I grew up in one of these areas and on top of that, it’s a great film.
Commentary Decaying prison ready for film buffs Sunday, July 13, 2008 3:23 AM By Mike Harden
MANSFIELD, Ohio — Standing on the catwalk atop the old prison, feet planted on the ghosts of 300,000
inmates, you can glimpse
the current bumper crop
of cons milling about next door in the yard of the Richland Correctional Institution.
The rooftop view from the derelict Mansfield Reformatory also enfolds the distant headstones of the scores who traded cells for graves.
Within the old stone penitentiary, tank-topped tourists snatch up handcuff earrings from the gift shop and snap photos of rusting cells said to be occupied by inmate wraiths.
It seems an altogether peculiar site for a joyous summer reunion, but come August, the corridor fronting the proclaimed “tallest free-standing steel cellblock in the world” (six stories, 600 cells) will buzz with the chatter of congregants celebrating the 15th anniversary of the filming of The Shawshank Redemption.
Spun from the abundant wool of Stephen King’s imagination, the film is a masterpiece wrought in despair and cruelty but ultimately redemption.
At Mansfield, Upper Sandusky and Ashland — three cities where parts of Shawshank were filmed — events ranging from bloodhound demonstrations to a country-rock concert have been scheduled for Aug. 29-31.
Susan Nirode, operations director of the retired reformatory, explained: “Our part of the event here is going to be self-guided tours from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the 29th.”
Upper Sandusky’s Bill
Mullen said his city’s daylong Aug. 30 shindig will re-create the movie’s sawmill scene — right down to inmate-garbed millworkers — at the old Stephan Lumber Co. The downtown event also will feature tours of the courthouse where Andy Dufresne (actor Tim Robbins) is misjudged guilty of murdering his wife and her lover.
Upper Sandusky plans a display of memorabilia from the making of the film.
Mullen said tickets to his city’s event will be $10. Getting behind bars at Mansfield will run $8.
The old bullpen at Mansfield showcases the tunnel that the Shawshank film crew constructed for Dufresne’s escape route to freedom through the prison’s sewer system.
The bullpen also was the set for the scene in which Warden Samuel Norton tells a
group of new arrivals, including Dufresne,
“I believe in two things — discipline and the Bible. Here you’ll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me.”
If real life casts a pall over art’s imitation
of it, that shadow at Mansfield is clothed in rust and frescoes of flaking institutional paint.
On Shawshank reunion day, hope will ride on the voices of a soprano and a mezzo-soprano who will sing the film’s heartbreaking duettino from The Marriage of Figaro.
The aria is a caged bird’s supplication, compliments of Mozart.
“It doesn’t matter what your situation is,” Mullen said of his interpretation of Shawshank, “if you keep chipping away, you’ll break through.”
If you believe him, all the particulars of the reunion and tours can be had at www.shawshankredemptionreunion.com.
Retired columnist Mike Harden writes a Sunday Metro column.
Copyright © 2008, The Columbus Dispatch
