Posted on 09/12/2009 9:47:56 PM PDT by Saije
Frank Darabont, the director of The Shawshank Redemption, has words for the millions of people who believe his 1994 prison drama is the greatest film of all time. “I think that’s a little crackers, to be honest, especially when you think of the other films on the list.” He means films such as The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Lolita, Vertigo and foreign-language contenders like Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, Luis Buñuel’s Belle de jour or Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.
But, hey, pointy-headed film critics can have their highfalutin’ crushes. There’s no getting round the fact that The Shawshank Redemption, which stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, is consistently being voted the best film ever in all sorts of readers’ polls. It currently sits atop the 250 best movies of all time on the world’s most popular cinema website, imdb.com, as it has done for most of the past decade...Empire’s readers have also voted Shawshank their favourite film of all time.
What gives? How has a film set mainly in a bleak prison, in which women are barely glimpsed, by an unknown first-time director, adapted from a little-known Stephen King novella, become such an enduring crowd-pleaser? Shawshank tells the story of the friendship of two prison inmates, Andy, played by Robbins, and Red, played by Freeman. It’s a film that can make strong men — including the rugby star Jonny Wilkinson, who loves it — blub like babies and insist that they will change their lives pronto. Devotees quote its life-affirming mantras: “You can get busy living or get busy dying”; “Fear can keep you a prisoner. Hope can set you free”.
(Excerpt) Read more at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk ...
I agree on Eastwood directing. I tried to watch The Changeling and what could have been a pretty good movie was so slow and stilted, couldn’t get through it. He did a good job with Heartbreak Ridge though, even though it’s kind of corny and doesn’t really portray the Marines accurately.
DeNiro jumped the shark with Goodfellas, a great movie, but the beginning of his becoming a self-parody. Midnight Run (two years before Goodfellas), however, was his most underrated performance, and one of the best comic performances of the 1980s.
You forgot ‘Ford Fairlane’.
Seems I read somewhere he's on the liberal side but has the good sense to keep his politics personal. I respect that. I really applauded his comment to Mike Wallace. If only PBS and other liberal media would pay heed to it instead of incessantly dragging up every piece of segregationist and race violence footage ever filmed and replaying it incessantly to make sure old wounds never heal. The Democrats need to make sure their Black base on the Liberal Plantation is always stirred up and filled with hatred against Whitey aka Conservatives.
I don’t see why Shawshank is a lefty film. I like the part where Tim Robbins talks about hope, and how there is something inside us no one else can touch. It’s the ultimate triumph of patience and persistance and dedication. The movie doesn’t deny God, but confirms that he is in control, and that in the end, the Warden’s quote is very apt, that his Judgement is swift and it comes.
I like the part at the end where Freeman talks about the feelings that only a free man can feel. I like how they deal with rehabilitation, in how it has to be a fundamental shift in how someone sees the world, and that he gets out because for the first time he was able to truthfully say he was guilty.
I don’t know if it is my favourite, but it’s right up there.
Oh, never read the book. Yeah, I didn’t quite get what was going on when he was recalling his past.
Good point. I thought Return of the Jedi was the best of the trio.
The Unforgiven was really good.
That was my thought. I was a kid when it came out, didn't see it then. Saw it then in high school, but didn't remember much about it. Saw it a few times in the last 4-5 years. Truely beautiful.
Gotta agree with you. 3:10 to Yuma is excellent. Certainly in my top five. Along with Shawshank Redemption.
By the way have you seen "Reservoir Dogs"? If you have not, it is highly recommended.
Stephen King is “America’s Storyteller. . “
He’s why the film is so good. And it is. The King short story is too.
This is Spinal Tap. . .the funniest film ever, but not the best film ever. Still the only film that makes me pee in my pants from laughing so hard. . .
Gee whiz, and here I was gonna get you a Will Smith personally signed DVD of “The Legend of Bagger Vance” for your birthday (and a complete boxed set of all the episodes of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”). ;-D
I actually thought shawshank was over-hyped and kinda crappy.
and Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia...
The Incredibles, I would agree with that. Great story line, lots of inside jokes, lots of hat tips to the spy movie genre. Holds my attention pretty much throughout.
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