From Different Seasons (Signet)Fascinating Novella; The Screenplay of the Movie Actually Bettered It
(Kindle)
I must have watched "The Shawshank Redemption" more than a dozen times. It is a testament as much to the movie as it is to the screenplay and the novel it is based on. The Stephen King novella, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" is less than a hundred pages long, and is unlike other Stephen King works from the horror genre. It is the travails of a convict, Andy Dufresne, wrongly sentenced for the twin murders of his wife and her lover, and how he spends his years in the prison, finding his way through the brutal hierarchy of the prison, the brutality and venality of the prison officials, his friendship with Red - this Irish character is played by Morgan Freeman in the movie, and from whose eyes we see and are told this story, and his escape from the prison that is also his redemption in some ways.
Without going into the details, it was somewhat my impression that while Stephen King's novella is very good on its own merits, the movie betters the book, and that is saying a lot for both the movie and the book.
Kindle Excerpt:
© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.
