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On the surface, 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption and 2007’s The Mist don’t have much in common. Both share a director in Frank Darabont and are based on Stephen King novellas, but one is an uplifting prestige picture known as one of the greatest movie of all time, and the other is a somewhat forgotten creature feature.
But, despite their differences, the films are more alike than many might give them credit for. As well as the King and Darabont links, both star Jeffrey DeMunn and William Sadler and are also two sides of the same coin that explore communities in crisis and the tragedy of losing hope.
Stephen King’s Tragic, Captive Characters
Released on the very same weekend as Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption overcame box office disaster to find an audience at home and ultimately became a mainstay atop the Internet Movie Database’s list of the best movies ever made. In the film, Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a prisoner wrongly convicted of the murder of his wife and sentenced to live his life in a cruel Maine penitentiary. The Shawshank Redemption was Frank Darabont’s first feature, approved for adaptation after Stephen King saw the director’s adaptation of his short story, “The Woman in the Room.” An inspirational tale about perseverance, friendship, and hope, it’s a sweeping classical drama complete with majestic crane shots, fantastic performances, and a soaring score by Thomas Newman. It bombed at the box office but netted an Oscar for best picture, eventually became a cable staple while being considered one of the greatest prison films ever made in the process.
The Mist is about a different type of imprisonment. It follows Thomas Jane’s David Drayton and his son as they take shelter in a Maine grocery store after a mysterious fog covers the town. Dangerous beasts emerge from the mist and wreak havoc, and Drayton and his fellow survivors must band together to battle not only the otherworldly threat but also their fellow townsfolk, who have been driven into mania by the apocalyptic events. Where The Shawshank Redemption is aspirational and hopeful, The Mist is a mean and gory piece of work, with some of Stephen King’s most horrific imagery.
Viewers unaware of the film’s behind-the-scenes credits might be surprised to learn that the two films share Frank Darabont as their director, since, where The Shawshank Redemption looks and feels like an Oscar-nominated drama, The Mist is more muscular. Indeed, Darabont used the same crew he worked with on the television show The Shield when directing The Mist, utilizing handheld camerawork to create an intense aesthetic. If The Shawshank Redemption courted accolades, The Mist is the work of a director eager to terrify audiences and make a statement.
Both Films Explore How People Live – and Die – Together
The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist share common themes, particularly a curiosity about how people live in community in dire circumstances. The Shawshank Redemption’s characters are strangers forced to live together in one of the most brutal prisons put to film, and the film follows how Andy Dufresne’s decision to treat each of them with respect changes their lives. His most notable relationship is with Morgan Freeman’s Red, whose friendship with Andy allows him to consider life outside the prison’s walls for the first time in seemingly years. Andy does taxes for the wardens, helps a young con earn his G.E.D., and opens a library for the inmates. They may be in prison, King and Darabont suggest, but they’re still human, and if they can treat each other with dignity, they might be able to rise beyond their situation.
Meanwhile, The Mist’s prisoners aren’t strangers; they’re neighbors. Ideally, they should be able to weather the storm together and help each other survive. And yet, fears and petty differences creep in. Brent, a lawyer played by Andre Braugher, holds a grudge with Drayton and feels compelled to take the lead. People who have grown up in the town turn on Brent and the other perceived outsiders as they experience what they believe to be the end of the world. Goading everyone into a frenzy and exploiting their fears is iconic Stephen King villain Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), who believes the mist and the monsters are God’s vengeance on a sinful world.
These respective prisons are microcosms of the world, and both showcase how people can use their time together to either help or hurt each other. Ironically, it’s the convicts of The Shawshank Redemption who – aside from a few bad eggs – find friendship and connection, while David and the few allies he finds in the grocery store barely escape the anger of their neighbors as they drive off into the mist.
The Dangers of Organized Religion
At one point in The Mist, the store’s general manager, played excellently by British actor Toby Jones, says:
Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?
Both The Mist and The Shawshank Redemption cast a skeptical eye toward organized religion, and people who use it to control others. In the former, Mrs. Carmody is a believer driven into frenzy as she cajoles people to her side and demands David’s child as a sacrifice for “expiation”— it’s one King’s most disturbing storylines, because it suggests that maybe Mrs. Carmody’s right. On the other hand, in The Shawshank Redemption, the crooked Warden Norton pushes the Bible on the inmates – “Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me,” he says. Even as he finds use of Andy and instructs him to cook the books, he keeps up his pious facade. He keeps a plaque with a Bible quote hanging on his wall, and Darabont lingers after Norton’s suicide to watch the blood spatter on it. Andy also escapes by hiding his tunneling tools in the Bible Warden gave the inmates upon their arrival at Shawshank; in a way, Norton was right, salvation was found within.
Mrs. Carmody and Warden Norton are characters who exemplify Stephen King’s long distrust of organized religion, which stretches all the way back to Carrie and pops up in works like The Stand, and the more recent Revival. King’s works have no problem suggesting the existence of a spiritual world – although The Shawshank Redemption has no supernatural overtones – but they are more skeptical about the people who would presume to speak for God, creating two sinister villains in this exact mold.
Don’t Stop Believing
It’s in their respective finales that The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist feel most different, and yet, both endings explore the importance of hope, albeit from different viewpoints. The Shawshank Redemption features one of the most perfect endings in cinema. Darabont reveals that while Andy has been going about his days in prison, he’s also been planning his escape. He breaks free and his last gift is a letter encouraging Red to join him in Mexico. “Hope is a good thing, Red,” Andy writes, “And no good thing ever dies.” Red gets his parole and hops on a bus to find his friend; the film’s last shot is the two reuniting on the beach.
The Mist’s ending is changed from King’s novella – although, interestingly, the final word in King’s short story is “hope,” ironic for one of the bleakest and most shocking endings put to film. David and his friends escape the grocery store and drive into the mist, only to find the world overrun by gigantic, Lovecraftian beasts. After driving for hours, they run out of gas. There are five people in David’s car; he has a gun with four bullets. David kills his companions – including his young son – and then stumbles into the woods to let the monsters take him. Moments later, the mist clears, and the Army arrives; had he waited, everyone would have been saved. It’s a brave and disturbing ending, and it’s no surprise audiences didn’t respond kindly to the bleak denouement.
And yet, in both films, Darabont and King explore the crucial role of hope in life’s darkest times. The Shawshank Redemption is the optimistic side of the coin. As difficult as things get for Andy, he never loses hope. He perseveres and spends time caring for his friends, planning his escape, and looking forward to his future on the beach. The Mist is angrier and more cynical; made shortly after the invasion of Iraq, it found Darabont in “a mean mood.” He depicts a world that is brittle and susceptible to chaos, and the movie finds him wondering whether humans can work together efficiently enough to stay alive – and what it might look like for his characters to believe they had lost all chance of survival. One film ends with a moment of triumph; the other in tragedy. Taken together, The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist are, respectively, an encouragement and a warning to never give up hope.
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