Do you really understand The Shawshank Redemption (1)

[First paragraph frozen]

First of all, it must be admitted that the title of this article is the title party, which is for the eyeballs.

There is no "standard answer" in art, so there is no "understand" or "not understand" question.

"The Shawshank Redemption" is also deliberately used to talk about things because it is a well-known work.

(1) Who is the protagonist?

Who is the male number one in the film? After asking this question, I suddenly found that this is a very rare pure grandfather film without a female character (the murdered Andy's wife at the beginning of the film, even the face is basically not exposed, it must not be counted), there is no beauty, no love, you can also shoot very good-

Okay, back to the topic, so who is the real protagonist of the film?

I guess your first reaction is: Of course Andy Dufrey! The white banker who was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his wife.

Shall I say that Andy's prison friend, the old black Red? Thoughts?

The film is a work of "restrictive perspective". In case some friends have not cared about the "narrative perspective", it is still a simple explanation.

All narrative works, whether they are novels, film and television dramas or whatever, have a "perspective" problem, that is, the question of what angle and in what way you tell the story.

The narrative perspective is roughly divided into two types:

1. Omniscient perspective.

The work is narrated from the perspective of omniscient and God. The most typical is the storyteller's perspective, if you are listening to a book review, the storyteller knows everything about the story and characters he tells; if it is a novel, it is the author's unrestricted depiction of the past and present lives, inner world, external behavior, the antecedents and consequences of all events, right and wrong of all the characters in the pen; if it is a movie, it is an omnipresent lens.

2. Restrictive perspective.

"Restrictive perspective" refers to the way a narrative work observes and states events from the eyes of a certain character (usually a character in the play). The things he knows the audience knows, and what he can't see we can't see.

In this film, this character is Old Red, and the main part of the film is that Old Red is telling the story of the prisoner named Andy. The symbol is the inner monologue of the old Red that runs through the main body of the film.

Since narrative works are divided into two narrative perspectives, what determines this "perspective" of the work? That is, on what basis do we determine whether a work is an omniscient or restrictive perspective?

Since it is all called "perspective", is it not the lens or picture that determines?

But it really isn't. As far as the picture is concerned, except for a very small number of shots (such as subjective shots), it is naturally "objective perspective", which can also be said to be "omniscient perspective" - because it always and can only be poked at the side by the perspective of a third party to photograph the history of people and events.

There are also films in history that are all made with subjective lenses, and it is said that there is a Hollywood film called "Corpse on the Lake" that imitates the eyes of a detective 100% and shows his process of investigating a case. I have not seen this film, can not go into more details, you can imagine, for example, when the detective pulls out the gun, the audience will see a revolver sticking out from the bottom of the picture, which is what it means.

But these kinds of films are almost unique, and there are few successful cases, including this "Corpse on the Lake". The vast majority of movies are still the way we are used to.

So, it is not determined by the lens or the picture, and what determines the perspective of the film? It should be determined by higher-level, more comprehensive factors.

However, there is one thing that is not only one of the important factors that determine the perspective of the film, but also can almost be said to be a clear label for the perspective of the film, that is, the sound of the film - "voice-over".

Where the "narration" runs through the whole film, the omniscient perspective is unquestionable; where the "monologue" is from beginning to end, of course, the restrictive perspective. (Measuring the film, it can be found that several domestic films made by Dajia are chaotic in their perspective processing, although the opening and ending of the film are embellished with monologues, but the film is an omniscient perspective, of course, they can not talk about perspective conversion, purely did not understand this matter.) The name is not mentioned, and the reader goes to the brain to make up the number and sit in the seat. ）

In "The Shawshank Redemption", The Old Red's monologue runs through the whole film, which is not only the most important narrative element of the whole film, but also the reason why the film adopts a restrictive perspective.

There is only a "prologue part" in the whole film, that is, the small section of the court trial is from an omniscient perspective, and as the judge drops the hammer, it is also a bang of the prison iron door, and the film enters the main part, opening the old Red's narration mode.

After his hopeful Nth parole review and his disappointment as usual, Andy is in old Red's sight as the new inmate's prison cart arrives. The first incident he recounted was that on the first night of the new prisoner, he lost one of his bets because of Andy (at first he said that he bet ten cigarettes, and then said that he lost two packs, if there were no odds, it was a problem of wearing a gang, huh!). This is a small example of the importance of fieldkeeping work), this thing that makes him almost never lose his hand, makes him interested in Andy, who initially looks down but ends unexpectedly, and slowly becomes a mow.

At each key point in the film, there are important monologues by Old Red (that is, arranged by the director), such as the "Beer Incident", such as the "Record Incident", as well as the important dialogue with Old Red on the afternoon of the first day when He decided to escape from prison after Andy was wiped out of all hopes of rehabilitation.

In short, ignoring old Red's voice (including every word), I basically haven't seen this film.

Now that I say he's the old black Red is the male lead, you're not so adamantly opposed, right?

Similar examples are not uncommon. For example, in the movie "The Biography of Mozart", the protagonist of the film is not the Mozart of the title of the film (the translation of the film is very problematic, this will be said later), but the court composer Mr. Salieli who tells mozart's story, and the film won the Academy Award for Best Actor Mr. Murray Abraham, who played Salieli, not the actor who played Mozart.

What are the benefits of using a restrictive perspective on storytelling? You guys have a different opinion, I won't explain it here.

There are still a few questions about the film, and they only ask and do not answer, the purpose is to ask the forgotten children's shoes to review this excellent work!

After the old Booker was released from prison, he could not stand the outside world and chose to commit suicide. This part is beyond the old Red's vision. According to the rules of the restrictive perspective, we don't know what the narrator doesn't know. So, how did the director return to this problem, so that the film always maintained a precise and restrictive perspective of the narrative strategy?

Similarly, Andy's final escape from prison is also invisible to Old Red, how does the film deal with this contradiction?