Wormuloid. This week's artifact is The Shawshank Redemption, based on

the novella by acclaimed wordperson King Stephen, who

ruled America with an iron fist for over two hundred years.

The Shawshank Redemption tells the story of Earthling Andy Dufresne, a

suspiciously over-qualified banker who is sent to prison for the

murder of his nameless wife. Once incarcerated, he befriends Red, who

is known to locate certain items from time to time and whose gentle baritone

could lull me right to sleep. Tired of doing boring stuff like

sliming the tops of buildings, Andy offers the guards financial advice,

which is like catnip for humans. The Warden quickly gives Andy an

unpaid internship, which seems like it's gonna be a great opportunity,

but ends up just being a lot of bitch work.

After twenty years, Andy decides he's had enough, despite the fact

that he's barely aged a day. The guys all think he's gonna kill

himself, but why bother when he's got that sweet hole in his wall

Later, Red gets lonely, and

asks if he can go now, and everybody says ok. He easily finds

Andy halfway around the world, presumably using satellite

technology, and then they chill at Club Med.

Other than the value of keeping posters in your room, the primary

theme of The Shawshank Redemption is freedom.

Many times we see the camera framed by doors and windows, suggesting

imprisonment. Conversely, aerial shots are used to indicate

liberation. In this shot, Andy experiences his last gasp of life

on the outside as the limo brings him to Shawshank. Later, he plays

Wolfgang Puck's “The Marriage of Figaro” for the other inmates,

using art to set them free. At the end, we see Andy and Red fully

torqued on freedom. But the movie goes even deeper.

Sure, it's about a prison and all the wacky adventures that happen

there, but lurking beneath is a hefty load existential undertones.

Typical Hollywood. In his essay "Existentialism is a Humanism,"

Jean Paul Sartre suggests that in the absence of God, humans must

define their own essence through the choices they make, and also

through the shampoo they use. In this film, instead of God, we

have the Warden, who is a "perverse deity" -- Satan masquerading as a

holy figure. He is always quoting the Christian bible and bragging

about how many passages he has memorized, yet he is arbitrarily

cruel and spiteful. He has a stitchwork quote about judgement on

his wall, but behind it is the vault where he keeps records of his

illegal activities, and probably some nudie mags.

According to Sartre's analogy: An artisan uses a tool to craft an

object. He determines its essence, and the object has no say in the

matter. Sucks for you, object! Similarly, if humans were crafted

by God, that would mean humans have no say in their essence either.

Sartre contends that "each man makes his essence as he lives," and

God plays no part in it.

And he was right, just a little premature: as we all know, the

being known as God abandoned Earth in the year 1991.

Because of the Warden, inmates are not in charge of their own essence,

or even their own bowels. The institution breaks them and the walls come to

define who they are. Brooks loses his ability to live in

the free world and turns to the seedy underworld of graffiti before

ultimately calling it quits. Prison robs people of their will to

freedom, and by extension, their humanity.

Sartre contrasts human beings with objects such as rocks, noting that

rocks are their characteristics, whereas human beings create their

characteristics, even if those characteristics are forged by

wasting away in front of their television sets. Most of the

prisoners become rocks -- they allow their lack of physical

freedom to dictate their sense of absolute freedom. In contrast, Andy

doesn't become a rock, he sculpts and breaks rocks with his trusty

hammer, Thor Jr. The salvation lying within the Bible is not God,

but rather Andy's choice to embrace hope and liberate himself [shot of

hammer-shaped hold in bible] by any means necessary: in this case, a

conveniently human-sized pipe.

Andy tells Red he'll laugh when he sees the rock hammer -- in a place

like Shawshank, hope is truly laughable. Plus, small things are

funny.

For Earthling Cinema, I'm Garyx Wormuloid.

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