wide, distant horizon of the blue Pacific with no end in sight. Commentary Scene filmed in the US Virgin Islands The camera pulls back to high angle, aerial, extreme LS as Red and Andy embrace on golden sand. We see the wide, distant horizon of the ocean, no end in sight - symbolic of the long days ahead. The expanse represents freedom. No bars or guards to restrict them any longer. Both are redeemed. 
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