A recent conversation with a good friend got me thinking back to a period of my life I equate to SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. Now if that friend reads this blog I want you to know you’d be shocked that I have no fewer than three close friends in the same exact spot— so this might not be about you.
SPO(ILER ALERT for SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION- you’ve been warned.
In SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION Andy Dufresne is locked up for the murder of his wife and he suffers the horrors of prison life until he makes it bearable and then he decides he’s had enough and he crawls out through 500 yards of the worst smelling sludge (Okay they don’t call it sludge) you can imagine through a drain pipe before coming out on the other side in a sort of baptism of redemption.
The film captured so much of what I was going through that I keep a full sized poster of it framed on the steps leading up to my Art Studio. I look at that poster everyday on my way to work.
The movie, and the story its based on RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is further based on Leo Tolstoy’s GOD SEE’S THE TRUTH BUT WAITS, is the story of (obviously) redemption and that no matter how bad things get— there is an exit and better things lie ahead of us, and it’s never too late to change.
It’s the story of never giving up, never giving in. No matter how hard it gets.