“Aaaaand we have our first overlap with the AFI project. There’s only gonna be a handful of those. So we’ve established that its a damn good movie, and that I love it oh so much.
When I was watching it that time, the roomie walks by. “”You’re watching Shawshank Redemption?”” “”Yeah”” “”I respect you””. She then grabs a snack and sits on the couch.
Important thing that’s different for me since the last viewing–I read the Stephen King novella a couple weeks ago. Its in the same book as Apt Pupil (which I mentioned in passing earlie today). The adaptation is incredibly true to the story. I suppose its always easier to do that with shorter stories than with big huge novels.
I loved reading the description of Andy’s character in the book. Robbins played him perfectly, but there’s just something so powerful about reading the descriptions.
The movie added some nice touches I rather like:
-When Andy asks Red for Rita Hayworth, the film plays it like he’s jokingly asking for the actress. The book makes it more clear that he wants a poster. That is later used to show how far back he’d been planning his escape. Ooops, spoiler. Sorry, I assume most of you have seen it.
-The bit with the music over the loudspeakers isnt in the book
-Tommy is bribed in the book. The way his situation was handled in the film is much more effective.
-The film develops the secondary characters a lot more. The book really just focuses on Red and Andy.
-Ha! Love the “”maybe because Im Irish”” bit. He really is Irish in the novella. Just one of many times Morgan Freeman transcends race in a killer performance!
-The film flows a bit better. The roof thing leads into the bookkeeping thing. The book was a bit more mismatched.
I guess I should have said earlier that in general I tend to prefer watching the movie then reading the book. That way Im not reading for plot, Im reading for details. I dont rush thru the ending to find out what’s gonna happen. And Im discovering new scenes instead of being disappointed that they werent on screen.
Its actually a bit tough to pick apart differences because I know the film so well and read the book so recently. But there really weren’t many at all. Its as faithful an adaptation as Green Mile was.”