Great Scene: “The Shawshank Redemption”

Red’s parole board scenes — three of them — are their own mini-story.

Perhaps my very favorite movie experience was attending the premiere of The Shawshank Redemption. At the time, I was writing a movie for Castle Rock which produced Shawshank, thus the invite for my wife and me. I remember stumbling out of the theater, driving straight home, and composing an email to Martin Shafer, then president of Castle Rock, extolling the movie.

And then… the movie tanked at the box office grossing a mere $28,428,150. So how did Shawshank become such a beloved movie and end up as the #1 rated film on the IMDb Top 250?

Largely on multiple airings on the cable network TNT.

Today, we focus on a great scene in The Shawshank Redemption. But which one? The trial? Suds on the roof? Mozart? Brooks’ suicide? Andy’s escape? So many memorable scenes. And I’ve chosen this one — Red’s final parole board hearing — because it represents perfectly a payoff scene. Twice before, Red sits in the same chair in front of the same type of soulless, dreary people — the first time we meet Red in the movie in 1947:

Then again in 1957: