The enduring power

A box-office also-ran about two prison friends became one of the most beloved movies of all time, and is still as popular as ever, finds Zachary Pincus-Roth.

In the lobby of the Renaissance Theatre, Justin Tedders lifts his T-shirt: A poster for The Shawshank Redemption is tattooed across his entire back. The movie’s phrase ‘‘Brooks was here’’ is just above his right butt cheek.

The 34-year-old from Barbourville, Kentucky, beat out other Shankheads to be second in line at a 25th-anniversary screening in Mansfield, Ohio, last month, part of a three-day celebration in and around the prison where the movie was filmed. His obsession with movies is a safe way of channelling an ‘‘addictive personality’’, he says, and any time he’s in trouble, he returns to Shawshank.

‘‘It’s given me a purpose,’’ he adds. ‘‘My back represents what it means to me. I can’t really tell you what it means. I can show you what it means.’’

What does this movie mean? In its 25 years, as of this month, Shawshank has emerged as an unlikely entry in the contest for the most beloved movie of all time.

It’s not a family saga like The Godfather ,ora geopolitical romance like Casablanca ,ora technical masterpiece like Citizen

Kane – just a box-office also-ran about two prison friends.

It’s too sappy, some might say. It’s too neat. It’s basically an all-male cast. It’s not quite at those other movies’ level, but it’s not quite not at their level, as it’s spent the past 11 years as the No 1rated movie on IMDb.

It somehow found the right alchemy of hope and friendship and, of course, redemption, and has an ending so cathartic that, yes, it still requires a spoiler alert. And it’s moved fans to make pilgrimages to this town in Ohio that once pretended to be a town in Maine.

When writer-director Frank Darabont read the original Stephen King novella, ‘‘it felt like a perfect

metaphor for every hardship I ever endured’’, he recalls, standing outside the theatre.

Rob Reiner’s company Castle Rock offered Darabont about US$4 million if he’d hand over his script adaptation and let Reiner direct it with Tom Cruise as the star, but he refused. He had made a TV movie and written scripts like Nightmare on Elm Street 3, but Shawshank was ‘‘the one I didn’t want to let get away’’, he says.

His script built the bit character Brooks into a symbol of how prisoners can become dependent on their walls. He mushed three wardens into one, to focus his villainy. And when an executive suggested a final reunion on the beach, he eventually agreed the audience had earned it.

Tim Robbins prepared to play Andy by

‘‘It’s given me a purpose. My back represents what it means to me. I can’t really tell you what it means. I can show you what it means.’’ Justin Tedders

spending a few hours in solitary confinement and staring at a tiger in a zoo. Morgan Freeman, while playing Red, says he pretty much just spoke the words on the page. ‘‘Be as true as you can to the lines,’’ he notes. ‘‘No philosophising.’’

Robbins and others felt it was the best script they’d ever read – ‘‘I mean, you know, not counting Shakespeare,’’ he says – but the set didn’t exactly conjure Stratford-uponAvon. Some felt Darabont’s inexperience showed and the number of takes got out of hand. In the beach scene, Freeman fought hard not to be playing the harmonica.

Shawshank’s theatrical demise is infamous, as it earned just US$28 million in North America on a US$25 million budget. It got seven Oscar