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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Tom Fordy

The Shawshank Redemption at 30: How one of 1994’s biggest flops became a cinematic classic

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I remember well my introduction to The Shawshank Redemption. Someone I once knew – a true Nineties lad’s lad – handed me a VHS copy and told me it was “a beautiful film”. He was not the sort of bloke who ordinarily talked about beautiful art. But he was right. Beneath the stone walls, the brutality, and the tragedy of an innocent man condemned to a life term, The Shawshank Redemption was that very thing: a story of profound beauty.

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