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Light And Light In The Shawshank Redemption

1270 Words6 Pages

The element of lighting is a sophisticated element to a movie. It has the power to control what you see and also overwhelm you when it needs to. During my discovery of this movie, I found that colors told the story just as much as the dialogue. It just goes to show that the most significant films cover all the ends of telling a story through the medium of film. Now the fun part, the analyst of The Shawshank Redemption’s use of light and color in painting the picture of its theme of hope. “Studies show that some people in northern climates are subject to severe depression in winter if they receive too little light. The importance of lighting in filming is suggested by the word photography, which literally means ‘writing with light’(page 70).” …show more content…

The lighting design undoubtedly had a significant impact on this piece. The theme of hope was repeatedly expressed throughout the two hours and twenty-two minutes by the interactions made with windows, shadows, and high exposure or lack thereof which genuinely delivered a lighting designers input into the contribution of the piece. Morgan Freeman’s character provides the theme of hope with a simple quote. As Andy plays classical music over the speaker system, we hear Red say, “I tell you those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drag cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free.” So when Andy slowly delivers hope in how he transformed the library and uplifted the prisoners with books. How he manages to get his fellow employees a cold beer for breakfast. Or the way he manages to escape so perfectly. We watch Andy Dufresne teach us what believing in ourselves and never letting anyone stop you from running toward what you want looks like. The medium of film gives a cinematographer the job of lighting this story. I don’t think anybody expected the role of lighting this movie’s outcome to be a masterpiece within

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Lightness and darkness is a common theme throughout literature, most writers utilize this style of writing through symbols. Writers use this technique to add interest to their pieces and give the story more depth in its meaning. Poe and Hawthorne implement this literary devices into their stories, which helps to create an engaging story. In Poe’s story “Masque of the Red Death” and Hawthorne’s story “Minister’s Black Veil” both portray themes of lightness and darkness using symbolism throughout.

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When he escaped, he left Shawshank out of a woman, his pin-up girl, and crawled through 500 yards of muck to freedom. He was "reborn" as a free man. Put this all together, and the theme portrayed by Andy Dufresne is that hope, more specifically hope for a

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During Andy’s arrival to the penitentiary, he seemed like he was in distress and in disbelief that he was going to spend the rest of his life incarnated. The moment when Andy was being shackled he knew at that moment that he lost all of his rights and freedoms. When he was in society he was deem with freedoms such as expression, liberty, speech, etc. but now they are taken away. An example of a scene would be when Andy and the other new inmates were force to listen to the guards and do what they were told.

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When Andy is consistently denied by the government for funding to build a new library in Shawshank prison, Andy remains persistent and continues to write letters in hopes the government would change its mind. Red comments: “Prison time is slow time. Sometimes. It feels like stop-time. So you do what you can to keep going …”

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With time, the scenes became brighter, slowly and gradually throughout Andy’s stay at Shawshank. Andy brought hope to the prison and we began seeing and feeling this throughout the film with the use of lighting. This can be best exemplified by the well-known rooftop scene, where Andy “buys” some of his fellow inmates a moment of freedom. As they sipped a cold beer on a hot spring day in 1949, they tasted the freedom and hope that they craved ever so much, and this was all thanks to Andy. We could see the mood change through the lighting, as it was a spring day.

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The use of background light was an important focus in this picture, there was less attention to lighting the actors faces but in almost every frame there is well placed background light often combined with a moving light source. Repetition was also evident within the visual composition of the frame, the actors were rarely positioned within the center of the frame but always to the left or the right with a light source covering them from behind. Ridley Scott perfectly matches colorful high key light with low key lights creating impeccable contrast, this lighting used could be described as a modern Citizen Kane style. Although this is overall a very dark and low light film, the motif of shadows and darkness allows the beauty of light to truly be

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The main theme of the film is the power of hope. Hope, more than anything else, drives the inmates and gives them the will to live. Andy’s sheer determination to keep his sense of self-worth and escape from Shawshank keeps him from dying of frustration and anger in solitary confinement. Andy goes about making this hope a reality by meticulously tunneling through the wall every night. In the film Red notes that when Tommy says he can prove Andy innocent it gave Andy that extra hope he needed, and Andy’s hope ended up rubbing off on the other inmates.

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Eventually, Red got out on parole, and it was the hope that Andy brought to Shawshank that kept him going on the outside. In this story, Andy was the most hopeful person in Shawshank, but he was also sensible towards the notion of risk and reward. Despite being a quiet man, Andy would show his hopefulness in what he said as well as what he did. An example of the latter took place when the warden explained to Andy how he is a man who thinks too highly of himself. The warden described how he has observed that Andy, "used to walk around that exercise yard as if it was a living room and [Andy was at] one of those cocktail parties…" (71).

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In the film The Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont, the main message in the film is hope and fear. The main purpose of the opening scene is to introduce us from Andy Dufrense the main character who has been accused as a murderer of his wife and her lover. Moreover, the opening sequence is significant because it shows Andy 's transformation from being a regular civilian to a criminal in high security prison. Basically, this report will focus on the opening scene were the director has mainly focused on the film techniques to show the message of hope and fear. The director has used visual technique to get his message across.

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As Andy broadcasts the opera music throughout in Shawshank, all the prisoners and guards stand still, feeling the sense of humanity, freedom and transcendence. Andy connects with the prisoners’ souls by playing this music and even though they are still imprisoned and not physically free they have mental freedom. This is presented in, “and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free”. The diegetic sound and dialogue by Red, portrays the idea that the music played makes the walls of Shawshank disappear and gives prisoners a sense of hope and

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