The Shawshank Redemption - Directed by Frank Darabont

These humans within the prison have literally been degraded in their worth. Each of these symbolic elements convey a sorry state of humanity where meaningful connection and individuality have been lost under the bloodless bars of prison life.
             Much of Darabont's symbolism is greatly referred to the lives of us as humans. Darabont shows us this symbolism through the use of camera angles and lighting. Andy Dufresne has the determination to escape Shawshank and create a new life for himself outside the prison walls. At the beginning of the film there is a high angle shot panning over the Shawshank prison, we are able to get a size view on the intensity of the walls of the prison and how they are over powering to the eye of us as the audience. The prisoners are in comparison to ants, as the prison overlooks them sucking them into a damp and dark hole. Lighting collides with the camera angles giving a more dignified effect to the symbols in the film we are able to see. Lighting plays the integral part to the deeper meaning of the film by setting the atmosphere. Throughout, there is extensive use of shadows, fadeouts, and partial sunlight to represent the cloudy mental and moral state of many of the characters. These shadows cover the majority of characters throughout the film and are there to represent the emotions the prison plays on these characters. This is created by the fact that when the sun shines, it does so only on one side of a character, this side is usually their back. This alludes to the thought that these people have the truth about them, yet are unable to truly see it. A good portion of the movie occurs in the dark, the prison itself represents a drab and dark hole that sucks in the souls of the prisoners forming them to rely on its walls to stay alive. Lights out at the prison is an extremely dark time when the characters are left with only their own thoughts. The thoughts play upon the emotions of the characters, toiling them and twisting their minds about the ways in which they need to go to get out of the prison walls.