Name: Alien's Guide to THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
Uploaded: 2019-01-29T02:35:56.000Z
Duration: 4 min 43 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Greetings, and welcome to Earthling
Cinema. I am your host, Garyx

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

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

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

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

For Earthling Cinema, I'm Garyx
Wormuloid.