Freeing
Every Last Man of Shawshank: A Reading of Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption
Debaditya Mukhopadhyay
Debaditya
Mukhopadhyay is an Assistant Professor of English at Manikchak College,
affiliated to the University of Gourbanga, Malda. He is pursuing his PhD on Spy
Fiction from Rabindra Bharati University. Popular Literature and Films, Myths,
Adaptations, and Theatre are his areas of interest.
Abstract
Prison films depicting the escape
of victims of erroneous judgement have gained a notable popularity amongst the move-watching
audience. Majority of these films seem to be emphasizing that apart from the
wronged protagonist, the rest of the inmates are unfit for a life beyond the
prison. Such films, therefore, seem to follow a binarism that designates the
hero as ‘self’ and the abhorrent rest as ‘other’, thereby justifying the brutal
treatment or the lasting effect of imprisonment on the prisoners in general.
This paper will attempt to study the film The Shawshank Redemption’s
countering and problematization of the aforementioned discourse or politics of
the generic prison films. Through close-reading of relevant and iconic portions
of the film this paper will attempt to highlight how this widely popular film
presents an ideal prison for serving Rehabilitative Justice and draws attention
to the issue of institutionalization of a prisoner, as a response to the
generic templates of the Prison films as well as the contemporary prison
policies of America . While the paper will have The Shawshank Redemption as
its prime focus, references to the typical contents of Prison films will also
be made in order to trace the genealogy as well as the uniqueness of this exceptional
film of Frank Darabont that does not simply offer a thrilling account of escape
of an individual but the redemption of prisoners in general.
Keywords:
Prison Films, The Shawshank Redemption,
Close-Reading, Rehabilitative Justice, Institutionalization, Departure from
Generic Templates, Contemporary Prison Policies of America.
Frank Darabont’s film The
Shawshank Redemption (1994) is distinctive for its focus on a collective
redemption of the incarcerated both before and after their release from incarceration.
This paper will explore the strategies and politics that make this film a departure
from other prison films. Though much of the film’s success may lie with its
depiction of the struggle and final escape of its hero Andy Dufresne, when studied
as a part of the genre it represents, that is, the genre of Incarceration
films, the film offers more than an inspiring tale about an exceptional
individual. This film’s uniqueness lies in its amalgamation of generic and
individual elements. If its depiction of a misjudged person’s sufferings in the
hostile atmosphere created by a number of incarcerated people and corrupt
administration is generic, its focus on the transformation of a whole prison
and the portrayal of the post-prison life of prisoners are nothing short of
unique. The paper will study these unique aspects of the film and explore the
factors which contributed to the developing of these distinctive qualities of
the film. In doing so, the paper will delineate the influence of both the
pre-existing templates of the genre and the reflection of the contemporary
developments in the prison policies of America on this film. Before focusing on
this film itself, the paper will offer an overview of the pre-existing politics
of the genre of Incarceration films in general in order to highlight the
difference between the prevalent discourses of the genre and the subversive
elements of this film.
An
Incarceration film of course uses prison as its chief setting. These films mostly
give a Dantesque view of these prisons, to borrow the analogy of the layered
hierarchical structure of prisons. Such a depiction has a significant cultural
history. Prisons have chiefly represented environments where people are sent
only to suffer in the worst possible way. They were certainly not places for
corrections at first. Instead they represented a hellish place which was
supposed to terrify prospective law-offenders. The history of prisons’ usage
indicates that the society did not actually believe in rehabilitating its
criminals for a long time. During the Elizabethan age for instance, criminal
law offenders were publicly executed in brutal ways. Prisons were for civil law
offenders. These places were “full, and rife with disease” (Picard 2016). Prisons
became correctional places only in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Protests
against public executions (Foucault 73) and the rise of institutionalization as
an effective solution to the problem of crime in the place of punishing the
criminals, brought about this change during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries (Mathiesen 19). This methodical change had a cultural implication as
well. Explaining the methods of punishment that prisons of this era put into
use, Mathiesen suggests that many of the new penitentiaries were designed to
subject its inhabitants to a “radical isolation” (19-20). It is this new
emphasis on having the convicts isolated that triggered a general curiosity in
the public mind about prisons which initiated the trend of offering fictional
or semi-fictional accounts of the lives of criminals in prison.
With
the rise of the film industry, a better scope for catering to the demand for
giving an insider’s view of prisons was found. The American filmmakers took
little time to respond to it and hence the trend of making films about prison
is found to exist right from the beginning of motion pictures in
America(McShane 1996 337). Since these films intended to offer what the
audience wanted to see, their makers preferred to stereotype prisons. Jeffrey
Ian Ross, while talking about Prison Voyeurism describes how the general public
through the ages celebrated public executions by attending them with their
family members (2015 400). According to him, the culture of Prison Voyeurism
had Schadenfreude at its heart, that is, “taking pleasure in someone
else’s pain and suffering”(2015 400). Therefore, showing the prisoners’
discomfort and degradation soon became essential for a generic prison film.
Films of this kind did not only entertain the public but also influenced the
public opinion about prisons to a great extent. It is important to refer to the
observations made by Paul Mason in his essay “Prison Decayed Cinematic Penal
Discourse and Populism 1995–2005” for an understanding of this impact. He
observes “Successive sweeps of the British Crime Survey have revealed that the
public are unacquainted with numerous aspects of the criminal justice system
and rely on the media for their information” (609) and more importantly “the
Survey reported that just six per cent of the public considered their principal
source of information to be inaccurate” (609). According to him, prison films
are “symbolically powerful practice that can shape public opinion about the
aims, role and nature of prison in society” (609).
Empathetic
and meaningful use of the impact of these films could have evoked serious
attention to penal world but for that a proper departure from the limitations
created by the hackneyed and apparently popular templates was necessary. The
narrative pattern formed by these templates chiefly consisted of a misjudged or
framed hero, brutal co-prisoners, corrupt or incapable wardens, and a final
escape of the protagonist from the hostile prison. Films, specifically from
Hollywood, like The Running Man (1987), Lock Up (1989), or Tango
and Cash (1989), are examples of this kind. Films of this kind do have
moments that critique the flaws in penal system, as is to be found in the case
of Frank Leone of Lock Up, who is basically imprisoned for defending his
foster father and then handed over to a sadist of a Warden as a punishment for
that. These appear inadequate as instead of exploring the plight of the prisoners
in general, such films focus only on the sufferings of the protagonist who is
basically shown to be innocent. The focus on the protagonist of this particular
kind is the chief reason behind these films’ limitations. As their protagonists
are mostly framed or misjudged, these films never display the problems of
actual prisoners when they show the suffering of their protagonists. These
narratives never engage with the plight of actual prisoners as they focus on
the depiction of an individual whose very stay in the prison is unjust. In
order to rectify this unjust punishment, therefore, these narratives are
compelled to end with the downfall of the torturing Warden and/or the escape of
the wronged protagonist. Though this pattern makes these films akin to the
all-time favourite genre of inspirational tales, where the underdog achieves
his/her/ their goal despite all the impediments, it leaves a number of
important questions about the penal world unanswered.
The escape of the misjudged or
framed hero is justified no doubt but in every prison across the globe there
are also people who are serving their terms for actually committing crimes. The
portrayal of prisoners of this kind by the type of films described above seems
problematic for a number of reasons. Neither can these films afford to be
unrealistic and depict a mass escape of these prisoners in general, as that is
morally unacceptable, nor can it explain how these convicts who are
incarcerated for a justified reason, are supposed to endure the hostile atmosphere
of the jail. Moreover, these films are marked by negligence about the effects
of institutionalization on a convict in his life post-release. In these films little
to none attention is paid to the possible difficulties a prisoner might face
after coming back to society subsequent to the serving of the term. It is
implied by this negligence that no convict, barring the protagonist, who was
never a criminal in the first place, is supposed to have a life at the end of
their terms. In short, apart from stereotyping the prisons, these films rely on
stereotyping of the prisoners at a large scale. On the one hand they have the
wronged hero, representing the lone individual, the underdog, who is to pull
the plot to its resolution through his or her struggle and ultimate escape. On
the other hand, there are the other prisoners, who are actual convicts and are
not supposed to escape or even released during the plot development as the
focus of the film is escape of a wronged individual, not the transformation of
a prisoner or prisoners in general, or the prison itself.
On the basis of the observations offered
above it seems justified to state that the key feature of the generic prison
movies is the portrayal of both prison and prisoners in a reductionist manner. The
prisons of America ideally had become places for rehabilitation since the early
twentieth century (Alschuler 1) but these films ignore this aspect. Prisoners
on the other hand are shown through binarism. The protagonist, who will escape
at the end, is shown to be innocent, kind, and heroic and the other prisoners,
who are to remain in the prison, are violent, abusive, and beastly. Paul Mason,
while commenting on this difference, points to this portrayal of “the rest of
the prison population as dehumanised monsters and animals, and consequently as “other”
” (2006 616). While many prison films released before and after, follow the
generic scheme explained above, Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption
stands as a sui generis film for its
departure from this stereotypical pattern. It is certainly a film that has
successfully “challenged, contested or changed” the “dominant regime of representation”(Hall
1997 269) of the generic prison films. The subsequent portion of this paper
will now focus on this film’ s subversive content and attempt to trace the
factors that inspired the same.
Darabont’s film tells a tale of
redemption of not just the protagonist but all the prisoners and the prison
itself which, as mentioned before, is rarely attempted in this genre. In fact
the subtle difference in title between Stephen King’s novella and the film reflects
this difference too. King titled his work Rita Hayworth and Shawshank
Redemption which, through its mentioning of Rita’s poster, which plays a
pivotal role in Andy’s escape, limits the emphasis only on his escape. The
film, however, seems to focus more on the “redemption” part which is done not through
his escape but through his activities inside Shawshank. Despite presenting Andy
as a messianic figure, the plot does not really attempt to portray Shawshank
prison as an epitome of bleakness before Andy’s arrival. Instead, it shows
Shawshank as a place where discipline and loopholes co-exist. None of the
dwellers of Shawshank appear to be wretched. In fact, they look quite relaxed and
at ease with the life inside, particularly when they bet on the newly arriving
convicts. Red or Ellis Boyd Redding and as mentioned in the film, a few others,
kept the supply of various items associated to a “normal” life coming to their
inmates for a slightly enhanced price. As Red says:
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. Damn near anything, within reason. Yes, sir. I’m a
regular Sears and Roebuck. (Redemption
08:33-08:49)
The
way the inmates are not legally allowed to possess basic items like these, seem
to reflect the policy of equating punishment with deprivation from basic amenities
in prisons. In Invisible Punishment Jeremy Travis describes how increase
of supervision on the criminals led to the expansion of the rules that deprived
a prisoner from rights and privileges ( 30). This strictness certainly ensured
that prisoners feel discomfort but to what extent that discomfort actually
helped the system in rectifying the prisoners is debatable.
By
beginning the account of Shawshank prison with Red’ s pre-parole interview, the
film makes its engagement with the issue of rectification and subsequent rehabilitation
of prisoners clear right from the beginning. In the interview, Red, after
having served a long term in Shawshank is asked whether he feels that he has
been rehabilitated. He replies, “Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely, sir. I mean, I
learned my lesson. I can honestly say...I’m a changed man. I’m no longer a
danger to society. That’s God’s honest truth.” (Redemption 07:14-07:32) Red speaks all these clearly enough but in
his face one can clearly detect a confusion and a lack of conviction. Red gets
rejected and immediately after that his “role” in the prison is depicted
through his words about himself, quoted above. There is nothing objectionable
about Red’s way of serving others. Nor is his getting rejected an extremely odd
thing but by showing these two sequences consecutively, the narrative hints at
the existence of loopholes in the apparently sound system of Shawshank. Red
would be facing success in his third interview and in between the first and
last of these three interviews there happens the arrival of Andy which leads to
a thorough change in the Shawshank prison.
Clearly,
there is something about the changes Andy brings to the place that makes Red
appear ready for rehabilitation to the board. Samuel Norton, the Warden,
establishes himself as a strict administrator right from his first appearance
and his reliance on discipline and the Bible, which shows he is a Puritan at
heart. But when one remembers Red’s rejection that precedes this scene, doubts
about the effectiveness of Norton’s policies are naturally raised. Norton and
Byron Hadley, the merciless captain of guards, seem to believe in reducing the
convicts to the level of machines which is shown by Hadley’s answer to the
query of a new prisoner who came along with Andy. The prisoner only wanted to
know about the time of eating and to this Hadley shouts: “You eat when we say
you eat! You shit when we say you shit, and you piss when we say you piss”(Redemption 13:33-13:47).Rehabilitation was
apparently the ultimate aim of Shawshank but Norton was not really using a
proper method for it. A look at Thomas Mathiesen’s insightful paper on
rehabilitation helps to understand what exactly was wrong with Shawshank.
Mathiesen observes that
rehabilitation of a prisoner was not very different from what rehabilitation of
old houses, living politicians, and dead politicians meant. According to him,
rehabilitation of the prisoner must bring him back to the state before
committing the crime and bring the prisoner his “dignity” back (2006 27).The treatment
offered to dwellers of Shawshank by Norton and Hadley was not even remotely
close to any of these. The duo basically had been using a system of rehabilitation
that was based on manipulating the ideal methods for rehabilitation of convicts.
For a detailed exploration of this, reference to Mathiesen’s work seems
relevant. He opines that the crux of the rehabilitation ideology has not at all
gone through a sea change at all and it had four chief aims. According to him
these are “work, school, moral influence and discipline” (32).The
administrators of Shawshank were using the first, third, and fourth component
in a twisted way for having their vested interests served and they had not paid
attention to the second at all. For them, converting these convicts into
robotic slaves was the main agenda. Ideally, engagement in work was supposed to
lead to the development of the prison house itself but in the film Norton
himself does not take any initiative for Shawshank’s development. He only
orders them to “repair” the roof of the license-plate factory nearby and
launches his “inside out” initiative, which, to quote him was: 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. (Redemption
01:18:28-01:18:43)
Norton
was interested in sending the men outside because it brought him a lot of
money. He was not at all interested in making the prisoners develop the prison
itself. In fact, whatever Andy did for it, the library in particular had no
importance to him. He simply allowed Andy to pursue his projects because he
believed in baiting his workers. He baited everyone for the repairing of the
factory by reminding them that this would allow them to have a temporary escape
from the walls of the cell, which made hundreds of people apply for it. He did
the same with Andy. He knew Andy would work more, would earn more, if he was
happy, and to make him happy he allowed him to develop the library. How little
Norton valued the library becomes evident when he threatens Andy saying: “And
the library? Gone. Sealed off, brick by brick. We’ll have us a little book barbecue
in the yard. They’ll see the flames for miles. We’ll dance around it like wild
Injuns” (Redemption
01:39:44-01:39:58).Norton’s choice of simile shows how barbaric he was deep
down and it explains why Shawshank was a failure in making convicts like Red
ready for rehabilitation.
Moral influence, according to
Mathiesen, was chiefly injected into the prisoners by making them pray
repeatedly. He quotes Selin for giving an insight to this which reads “every
effort was made to give a strong religious cast to the discipline in order to
make the prisoners God-fearing people”(36). The ideology seems problematic for
its emphasis on evoking fear of the Lord. In fact Norton wanted these convicts
to equate him with the Lord and fear both, which is betrayed when Andy, during Norton’s
surprise visit to his cell quotes a passage from the Bible. Andy quotes the
verse “Watch ye, therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh”
(Redemption 49:39-49:44)..The
context, the situation clearly makes it a use of subtle irony from Andy’s part
but Norton seems to like it and recites his favourite passage, which is “I’m
the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but
shall have the light of life” (Redemption
49:51-49:57).The passage brings out Norton’s desire to have all the convicts
obey him. Norton certainly made use of the fourth component Mathiesen mentions
and this too, rather than being intimately linked with rehabilitation, had very
different purposes in Shawshank. According to Mathiesen
in contrast to the former three
components, it seems as if the latter component to a large extent and for a
long time was implemented in actual practice. Whether its implementation was
actually followed by rehabilitation, a “return to competence”, is another
matter. (37)
All the four components are brought
to Shawshank by Andy’s activities. He made his inmates work with happiness for
developing the Brooks Hatlen Memorial Library. As Red describes it:
The rest of us did our best to
pitch in when and where we could. By the year Kennedy was shot, Andy had
transformed a storage room smelling of rat turds and turpentine
into the best prison library in New
England, complete with a fine selection of Hank Williams. (Redemption 01:17:47-01:18:02)
It
shows that Andy made the convicts work for making their residence better, not for
the desire to be temporarily out for a while. Andy’s emphasis on the importance
of schooling is shown by his mentoring of Tommy. It is symbolically significant
that Tommy, who ultimately is declared qualified in his examination, is shot
dead by the torturous duo of Shawshank who would recklessly damage the growth
Andy brought about any moment for blackmailing Andy or elongating his stay in
Shawshank. Though Andy does not directly instil morality and discipline per se
in the mind of his inmates, his presence has a notable positive influence on
them. They appear effortlessly well-disciplined while sitting in the library.
They are not shown to be ragging the new prisoners anymore when Tommy and his
lot arrive. Besides, they work together for collecting rocks for Andy and seem
to have developed honest empathy for Andy, signs of significant improvement. Brian
Jarvis, while analysing the film, has pointed out how Andy gradually started
playing the role of a proper warden in Shawshank. Jarvis opines that Andy’s
activities in Shawshank help the film to highlight the effectiveness of a
rehabilitative penal system. He also adds that portions of the film that show
Andy encouraging his inmates to participate in positive activities help the
film to rise above films that only critique the administration of prisons (197-198).
The positive energy that Andy circulates is effective because it enables the
prisoners to realize their capabilities and makes them feel an important part
of the whole setup. What Norton did could either numb or harden a prisoner but
Andy purged the prisoners by making them responsible and self-respectful.
The
film appears to be a unique one for its depiction of Andy’s escape and its
effects as well. While most other narratives end up glorifying the escape
itself, this film has a plot that intimately imbricates the downfall of Norton-
Hadley with Andy’s escape and the purification of the whole prison. He had not
only planned his escape but also had taken the proof against Norton with him.
This decision shows how much of importance he had given to saving the balance
he had brought to Shawshank. Andy’s unmasking of Norton does not exclusively
avenge the wrongs Norton committed against Andy. Rather it ensures the survival
and further development of the rehabilitative setup Andy had created with his
co-workers. The film does make use of stereotypes of torturing and tormenting administrators
but it carefully avoids stereotyping the prison itself and its inhabitants. The
inhabitants of Shawshank are mixture of good and bad but none of them are made
ugly through otherizing. Moreover, the film emotionally engages the audience
not only to the innocent protagonist who gets justice through escape but also
to at least two people who are criminals and who continue to bear the
ramification of institutionalization .Apart from breaking stereotypes about
actual prisoners, this also problematizes institutionalization which
contributes to the film’s distinction in the genre.
The
resolution of the plot shows the film’s engagement with the problems prisoners
were likely to face during their paroles. Apart from Red’s release (and the
escape) the film shows only the release of Brooks Hatlen. In this emotional
sequence, Brooks’ suffering is delineated with great care. He was out of the
prison but certainly not rehabilitated. Shawshank had not made him
self-dependant. It had only made him lose all importance in the world outside
due to his prolonged stay. Brooks, in his letter to his old friends of
Shawshank writes “Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Foodway, so they’d
send me home” (Redemption
01:03:35-01:03:44),which shows how miserably Shawshank had failed and his last
lines “I doubt they’ll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me” (Redemption 01:04:11-01:04:16) clearly
shows that fifty years of punishment could not make him feel he had changed at
all. He still considered himself just a criminal. Towards the end of the film,
Red starts facing nearly the same problems. He had spent forty years in
Shawshank and though he was at ease compared to Brooks, he too started thinking
of breaking his parole because he lacked friendship, lacked a purpose. Finally
he was saved which shows how effective Andy’s influence on his fellow prisoners
was.
Though
the film does not offer what Andy did for Red as the ultimate solution to the
problem of prolonged stay in prison, it certainly underscores the pitfalls of
such prolonged punishments. Andy was given two consecutive life-sentences, Red
stays in the prison for forty years, and Brooks for fifty. Tommy stayed in the
prison during a period when it was functioning properly for a very brief period
compared to the other three instances and had reformed quite significantly.
Even Brooks or Red seem to have changed only because of the influence of a properly-run
prison to a significant extent. Brooks spares Heywood only because Andy reminds
him of who he was and makes him feel a changed man, at least for a while. Red,
as mentioned before, is rejected twice and though his second rejection was during
Andy’s stay in Shawshank , it occurred before he could start working for developing
the library and many other significant moments that changed him. The ultimate
impact of the changed atmosphere of the prison on Red gets visible when he
appeared for third interview. In this third interview Red asserts with
confidence:
There’s not a day goes by I don’t
feel regret. Not because I’m in here
or because you think I should. I
look back on the way I was then. A young... stupid kid who committed that
terrible crime. I wanna talk to him. I wanna try and talk some sense to him,
tell him the way things are. But I can’t. (Redemption
02:07:10-02:07:42)
Such
lines clearly show how changed Red was and such a change was possible only once
Shawshank started running properly, not because of the length of his sentence.
In fact the longer sentences seem to only create problems for the convicts. As
Red himself says, while discussing with Andy and the rest what is likely to
happen to Brooks:
The man’s been in here 50 years, Heywood. 50
years. This is all he knows. In here, he’s an important man. He’s an educated
man. Outside, he’s nothing. Just a used-up con with arthritis in both hands.
Probably couldn’t get a library card if he tried. You know what I’m trying to
say? … I’m telling you, these walls are funny. First you hate ’em, then you get
used to ’em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on ’em. That’s
institutionalized. (Redemption
59:19-01:00:06)
The
film questions the validity of the method of giving prolonged sentences to
convicts in these sections and that certainly is an important part of its
politics. The film attests the effectiveness of rehabilitative policies that
developed only when prisons gave importance to institutionalizing a prisoner
instead of punishing them but along with it the film also shows the
ramifications of institutionalizing a convict for too long. Derral Cheatwood
speaks of there being four basic elements of prison films confinement, justice,
authority, and release. According to him, the difference between the four eras
of prison films is a result of the respective era’s way of handling the four
elements. Darabont’s film is considered as a very interesting exception by
Cheatwood. He suggests that The Shawshank Redemption is notably eclectic. It has elements
of the Rehabilitation Era Prison films along with elements of Confinement era (226).
Even more significant is the film’s deviation from its contemporary prison films.
The Fortress (1992) and No Escape (1994), both of which depict futuristic prisons. Instead of
dealing with real issues like rehabilitation or effects of
institutionalization, they mainly offered spectacles. Darabont’s film
consciously avoids that.
As
mentioned before, an attempt to link the politics of the film with its
contemporary prison policies will now be made. It is significant that this
film, released in 1994,emphasises the problems of a prolonged stay in the
prison. A paper of the book The Growth of Incarceration in the United States
Exploring Causes and Consequences reads
In the 1980s and 1990s, state and
federal legislators passed and governors and presidents signed laws intended to
ensure that more of those convicted would be imprisoned and that prison terms
for many offenses would be longer than in earlier periods.(70)
In
fact the year of the film’s release, 1994, was a year that saw a vital law
passed in this regard. The article “Tough on Crime How the United States Packed
Its Own Prisons” reads
The Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994, supported by both Democrats and Republicans,
established even more federal aid for local law enforcement, offered grants to
states willing to adopt TIS laws, set more mandatory minimum penalties, and
restricted the federal appeals process for death row inmates. (Curtley n.p.)
Though
the increased crime rate of this era was certainly a reason behind such
developments but at the same time this policy of getting tougher on the
prisoners had to be questioned and the film The Shawshank Redemption
does that covertly by attempting to remind that getting tougher is not
necessarily connected with make proper rehabilitation take place. Prisons could
offer that scope because it offers ample time to its dwellers. As Red explains:
Prison time is slow time. So you do
what you can to keep going. Some fellas collect stamps. Others build matchstick
houses. Andy built a library. Now he needed a new project. Tommy was it. It was
the same reason he spent years, shaping and polishing those rocks. The same
reason he hung his fantasy girlies on the wall. In prison, a man will do most anything
to keep his mind occupied. (Redemption
01:27:31-01:28:02)
The
lines above indicate how the seclusion created by prison can be used positively.
It is almost like taking a man back to the basics, the days of beginning from
the scratch. Doing things that the man never did follow naturally and through
those he or she can realize his/her true worth, differentiate his criminal
nature from his/her creative nature and change in the true sense. Even this
process however should not be stretched too far. When it is carried for too
long, as in the case of Brooks, incarceration takes away the opportunity of returning
to normal life. In such a state, the burnt-out convict is very likely to commit
further crime, or ultimately put an end to his/her own life out of depression.
Therefore, incarceration needs to ensure that rehabilitation of a convict is
achieved within a reasonable period, so that the rehabilitated person can
successfully find a position in the society. It is in this way and for these
reasons, the film rises above the generic limitations of prison films and
becomes a narrative of collective redemption.
Works
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