The Shawshank Redemption
The script construction is related to William Peter Blatty's
idea of composition, and, as filmed, is summarily comprehensive (Birdman of
Alcatraz, Escape From Alcatraz, The Glass House, Scarecrow,
etc.). A Robert Frost feint in the dialogue is answered by an allusion in the
action ("A Drumlin Woodchuck"). The main interest is what you might
call a "mixed" style, like Ed Harris's Pollock, where certain
popular conventions are incorporated to set off and relieve the main theme.
In Pollock, the "dark side" biography co-exists
with the artist's life, so that its nugatory aspects are brought to light and
nullified. In The Shawshank Redemption, it's certain cinematic tricks
that have been overdone of late: a penchant for surprise, red herrings, all the things that overstate the case and wreck the film.
Here, they wash away like the dreck Dufresne crawls through to freedom.
Darabont wisely finds in his actors much saved footage. Both
James Whitmore and Morgan Freeman, for example, create the scenes of their release
without much else needed.
Its generosity of spirit even extends a hand to Forrest Gump's
admirers, in the end.
The Green Mile
Sometime back in the Eighties of the last century, somebody had
the idea of putting television executives on TV in a roundtable discussion of
just what the hell they thought they were doing. They all smirked and said,
“We’re just giving people what they want.”
Darabont has what you want. If you want slo-mo, he’s got
slo-mo. You want showers of sparks, he’s got that too. Computer
animation? Check.
Anything to get you to watch Stephen King’s civilized, or
anyway humane, or at the very least human prison drama. Hell, if you’re a
critic, he throws in Tom Hanks (“our Everyman,” Ebert doesn’t
blush to call him).
David Morse and Michael Clarke Duncan act very well. The former
is now in a television show, and the latter went on to The Scorpion King.
Both productions are no doubt wonderful.