ABSTRACT
I found myself watching more movies when isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the films I watched more than once was, The Shawshank Redemption (Darabont, 1994). The film is about a banker named Andy Dufresne who is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murder of his wife and her lover. Despite his claims of innocence, Andy spends 20 years in prison. In that time, Andy is befriended by a fellow inmate called Red. In the latter part of the film, after Andy spent two months in solitary confinement, he tells Red he dreams of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican coastal town. Red projects his own anxiety onto Andy's expression of hope and exclaims, “Goddamn it, Andy, stop! Don't do that to yourself! Talking shitty pipedreams! Mexico's down there, and you're in here, and that's the way it is!” Andy responds, “You're right. It's down there, and I'm in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying”.
