Since change (in the character, in the storyworld) produces emotion, screenwriters strive to create in their scenes transitions between opposites, or passages from one dimension of experience to an alternate one: the more the situation at the end of a scene differs from how it began, the more intense the emotion of the audience.
I have viewed from this perspective the much-loved scene on the roof of the license-plate factory in The Shawshank Redemption. The result was impressive. On every level the scene takes you on a journey from one extreme of a spectrum to the other, or introduces you to a different kind of sensation and feeling.
Let’s check:
From dark and foul-smelling (the tar the prisoners are working with) to golden and good-tasting (the beers they receive as a “gracious” concession from the cruel guard).
From hot (sweating under the sun) to cold (the refreshing iced beers).
From big (the amount of money the guard should pay in taxes) to small (the little present – again, the beers – Andy obtains in exchange for the money he will help the guard save).
But also…
From prosaic and mercenary matters (money) to the idea of human dignity (“A man working outdoors feels more like a man if he can have a bottle of suds”).
From past and future (the guard explaining what has happened with his inheritance, what the government will do with his money; remembering Andy is in prison because he was charged with killing his wife; Andy’s promise to help and prepare the document) to present (the group of prisoners totally absorbed in tasting the beer).
From focusing on life outside the prison (the guard recalls how normal life continues outside Shawshank) to focusing on life inside the prison (the prisoners for once are happy without dreaming of being outside).
And it is also a passage…
From complication (the calculations about taxes) to simplicity (the pure pleasure of drinking with friends).
From self-interest and negotiation (the guard’s worry; Andy making his bid and request) to gratuitousness (Andy doesn’t want anything from his companions in exchange for the beers).
Furthermore…
From aggressiveness (the menace of the guard) to comradeship (the guard, too, takes a beer).
Finally, of course…
From being “institutionalized” (the guard is “the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison”) to freedom (“We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. We could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation”).
Total change.
Total emotion.
Marvelously uplifting.
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