It's simple. Members of the GITS community, myself included, are going to read, analyze, and comment on 40 scripts in 40 days, one great screenplay from a notable movie per day.
Why?
Here is my most basic mantra about learning the craft of screenwriting:
Read scripts.
Watch movies.
Write pages.
Those are the three single most important things you can do to learn how to write screenplays. And right there at the top is "read scripts."
Hence "40 Days of Screenplays."
DAY 5
Title: The Shawshank Redemption
Writing credits: Screenplay by Frank Darabont, based on a short story by Stephen King
Studio: Castle Rock Entertainment / Columbia Pictures
Domestic box office: $28M
Plot summary: Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.
Tagline: Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.
Awards: Nominated for WGA Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published Award, nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
Trivia: Warden Norton whistles the hymn "Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott", the English title of which is "A Mighty Fortress is Our God".
You may download a PDF of the script here.
Date: N/A
Pages: 111
Anybody who's spent any time on GITS knows that I view The Shawshank Redemption as just about a perfect movie. Interestingly it had virtually everything going against it becoming a successful movie -- period piece, prison, no female actors, no A-list lead, rookie director -- and perhaps that explains why its initial box office run was underwhelming. But you can't keep a classic story down and over the years, Shawshank has grounded itself into movie lovers' consciousness, one of those films that if you happen upon it on TV, you have to watch it again, even if you've seen it multiple times. Maybe that's why TSR is the #1-rated movie on IMDB.
The draft of the script we have for the "40 Days" challenge is very much a shooting draft. I highly recommend watching the movie while reading the script because there are a bunch of interesting editorial choices writer-director Frank Darabont made including a number of scenes and bits of business that hit the cutting room floor.
As you read the script, ask yourself this question: Who is the Protagonist?
Excited to read your comments and reactions to The Shawshank Redemption.
NOTE: If anybody has a better version of any of the scripts we'll be reading during the "40 Days" challenge, please email me.
ANOTHER NOTE: The folks at tracking-board.com have graciously offered to host all the scripts in the "40 Days" challenge as well. That link is here. What's cool about this link is there are multiple drafts of many of the titles we'll be reading. So check it out. And thanks to TB!
I'll be posting my observations on The Shawshank Redemption later to give people a chance to weigh in with their thoughts.
OBSERVATIONS: Let's be honest. I've analyzed this scripts on GITS probably more than any other movie. So here is a comprehensive list of all those posts which I hereby decree shall constitute my observations on this fantastic script:
Great Scene: In which I note the differences between the opening scene in the script (Andy outside the cabin in the woods while his wife is having sex) and the opening scene in the movie (Any outside cabin intercut with Andy on trial), then I 'rewrite' Darabont's script to match the cross cuts.
Scene Description Spotlight: The opening scene and its contrasting moods of what's happening inside the cabin and outside it, reflected in scene description.
The Shawshank Redemption: Analysis (Andy as Protagonist)
The Shawshank Redemption: Analysis (Red as Protagonist)
The Shawshank Redemption revisited: Considering the idea that Andy and Red are Dual Protagonists.
Character: "Power and Perspectives Not Taken": Analysis of a scene with Andy and Warden Norton when Andy calls Norton "obtuse."
What is the point of a scene?: Analysis of the last scene in prison between Andy and Red, exploring the scene's structural goal and emotional goal.
Finally here is one I put into a draft, but never posted: "Is 'The Shawshank Redemption' the best film ever?"
Posts
7 comments:
There is something utterly magical about this screenplay/film. As you said in your post, it is the kind of movie that you can't help but watch over and over again because it is so strangely engrossing.
The weird thing is, it shouldn't work on paper. It is about two friends stuck in prison who pretty much nothing the entire time. They are the definition of idle, we don't really know what Andy's goal is until the third act when he has already completed it. Sure there is getting rid of the sisters, getting on the guard's good side, the library, helping Tommy, the glint of hope at getting a retrial, but these are more like little vignettes more than a driving, central goal. I suppose if you define the goal as surviving life in prison, then it makes more sense, but it is a strange thing that mundane prison life could be so enthralling.
The fact that Andy and Red are so likable surely helps the case. Really, all of the inmates are portrayed as very likable characters (minus Bogs, of course). If they were all cold-blooded criminals, this would be a completely different (and unlikable?) movie, but as it stands, these men capture our hearts as they teach us to hope.
The moments where the inmates are made out to be free men are so great. Drinking beer on the roof, living to Mozart over the PA, we connect with their desire to be free, which I think endears us to them, so when Andy and Red finally make it, it is so satisfying.
I wonder how the story would have played had Andy actually killed his wife and her lover (or at least if it hadn't be so clear that he didn't). I wonder if we would have liked him so much, or at all.
Fantastic movie. The thing that gets me every time is that it should be so boring, in theory, but with the fantastic character, and the engrossing yet understated situations they find themselves in, it is the kind of movie you can't help but love.
Of the 5 we've read so far, I've seen this movie the most times. I was tempted to skim the screenplay a little, thinking that I wouldn't get as much reading a screenplay of a movie I've seen so many times- but I didn't. I probably got the most out of this reading.
Like Scott mentioned, there were a couple of scenes that didn't make the movie. It really made me think about why they were cut. I really liked Red's ending scene after he was released and he was commenting on the world and how it's changed. But I can seen why it was cut. Pace. He still had to find Andy's letter and then find Andy. The movie was already wrapping up and it would've dragged if that scene had remained in.
I've mentioned before the challenge conveying a character's thoughts through playable action instead of just saying what the character's thinking. Shawshank had several good examples of telling us what the characters are thinking without really telling us, if that makes sense. Here's an example (after Norton notices the dirty shoes Andy left behind):
"He stares blankly. What the f*** indeed."
It's almost saying what the reader is thinking, not just what the character is thinking. I liked it a lot.
When any of my young friends ask me about scripts to read this one is on the top of my list. To me it is a perfect example of so many things.
1. limited settings. yes there are several areas within the prison but they are still in the prison and that detail has a great effect on everything about these men
2. dealing with an extended time in a smooth way
3. the right way to handle voice overs
And so on
But what is oddly interesting is that 90% of the story he is telling isn't about him. It's about Andy. We see one moment of Red and then Andy arrives and then nothing more until Andy is gone. Andy is the main character that we see but it is Red who learns and grows and changes and tells us the tale. It's almost like he's remembering it and we are seeing the memories. The moments that convince him to 'get busy living or get busy dying'. After that comment by him the rest could be more memory or 'real' but it works either way.
Steve's comment made me think. Maybe the story is so interesting because Andy himself is so interesting. The thing that caught my attention almost immediately, and Red's as well, was how calm he was in the face of his unjust sentence. I kept watching to find out why he wasn't angry, if more time in prison would change him, how he would treat his fellow inmates, what he would do with his time... He's just so different from the other inmates and probably from most of the audience, too. I think we all wish we could face those kinds of nasty twists of life with as much grace and steadiness.
One part that has always bugged me is the young kid (Tommy) who comes to Shawshank. It's not his character, but rather his revelation that bugs me.
C'mon. We've been talking about coincidences and how sometimes we let them slide. But Tommy rooming with the guy who really killed Andy's wife and the golf pro? (Okay, I'll accept that coincidence...even though the killer's monologue is so contrived: "she's banging some golf pro but she's married to some hotshot banker"----- who would really say it like that? I'm surprised he didn't just say Andy's name so we all knew for sure it was the same murder.)
But the biggest coincidence, and the one that anchors the whole story of Andy being in prison for a crime he didn't commit, is Andy sitting in the car with a gun the night that Elmo actually kills the wife and the golf pro. There's no freaking way. I agree with the lawyer: a fantastic coincidence.
I had happened to have bought the shooting script published by Newmarket Press years ago in college. There's a section in there where Darabont goes through the script, scene by scene, and gives insight into how and why the final film differs from the final script. Very, very cool and informative.
I have seen the movie countless times, I love it so much. It is one of my top ten movies ever. And reading the script feels like immersing myself in a very good novel.
I never ask myself who the protagonist is, because somehow it doesn't seem to matter to me. But if I have to say who, I think it is both Andy and Red. Both Andy and Red has arcs, although Andy's is not as huge as Red's. But the scene where Andy broke down and said to Red his wife's death is also his fault for driving him away, I think is Andy's arc. So Andy influences Red's arc, but Andy's arc is influenced by the prison itself. Because as Andy changes the prison, so is the prison changes Andy. But I am not sure whether that means the prison is also a character in the movie, if it is possible to say so.
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