How The Shawshank Redemption Truly Outran Forrest Gump

The year 1995 was an intriguing year for the award "Best Picture" at the Oscars Academy Awards, featuring some of the most classic films of all time. What made the 1995 Best Picture Award so memorable is that it featured two films which can undoubtedly be marked down as two of the greatest films of all time. The winner that year: Forrest Gump, directed by Robert Zemeckis tells the story from the point of view of a mentally challenged man named Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), who overcomes various life obstacles to live out a successful life in various careers, which in turn inspires the people all around him, including his loving mother (Sally Field) and his lifelong best friend and eventual wife Jenny (Robin Wright). The Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont tells the story from the point of view of an inmate that goes by the name "Red" (Morgan Freeman) who tells his account of the imprisonment of an innocent man named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) who overcomes corruption and a plethora of struggles at Shawshank Prison, where he serves his life sentence, to eventually shockingly escape years later. There is no doubt this is one of the most difficult comparisons to make between movies because each film contains so many similar strengths in the plot, underlying meaning, acting, emotional connection, characters and visual effects that make up each film. Both films are all time classics for all these reasons, however I am here to argue that The Shawshank Redemption should have won the 1995 Best Picture Award at the Oscars over Forrest Gump specifically because of the film's superiority in the overall storyline and meaning.

Through each time I have watched The Shawshank Redemption I have been fascinated by how Frank Darabont captures his audience in the film with the unique and complex story his film portrays. There are so many elements which help shape the path that the story of Andy Dufresne takes. From the very beginning Andy Dufresne is a man who repetitively claims he is innocent, yet nobody seems to believe him when he says it. The audience can't even be sure when all of the evidence point to him murdering his wife and her secret lover one night when he found them having an affair. It seems almost certain that Andy is a murderer, yet the film gets the audience to believe him when he claims he is not, and to root for him through his struggles in prison. Andy makes the most of his time in prison and tries to do good for the people around him by helping get the funds to build a new library, educating fellow prisoners, and helping all of the guards with their financial situations by using his banking experience. Andy is well developed as a character who has a good heart and that is what gets the audience fully invested in his journey. What makes the storyline especially good is how Andy overcomes the corrupt system to succeed in the end. When Andy finds evidence to prove his innocence, the warden (Bob Gunton) doesn't let him go to court because he needs Andy for his own personal gain. Andy is constantly beaten and sent to the hole and he still keeps persisting. It seems as if Andy has nothing left and he is going to be in jail forever until it is revealed that Andy has escaped prison. Through years of secretly digging through the wall in his cell and determination to find a path out, Andy overcame all obstacles to outsmart the warden and gain his freedom. The value of the film is that the story contains the underlying meaning that you cannot overcome a corrupt system by conforming, the only way to win is by outsmarting the system.

When I watched Forrest Gump for the first time I could immediately see why it has always been such a popular movie among people all around the world. The storyline of this film is more straightforward, but that does not take away from its meaning and value. Forrest acts as the narrator as he tells his crazy life story to random strangers on a park bench. Throughout his story, the audience feels a connection to Forrest because of his innocent, happy, talkative, and determined personality. In the early parts of his life it becomes clear that Forrest is at a disadvantage because he is mentally challenged and that hurts his social life, early opportunity, and how he is treated. Even with these early life problems, Forrest always was happy, mostly because of his caring mother and his best friend Jenny. The film does a good job with developing Forrest's character to show how no matter what life threw at him he was able to overcome it, through determination, his natural running ability, and his positive attitude. We see as Forrest overcomes these obstacles he lives a successful life where he plays football at Alabama, serves in the military at Vietnam, plays ping pong for the U.S. national team, receives various national awards, starts his own shrimping business, and runs all around the country. The story of Forrest Gump is unpredictable, exciting, and inspiring as he lives out a life nobody would have thought he could have ever achieved. While Forrest lives a happy life we see a huge contrast in the lives of people around him such as Lieutenant Taylor (Gary Sinise), Bubba (Mykelti Williamson), and Jenny who all face tragic life events. Through all the tragedy of those around him Forrest is able to push through and eventually live out his dream of marrying Jenny and raising their child. At the end of the film the audience is happy to see how far Forrest truly had come in life and how he overcame all odds to succeed.

When I look at each of these films individually it is easy to find so many strengths throughout each storyline. When comparing each movie I find that The Shawshank Redemption is superior, not because of what Forrest Gump did wrong but what The Shawshank Redemption did better. A big reason The Shawshank Redemption deserved the award is because the film does a better job with portraying the idea that often you have to fail in life before you succeed. We see Andy Dufresne constantly fail in his life- he fails to win his court case, he fails to fight off gangs, he fails to get funding from the government, he fails to convince the warden to let him testify again, and he fails to succeed against the corrupt system. Andy fails and fails over and over again until he finally succeeds for the first time ever, when all that failure was worth it in the end, when his plan to escape finally came to fruition. Forrest Gump on the other hand, never exactly truly fails at what he aims to do. While Forrest faced other obstacles in life, he succeeded at everything he did- he gained national recognition for football, a medal of honor for his military service, national recognition for ping pong, he started a successful shrimping company, and eventually married Jenny. As a result, we see a contrast in each storyline and the courses each of these characters have to take to reach their end goal. Both journey's are incredible however, there is a stronger meaning in Andy's journey because it shows how it truly is in reality, when you have to learn how to deal with failure before you can learn to achieve success.

Robert Zemeckis not only portrays a stronger meaning in his storyline, he also is able to create a more climactic and unexpected conclusion in his film. In The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne escaping from prison is completely unexpected, large in part due to the build up to the ending. The storyline is so complex and there are so many developing factors that when Andy escapes from prison the audience does not see it coming. The film is so effective in convincing everyone that Andy is going to commit suicide when he begins acting depressed after all his failure, gets a rope from another inmate, and doesn't come out of his cell the next morning. So when it is revealed that Andy had escaped by digging through his wall with a hammer, which had been covered by a poster for 19 years, it creates an exciting and unbelievable conclusion to a long story of failures. By including this twist at the end of the film it changes the whole way you view all of the events in the storyline, especially when you re-watch the film. In Forrest Gump the ending is unexpected to a certain extent, however it lacked the amount of excitement that was portrayed in the conclusion of Zemeckis' film. Forrest seemed almost destined to marry Jenny in the end because that was always his ultimate goal and he had always succeeded at everything else in his life. It was a little bit unexpected that Forrest had a kid with Jenny, and that led to a happy ending, but far less exciting and unexpected than the conclusion to Andy's journey. The conclusion to Forrest's story was more slow and emotional with the wedding, Forrest's child, and Jenny's funeral, whereas the ending to Andy's journey lead to hectic events such as the police search for Andy, the warden committing suicide, and Andy and Red reuniting. The more meaningful message and more climatic ending definitely should have cemented The Shawshank Redemption as the better film.

With two classic films such as these there are so many narrative and thematic choices to like overall from each film. However, while Forrest Gump is undoubtedly a masterpiece, there is no doubt in my mind that The Shawshank Redemption deserved to win the Best Picture Award in 1995. The storyline in The Shawshank Redemption takes the audience on a more meaningful journey with a man who symbolizes hope, even when there is none to be found. Andy Dufresne is a more realistic representation of what societal corruption can do to a man, and shows just how to overcome it. On top of it all, the superior storyline in this film is capped off by a more climactic ending and that is what truly seals the deal. Forrest Gump may have been fast, but the story of Andy Dufresne far outruns the story of Forrest Gump any day.