There is no need to say much about the content of Shawshank, nor what it wants to express. I think anyone with a little life experience can deeply understand what the film wants to express. Hope, freedom, habit, struggle, rigidity and so on.
Hope is the central idea of the film. The film has successfully expressed to us that as long as you are full of hope, as long as you can persevere, you can do anything. Digging tunnels is like this, and so is running a library. I'll talk more about this later.
Freedom is not just physical freedom, but also spiritual freedom. Andy bought cold beer for the inmates, but he didn't drink it himself, just lay on the roof and smiled thoughtfully. Some people think that this passage is Andy's self-realization and self-satisfaction. It seems that Andy is masturbating spiritually. I think this passage expresses Andy's desire for spiritual freedom. Although he is a prisoner, he has many restrictions on his actions. But he refuses to be imprisoned spiritually. He seeks every opportunity to release his soul. To use the petty bourgeoisie that everyone likes to use now, it is: let the mood be free. The "The Marriage of Figaro" in the movie is a typical example of the desire for spiritual freedom. Although the price of these few minutes of spiritual freedom was two weeks of confinement, it touched every audience, and it is estimated that many audiences made the case. Cheers, I really don’t have backaches when I stand and talk. I’m sitting in front of the computer typing now, and I don’t have backaches, so I also say that this kind of struggle is good, this kind of struggle is good, but I’ll talk about this later.
Habits, rigidity, this kind of thing, very harmful. My favorite part of the movie is the description of this aspect. The old man who secretly feeds birds in prison must love life, but he is rigid and unable to adapt to freedom due to the rigid system. He thinks about freedom every day, yearns for freedom every day, and finally dies of freedom. This is a great irony. When we sigh this irony, do we feel sad, this sadness is not because of the dead old man, but because of ourselves, because of the thousands of people around us? Now, I turn to the topic that I will talk about a little later, which is the central idea of my writing this article.
I have also been institutionalized by more than ten years of education. I don’t forget the central idea when I say anything. Even when I quarrel with Daniel, I ask him, what exactly do you want to express and what is your central idea. Thinking about what he said, he couldn't help breaking out in a cold sweat. Habits, rigidity, and being institutionalized are not just the Shawshank Redemption movies, they are everywhere in our lives, and we unconsciously acquiesce to these rigidities, like frogs in warm water . Some people feel sad at some point, but this sadness is only fleeting. In a blink of an eye, they forget these unnecessary sadness and continue to be meekly institutionalized.
A friend, a friend who has a decent job and a carefree life in the eyes of others, told me that if I leave my current unit, I don’t know if I can still survive. Although I have worked for so many years, my work In fact, I have very little experience. Moreover, I have never participated in an interview. I am just an instant beneficiary of the current system. I am very happy that she can see this, but what if she sees this, she is still unable to change, all she can do is take a few more certificates and talk about masturbation. What saddens me even more is that looking at myself, it's the same. While we sympathize with the old man who cannot adapt to the new system, we often forget that we are not much better than the old man. We are all institutionalized people, we seem to have freedom, in fact, really?
Freedom is not just freedom of action, but more importantly, freedom of thought, as I have said just now. The reason why I emphasize this sentence is because I think that most of us are not actually free. We have the freedom to act without breaking the law, but we limit ourselves to countless terms and conditions. We ourselves are limiting our freedom. For example, a young girl would say to herself that it's too dangerous for me to travel alone, and so on. Not to mention the freedom of thought, many people are too lazy to even think about it, they have completely given up thinking, let alone freedom of thought. What's more, even if we have the freedom of thought, we don't have the freedom of expression. We can only express ourselves in a limited way with some roundabout words, or simply give up the freedom of expression, and these renunciations and detours do not cause us pain, but Occasionally complained twice, indicating that he still has ideas. Why there is no pain, I think, is also because we are used to it, we have been institutionalized, and we have been rigidified by the long-term lack of freedom. So I said, in fact, most of us are institutionalized and not free, which is why Shawshank is so popular.
Shawshank is actually the hero in each of us, the person we all aspire to be. Because the vast majority of us do not have the strength or courage to fight, persevere, and hope, we just live by, find our own interests within the system, and be content with our own lives, just like that old man is content with life in prison . The appearance of Andy gave each of us a boost. It turns out that life can be changed in this way, and adversity can be reversed in this way. We seem to see hope and our own hope. We were moved by Andy's daring to put "The Marriage of Figaro" at risk. This classic struggle actually reflects our inner desire. We also desire to resist. We desire that we have the courage to point at the boss's nose and curse. The government says no to the strong, but we don't have the courage, we can only envy in the movie, the blood boils in the movie, we envy Andy because of our own cowardice.
We were moved by this movie, not just by the characters in prison. We subconsciously used the mirror of the movie to see our own life and see the confusion and confusion in our life. Similarly, we also seem to be Seeing the same hope as Andy, then, in an instant, we seem to be full of power. It's just a pity, for most of us, that kind of instant power won't last long, this movie is like Popeye's spinach, it can only give you short-term strength, full of short-term confidence, after the spinach expires, everything will return to Normal, once again habit, once again rigid, once again looking for their own interests in the horn of the system Gala.
Some people say that "The Shawshank Redemption" is just like a spiritual opium. I'm very reluctant to admit this point of view, because I like this movie very much. I don't want to admit that I like it because it temporarily numbs me, but it's very sad. , I have to admit, this sentence is correct. When I saw Andy and Freeman hugging by the sea, I also seemed to eat spinach, full of strength and confidence, and felt that I was only a stone's throw away from my dream, but looking back now, this one is so close It's still so long. Dreams become dreams precisely because they cannot be realized.
Having said so much, some people may think that I am criticizing spiritual opium, but I am not. I think that having a spiritual opium like "The Shawshank Redemption" is not necessarily always unfortunate. I think it's pretty good. Since the dream can't be realized in reality, then it can be realized in the dream of the movie. The power obtained may be short-lived, but it also gives us hope and encouragement. This short-term power is equally beautiful and important. If a person’s life does not even have momentary hope and strength, then it is the real sadness.
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