Drum: INSIGHT
29
“Readers of Empire magazine
voted it the fourth best film of
all time. Viewers of Channel 4
voted it the best.”
access to his office and broadcasts the strains of
Mozart over the tannoy system. One by one, the
prisoners drop their tools, stop playing basketball,
and stand listening, transfixed, in awe. Morgan
Freeman’s honeyed tones impart the heavy-handed,
sentimental learning point; “And for the briefest of
moments – every last man at Shawshank felt free.”
For me, there was something deeply patronising
in the implicit casting of the prisoners as ‘noble
savages’, momentarily shaken out of their bovine
mental slumber. Moreover, while the idea of prison’s
being ‘a state of mind’ is one that may be
immensely palatable to the viewing public, the »
What, for many people, was the most inspirational
moment of the movie was, for me, the most
troublesome. For them it delivered a poignant
message about the innate dignity of the human
spirit – for a moment, these prisoners are ennobled
by the power of the music, they are freed by it, reaffirming Robbins’ ‘deeper, more metaphysical’
message that the only prisons that exist are the ones
in your head.
“As someone who works in a
prison, I can’t help but find the
fundamental, untruth of prison
movies – even the beloved
Shawshank – infuriating.”