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How Thomas Newman Scored ‘The Shawshank Redemption’

Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’
Columbia Pictures/Everett

The first time Thomas Newman watched “The Shawshank Redemption” wasn’t a wholly enjoyable experience. The composer had been chosen to write the score for the film, and as the screening at the old Warner Hollywood lot concluded, he felt a mix of joy and despair. “How could you not make this a worse movie?” he recalls thinking.

Mr. Newman didn’t make “Shawshank” worse. After a disappointing theatrical release in September 1994, the film took off on home video and cable and became one of the most popular movies of the past 20 years. “Shawshank” earned Mr. Newman the first of 12 Academy Award nominations for films including “American Beauty,” “Wall-E” and “Saving Mr. Banks.”

The enduring cultural and economic power of “Shawshank” was the subject of a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, and after its publication some wondered how we could run such a piece without mentioning the contributions of Mr. Newman. On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the film’s release, we reached out to the 58-year-old composer, who shared his thoughts about the movie and how it shaped his future work.

Mr. Newman says “Shawshank” elicited such strong emotions without any music at all that the challenge was to create a score that elevated scenes without getting in their way. When he brought director Frank Darabont to his studio to walk him through an early version of his work, striking that delicate balance soon emerged as a focus of their collaboration.

“Shawshank Redemption,” the piece playing during Andy Dufresne’s escape, starts slowly and gathers speed as it builds toward the climactic moment when Tim Robbins’ Andy emerges from the sewage pipe, strips off his clothes and raises his arms toward the sky as rain washes over him. But the piece in the movie is a slightly toned-down version of the original cue. Mr. Darabont preferred a one-note climax over Mr. Newman’s three-note motif. “The crescendo of the music there felt too big to me, it had too much of a triumphal flourish,” says Mr. Darabont. “I asked Tom to dial it back a few degrees.”

“Brooks Was Here,” which accompanies James Whitmore’s Brooks Hatlen as he struggles to adapt to life as a free man, is perhaps the simplest cue on the soundtrack. Yet it is also a fan favorite in part because it evokes the pain of a man as he comes to realize he can’t survive on the outside.

Mr. Newman says creating pieces that “do very little but tend to pack a punch” became a hallmark of his later work. “When you have such emotion coming off a screen, how can you add to that emotion without overpowering a scene?” he says.

“I’m very sensitive to when a score crosses that line between enhancing the emotion and impact of a scene, and when it clobbers the viewer over the head by doing too much–which can actually be a very fine line, so sometimes the change needed is pretty subtle,” Mr. Darabont says.

The process wasn’t entirely about dialing things back. For what became one of his favorite pieces, “So Was Red,” Mr. Newman stepped out of his comfort zone.

The cue plays near the end of the film as Morgan Freeman’s recently paroled Red makes his way to the hayfield in search of what Andy has left for him. Mr. Newman initially wrote the piece for a solo oboe. But the composer ultimately—and he says “reluctantly”—agreed to add a harmonica as an extension of a story element in the script. Earlier in the film, Red tells Andy he used to play the instrument on the outside, but that it no longer made sense to do so in prison. Andy later gives Red a harmonica, which is both a “parole-rejection” present and a continuation of his effort to convince Red that hope is worth holding onto.

So on the last day on the scoring stage, a harmonica player named Tommy Morgan played for Messrs. Darabont and Newman what viewers hear as Red finds the note and money that eventually lead to his reunion with Andy. “Well, this harmonica player casually delivered something dead-on perfect on the first take,” Mr. Darabont recalls. “When he was finished, Tom and I looked at each other and said, ‘Well, that’s done.’”

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