The Shawshank Redemption: Movie Synopsis

A movie the calibre of The Shawshank Redemption barely comes along one time in a long time. The acting and story stand out in the mind of many critics as the best of all time. The novelette scripted by Stephen King is what the movie was based upon and they are quite similar. Although there are similarities, the movie captivates and grabs the viewer as opposed to the novella, which seems to drag on a bit.Darabonts adaptation of Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption turns an average novella into a theatrical masterpiece through the exclusion of unnecessary characters, the minimal brain dysfunctionition of an incredible musical score to add to the mood, a perfect adaptation of the setting and major characters, and a slightly different plot that solidifies the view of certain characters. Certain characters in the book were eliminated barely because they were not necessary. In the novella, there were many individuals who were only mentioned for a few seconds and forgotten just a s quickly.The director does a good job bare most of these out. For example, in the novella there was a character that raised a crow in his cell, Sherwood Bolton. In the movie this trait was given to some other character that already existed, the librarian of the prison named Brooks Hadlen. This way, the director was able to get rid of an unnecessary character and make another character better. The novella made Brooks a hard-nosed person with little dialogue and no depth, the movie took the Brooks character and gave him different traits that make the viewer empathize with him.The character of Brooks in the movie was released and later commits suicide, proving to be one of the truly sad moments in the film and also strengthens Reds point about be institutionalized They give you life, and thats what they takeall of it that counts, anyway. In the novella he was referring Sherwood Bolton, in the movie he instead refers to Brooks Hadlen, who the auditory modality knows better than th ey would have known Bolton, who was only mentioned for a few seconds in the novella.In the movie, Andy was said to have a cellmate named Normadden, a native Indian who only collared with Andy for a short time. This really detracts from the character of Andy who had pride in being alone and was always a mysterious character. With a cellmate this would be taken away. In turn, Normadden gave a clue for Andys escape, saying the room was chilly, but this adds little to the novella and would just leave an undeveloped minor character in the movie that no one would feel or care for.Finally, the elimination of all the wardens that controlled the prison during Andys stay got rid of a collection of unnecessary characters. The constant changing of Wardens during Andys stay would have added confusion to the viewer, having to change focus to a new warden with different attributes. The movie only used the last warden from the book to watch over Andy the finished time he was in the prison. This g ives the viewer time to grow to hate the warden for the various evil crimes he commits.