Tweet
From my favorite movie ever...
("The Marriage of Figaro" is playing in the background.)
RED I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.
(Andy and Red are placing books on the shelves in the prison library they're working to expand. They're discussing Warden Norton's money-laundering scheme.)
RED If they ever catch on, he's gonna wind up in here wearing a number himself.
ANDY C'mon, I thought you had more faith in me than that...
RED I'm know you're good, Andy, but all that paper leaves a trail. Anybody gets too curious -- FBI, IRS, whatever -- that trail's gonna lead to somebody.
ANDY Sure it will. But not to me, and certainly not to the warden.
RED All right, then, who?
ANDY Randall Stevens.
RED Who?
ANDY The silent-silent partner. He's the guilty one, Your Honor - the man with the bank accounts. That's where the filtering process starts. They trace it back, all they're gonna find is him.
RED Yeah, okay, but who the hell is he?
ANDY He's a phantom, an apparition. Second cousin to Harvey the Rabbit. I conjured him out of thin air. He doesn't exist... except on paper.
RED You can't just make a person up!
ANDY Oh, sure you can, if you know how the system works, and where the cracks are. It's amazing what you can accomplish by mail... Mr. Stevens has a birth certificate, driver's license, Social Security card... If they ever track those accounts, they'll wind up chasing a figment of my imagination.
RED Well I'll be damned... Did I say you were good? ****, you're a Rembrandt!
ANDY It's funny, though... on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.
(Red laughs.)
(Red is at a parole hearing.)
PAROLE OFFICER It says here that you've served forty years of a life sentence. Do you feel that you've been rehabilitated?
RED Rehabilitated? Well, now, let me see... You know, I don't have any idea what that means.
PAROLE OFFICER Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society...
RED (interrupting him) I know what you think it means, sonny. To me, it's just a made-up word - a politician's word - so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? "Am I sorry for what I did?"
PAROLE OFFICER Well, are you?
RED There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then... a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense into him - tell him the way things are - but I can't. That kid's long gone... this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bull**** word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time, because to tell you the truth, I don't give a ****.
(The parole officer flips through some papers and approves Red's parole.)
(Red is on a bus headed for the Mexican border.)
RED I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I imagine it's the excitement only a free man can feel - a free man at the start of a long journey, whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border... I hope to see my friend and shake his hand... I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams... I *hope*...
("The Marriage of Figaro" is playing in the background.)
RED I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.
(Andy and Red are placing books on the shelves in the prison library they're working to expand. They're discussing Warden Norton's money-laundering scheme.)
RED If they ever catch on, he's gonna wind up in here wearing a number himself.
ANDY C'mon, I thought you had more faith in me than that...
RED I'm know you're good, Andy, but all that paper leaves a trail. Anybody gets too curious -- FBI, IRS, whatever -- that trail's gonna lead to somebody.
ANDY Sure it will. But not to me, and certainly not to the warden.
RED All right, then, who?
ANDY Randall Stevens.
RED Who?
ANDY The silent-silent partner. He's the guilty one, Your Honor - the man with the bank accounts. That's where the filtering process starts. They trace it back, all they're gonna find is him.
RED Yeah, okay, but who the hell is he?
ANDY He's a phantom, an apparition. Second cousin to Harvey the Rabbit. I conjured him out of thin air. He doesn't exist... except on paper.
RED You can't just make a person up!
ANDY Oh, sure you can, if you know how the system works, and where the cracks are. It's amazing what you can accomplish by mail... Mr. Stevens has a birth certificate, driver's license, Social Security card... If they ever track those accounts, they'll wind up chasing a figment of my imagination.
RED Well I'll be damned... Did I say you were good? ****, you're a Rembrandt!
ANDY It's funny, though... on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.
(Red laughs.)
(Red is at a parole hearing.)
PAROLE OFFICER It says here that you've served forty years of a life sentence. Do you feel that you've been rehabilitated?
RED Rehabilitated? Well, now, let me see... You know, I don't have any idea what that means.
PAROLE OFFICER Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society...
RED (interrupting him) I know what you think it means, sonny. To me, it's just a made-up word - a politician's word - so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? "Am I sorry for what I did?"
PAROLE OFFICER Well, are you?
RED There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then... a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense into him - tell him the way things are - but I can't. That kid's long gone... this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bull**** word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time, because to tell you the truth, I don't give a ****.
(The parole officer flips through some papers and approves Red's parole.)
(Red is on a bus headed for the Mexican border.)
RED I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I imagine it's the excitement only a free man can feel - a free man at the start of a long journey, whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border... I hope to see my friend and shake his hand... I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams... I *hope*...
. Not sure how to spell it though. 
ACK!
Comment