The success of It , based on the eponymous Stephen King novel, helmed by Argentine director Andy Muschietti, has spawned comments about a Stephen King revival, despite last month’s muddled adaptation of The Dark Tower , which we shall not talk about.
Published in 1986, It talks of a primordial evil force that terrorises the children of Derry, Maine, once every 27 years. The book contained many King staples, including the ugliness beneath pretty little Peyton Places, children in peril and untrustworthy grown-ups.
Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman sitting outside on the benches playing checkers and talking in a scene from the film 'The Shawshank Redemption', 1994. (Photo by Castle Rock Entertainment/Getty Images)
The movie, for its swearing and many-toothed evil clown Pennywise, is actually quite sweet and reminded one of a Famous Five adventure. The ‘80s setting is sure-shot nostalgia and the Loser’s Club is a vindication of the geek inheriting the world. The concept of facing your fears reminds one of Boggarts from Harry Potter’s world.
Stephen King, like John Grisham, Michael Crichton and Philip K Dick, has provided much material for Hollywood. We take a look at the holy trinity of Carrie , The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption .
There will be blood
Carrie , King’s first novel, came out in 1974. The novel told the story of Carrie White, who is bullied at school and repressed at home. Carrie uses her freshly discovered powers of telekinesis to lay waste the town. Blood is a powerful motif in the novel. Carrie discovers her powers after her first period, and then there is the bucket of blood poured on Carrie at the ill-fated prom.
Style guru Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) starred Sissy Spacek as Carrie, Piper Laurie as Margaret, her controlling mother, and a host of young actors whose careers took off, including Nancy Allen as one of Carrie’s bullying classmates Chris, and John Travolta as her delinquent boyfriend Billy. A sequel, a musical and a TV film followed.
Kimberly Peirce, who directed Boys Don’t Cry , directed the 2013 remake starring Chloë Grace Moretz as Carrie, with Julianne Moore playing Margaret. Peirce told me she saw Carrie as a story of a mother and daughter, and their relationship as both a love affair and a duel. The movie was updated with Chris shooting Carrie’s shame on a smartphone and uploading it on YouTube.
Here’s Johnny
Stephen King hated it, while critics and fans slowly grew to love it. Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of King’s 1977 novel, The Shining , chronicles writer Jack Torrance’s descent into madness at the snowbound Overlook Hotel. The long, tracking shots, thanks to the then newly developed Steadicam, lent an immersive, unsettling experience to the proceedings. Casting Jack Nicholson as Torrance proved to be both the film’s strength and weakness, as Nicholson overwhelmed the film. His Torrance — unlike his print avatar — was not a decent man struggling with alcoholism and authority, so much as a man teetering at the edge of insanity. While there is the native Indian burial ground, and elevators with blood, apart from mouldy corpses in bathtubs, The Shining ’s enduring images would be Danny pedalling furiously on his tricycle through unending corridors, and the piles of manuscript with “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” Wonder which unfortunate AD had to type it out, and in five languages!
O Brother, where art thou?
If The Shining was King’s least favourite adaptation of his works, Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption — adapted from King’s novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption — is closest to his heart. Starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, the prison drama tells of Andy Dufresne, a banker who is serving two life sentences for the murder of his wife and her lover. Andy’s story is told through the eyes of Red, a fellow inmate with a reputation for fixing things. The ultimate bromance; Morgan Freeman, like Nicholson in The Shining , proves the driving force of the film, as well as its biggest stumbling block.
The Shining சினிமா - சர்வதேச சினிமா - தி ஷைனிங் - பயத்தின் அழகியல்
While Freeman lends grace and gravitas to the proceedings, a black man in a prison with white men in 1947 seems rather improbable. In the novella, Red is a middle-aged Irishman with red hair, hence his nickname. Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Paul Newman and Robert Redford were considered for the role. Darabont’s insistence on casting Freeman comes across as insensitive — playing as it does into the myth of the ‘Magical Negro’ and the white man’s burden.
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