King's Highway pt. 21: King Goes to Prison

(Updated 9/4/2012: RIP, Michael Clarke Duncan. Here are a couple of fine tributes.)

I've talked to a lot of King fans since starting this project. If there is a consensus among them as to "favorite King work," it is most likely The Stand. If you're talking to non-King fans, however, or those who know his work mainly through the many adaptations for the screen, Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is the favorite by a wide margin.

Many don't even realize it's based on a work of King's:

The movie omits the "Rita Hayworth" part of the title, but yep, it sure is.

Shawshank even pops up on Top Ten Best American Films lists, sometimes snagging the number-one spot away from The Godfather or Casablanca. Does it belong there? Who can say? (Well, if you're asking me, no, it's not the best American film ever made, but who can say with any of those lists...) Arguably, though, sure - it's a powerful story with some terrific performances and an epic perspective. (And Morgan Freeman narrates it, even.)

That it's more or less the same exact story on the page as it is on the screen says a lot for King's uncanny instinct for what the masses want to see/ hear/ read.

(Another list where it would sit comfortably is Top Ten Best Break-Up Films For Guys. I don't mean something like Swingers or any film that comments explicitly on "the break-up from the guy's point of view." It has been my experience these films (usually) do little for the emotional reality of a guy going through a break-up. But something like this - or Stalag 17, Sorcerer, The Great Escape, Master and Commander, or, my personal favorite go-to-for-such-an-occasion...

I have a film to go with most "life events."

... - which features a mostly male cast in a tight, restricted space, having to surmount or withstand some difficulty that fits easily as a metaphor for trauma or past-adversity, and whammo, emotional catharsis, guy-style. (A few others? Die Hard 2 - though the husband/wife reunion at the end is no good, for these purposes - or The Edge.) Everyone's got their own. I don't mean to make too much of this, just saying; it fits the profile.)

This film is on cable every other weekend. I'd gotten used to seeing the sanitized-for-TV version, so when I re-read the novella, I thought there was a lot more prison-rape than I recalled and figured 'Oh, they just took that out for the movie.'

But nope it's all in there. Thankfully, not graphically, a la Oz or American History X - two very different "prison genre" examinations - but dealt with squarely.

The film and its plot have been recounted a hundred times and by far better critics than myself. (Here's a good review, and, actually, here's a better or at least more-focused / less McMeander-y side-by-side examination of Shawshank and The Green Mile, though the pic-captions kind of annoy me in that latter one.) I guess Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins were both legitimate movie stars by this point, but this film certainly helped cement their positions in Hollywood.

Of the two, I'd say Morgan Freeman has capitalized on its success a bit better.

"Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."

Both actors have given so many iconic performances over the years that it's difficult to pinpoint their respective best. But if someone said it was Shawshank, I wouldn't argue. Incidentally, this:

is the only film where this shot is acceptable. Are you listening, world? The "arms outstretched, face up to rain, overhead shot" thing, I mean. Anything before 1994, okay, well, you're off the hook; anything after 1994 and you are in grievous violation. Let's adopt this as an across-the-board rule. Hire Lucasfilm editors to digitally alter every post-Shawshank movie that violates this moratorium.

"That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory." (Re: Mexico, in the novel/movie. Tho' as a father-to-be, this is how I picture my little 9-weeks-on baby at the moment. Not in a prison-yard. In a warm place with no memory. i.e. Wombsville. Enjoy it while it lasts, Spacebaby!)

The passage that chokes most people up when they watch this movie (myself included) is spoken by Red (Morgan Freeman) towards the end:

"Sometimes it makes me sad, though... Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend..."

I always find it interesting to compare how dialogue is changed from page to screen, particularly when the change is slight. Here's the corresponding passage from the novella:

"We’re glad he’s gone, but a little sad, too. Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure."

Both the film and the novella do a good job of showing the passage of time without drawing too much attention to it, mainly via the progression of pin-up posters: Rita Hayworth (40s) to Marilyn Monroe (50s) to Raquel Welch (60s). I guess "Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch and the Shawshank Redemption" is too unwieldy of a title, though it should be noted both Ms. Monroe and Ms. Welch perform the same service for the plot.

One last bit of dialogue, as I think it gets to the heart of what the story is trying to tell us, in some ways: "There’s a crying shortage of pretty things in the slam, and the real pity of it is that a lot of men don’t even seem to miss them." It's interesting to compare this to John Coffey (from The Green Mile)'s rationale for wanting to leave this earth:

It's about more than just that, of course, just as The Green Mile is about more than the crippling weight of ignored cruelty and violence in the world, but I wanted to set the two quotes beside one another.

Morgan Freeman is not in The Green Mile, but he is profiled in the August 2012 issue of Esquire, (where, incidentally, pt. 2 of SK's collaboration with his son, Joe Hill, can be found; a good review of it here) and the beginning of that profile is worth bringing up here:

“They call Morgan Freeman The Magical Negro, which is one hateful trope. The Magical Negro is a white man’s narrative chestnut, a stereotype, in which a black character – often socially powerless, physically infirm or disabled, overly humble – provides comfort to a white protagonist by helping him discover who he truly is. Obama gets The Magical Negro tag from time to time. Freeman more so.”

First off, wow, Obama? Obama is totally not a candidate for TMN. If someone is silly enough to "tag" Obama as a savior, an anti-Christ, or a Magical Negro, that's not my business, but it's certainly Chris-Matthews-class-embarrassing. So, putting Our Fearless Leader aside to one side, is this a fair definition of the "hateful trope?" Sure, I think it's a fair enough description. Something to be aware of, the same way an awareness of anything discussed over at tvtropes can enliven one's media literacy. 

Don't trope me, boy...

But is it hateful? It is dehumanizing, sure. (Even that seems extreme, to me.) But hateful? As in "done in the service of hate?" I'm of the opinion we have devalued actual racism and hate by decrying things as such when they might not actually be that way. I am reminded of a Hebrew phrase - Mitoch Shelo Lishma Ba Lishma - which translates loosely (loose I'll-take-your-word-for-it translations are all a Non-Hebrew-speaker like myself has to work with) as do something good for the wrong reason and eventually you'll do it for the right reason. (i.e. "Better to do the right thing, for the right reasons, but meh, if you want to treat all black people as magical angels from whom the white man can only learn how to be a better person, then at least that's better than (fill in the blank).")

Ironic, tho, that the author of this Esquire piece, Tom Chiarella, (a white guy, for the record) who just described TMN-syndrome as "a hateful trope," keeps the trope alive-and-well-fed in this next passage:

"And in some ways, you can see why. Freeman taught half a generation of white kids on The Electric Company in the seventies. He drove Miss Daisy, saved – and was later saved by – the pasty Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption, played a friendly God for Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell and spirit guide to Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List, and won an Academy Award as a battered corner-man for Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby. This summer he returns as the soft-spoken, benighted corporate front-man for Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne in the third Batman installment. In some ways, then, the Magical Negro lives."

Okay, here's where he loses me completely, and where so much of -ism thinking loses me completely.  These roles he lists are only TMN roles when seen from a certain point of view; in fact, you have to reduce all black people to a set of circumstances that is wholly determined by white people to even apply this definition to any of the aforementioned roles. Never mind that this is done (allegedly) in order to defy said discrimination; it achieves the same result as discriminating in the first place. I doubt very much Tim Robbins or Tom Hanks would have his filmography viewed through that lens, and it makes about as much sense to do so for Freeman's, here. So, rather than one of America's most respected actors embodying all the varied and story-specific roles mentioned above, Mr. Chiarella sees only one thing.

Ergo, Note to All Black Actors: All you can be is The Magical Negro, even when you're cast as GOD. 

Or, in Michael Clarke Duncan's case here in The Green Mile, when you're cast as "Jesus" aka John Coffey.

I get that Morgan Freeman, as an African-American in a country with a complicated history and legacy of racial tension and discrimination, is subject to different forces / lead-ins for a profile; I suggest that by doing it the way it is done here that it still imposes a "white-determined" identity. * Many -isms do. You are attached to what you attack. I'm reminded of what Jeff Winger said in an episode of Community: "I think not-being-racist is the new racist."

* For what it's worth, here's Morgan Freeman's interview with Mike Wallace re: "How do we move past racism?" His answer: "Stop talking about it." i.e. maybe stop imposing it as a default position.

(Also, "taught half a generation of white kids on The Electric Company?" Really? That is at the very least an overstatement of both Freeman's time on Electric Company and his character's impact on "half a generation of white kids." Not that he wasn't fun on there.)

I go on at length like this for two reasons: 1) My objection to this type of approach, what I call the -ism approach, is that it is backwards. I don't object to the politics of it; I object to its inefficiency as a means of artistic / social criticism. It privileges a "correct conclusion" over actual analysis/ what the story actually offers. It's like diving into a pool with something in your hand, staying underwater for a few, then breaking the surface and waving your hand about excitedly. Look what I found at the bottom of the pool! Well, holy duh, you only found what you brought in with you. 2) The Green Mile can be seen almost as a deconstruction of TMN-syndrome, on so many levels, so this seemed appropriate. But also, I mean, what do you do when the story is about a magical black man? The approach described seems to suggest skin color and the sensitivity of its audience should determine to whom the writer assigns what part, etc. (A position I do not agree with)

So what do we have here? A religious parable? Partly. An ironic-deconstruction of TMN-syndrome? Perhaps. Condemnation of racism and/or capital punishment? Sure. A compelling jailhouse drama? Certainly. An overview of the full scope of a person's existence, with all the poison, all the pudding, all the triumph/tragedy? Yes, all of these things and more. The most succinct-yet-comprehensive review of this story I've seen is here: "A wealth of plot, a mix between the real and the mystical, excellent characters." Amen! One hundred percent. And accessible to all. (In case you were wondering.)

The book is even sadder than the film, primarily because the language is so absorbing. So many lines hit me, I wouldn't know where to start. GoodReads collects most of them.

Paul: On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and he asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?

Often overlooked when thinking about the life of JC is how much pain was involved with seeing the full breadth of human betrayal and cruelty, not being able to filter it out the way we mere-mortals can. (We have to by necessity, I suppose; only madmen and saints see us for what we truly are, or are capable of being, at any time.)

The dilemma faced by the guards - put rather well in the book as "I've done plenty of things in my life that were bad, but this is the first thing I ever did where I'm worried about going to Hell" - is examined very well. And even though you accept that putting JC out of his misery is both inevitable and also a kind of kindness, given his world-weariness and anguish, it still stings. As does the last line: "We each owe a death — there are no exceptions. But, oh God, sometimes the Green Mile seems so long."

It's not a perfect story, but it's perfect enough. I can easily see it being the King book future generations read in school. (If they read any - the classroom presence of popular novelists is never assured.)

A couple words on casting. This marks the third King project for both Bill Sadler

who's been in Star Trek, Bill and Ted, Disturbing Behavior, Die Hard, you name it.

and David Morse

and the fourth for actor Jeff DeMunn:

I had a slight problem with Sam Rockwell's being cast as Wild Bill, if only because Sam Rockwell brings a certain likeability to any role he plays. And given what we discover about Wild Bill, I didn't want to like anything about him. He does his usual excellent-job, of course, I'm just saying.

I was working at Waldenbooks the year these came out, and I set up many a display of these... King has always had some fun with publishing in different formats, and this was published in 5 slim paperbacks, serial-style, before being collected in one volume.

Mr. Jingles.

Thanks for reading.

King's Highway pt. 20: Gargoyles

I hadn't planned on covering Stephen King's 1988 coffee-table-book collaboration with F-Stop Fitzgerald (instantly one of my all-time favorite pseudonyms) Nightmares in the Sky. I'd read about it in The SK Companion (remember that one?) but hadn't thought about tracking it down. But, I found it on eBay for $2.99 while looking around for Danse Macabre ( which I found/ won for $.99, not bad), and it arrived at the homestead last night. Quick read (only 35 pages of text, shared with photographs) and then a hundred or so photographs of gargoyles around New York City. (Best street for gargoyles-viewing, according to editor extraordinaire Bill Thompson? 81st Avenue.)

More on the 81st gargoyles here.

While scouring the internet for photos/ supplemental info, I came across this entry from Bryant Burnette's excellent King-overview series "Ramblings of a Honk Mahfah." Which, while a great read, made me think twice about doing this entry. Seems little point in my doing one when this one's already fully-formed and comprehensive enough, so I'll just link to it (and I recommend his blog in general - hours of great reading in there) and add few little things.

I've always been fascinated with gargoyles.

No, not the cartoon from the 1990s. Though Michael "Worf" Dorn provided a voice for one of them, if memory serves.

Growing up in Germany, gargoyle-sighting was a near-daily activity while on the bus or on a field trip. And once a year, our elementary school would pour into the auditorium to be bored to tears by this art historian who would lecture us for four hours... a lecture I'd love to attend as an adult, but whose idea was it to put a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds in a theater and have a staid German professor tell us all about the evolution of architecture and light and shadow in Rembrandt, etc.? My friend Scott and I always tried to pay attention - mainly because we both thought of ourselves as friends of the arts, not like those other philistines - but it was too much even for us. Anyway - I recall one year, I think it must have been 1985, when he went on and on about gargoyles and showed us a gazillion pictures, and that might have been the only time he held our collective attention for longer than 20 minutes. (If the lecture had been re-branded "MONSTER STATUES!" maybe we'd have all gone along with it more)

Here is some technical info about them, for those of you who enjoy such things:

"Although still architecturally and artistically intriguing, gargoyles can be traced back 4,000 years to Egypt, Rome and Greece when the stone creatures were “read” by the illiterate public. A true gargoyle is a waterspout while a carved creature that does not act as a drainpipe is technically a grotesque. Many cultures throughout history have created fantastically fierce gargoyle sculptures that stir our imaginations, as the stone creatures stirred the creativity and imaginations of their sculptors. Gargoyles on churches were not decorative but instructional with the intent to “scare the hell” of out the public.

There was no longer any practical need for gargoyles after drainpipes were introduced in the 16th century, but architects, builders, and sculptors continued to incorporate gargoyles into their designs. Gargoyles were then used for symbolic, spiritual, decorative or whimsical purposes. Gargoyles stand guard, scaring off evil spirits. Myth has it that gargoyles come alive at night, protecting people as they sleep. These architectural nightmares in the sky are watching you even when you don’t see them."

King's essay for this (the above is not from it, by the by, just something I found on the web) refers to the made-for-tv movie Gargoyles, which I've never seen but now am very curious to watch. (As my friend Jeff puts it, "I can't argue with the assertion of it being the best made-for-TV horror film ever made...It's the best of the '70s, in my opinion.")

SK mentions how he and his youngest son Joe (better known these days as Joe Hill, author of numerous acclaimed works (among them, a just-published 2-parter in Esquire, "In the Tall Grass") watched it on his "brand new videocassette recorder" (ah, the 70s and 80s!) and how his son had nightmares, then immediately wanted to watch it again and again. I can relate - that was my (non-personal, obviously) experience  growing up with Joe's Dad, myself!

I was amused that one of the Netflix reviewers seemed unaware of who Bernie Casey is/was. Then, I felt old.

SK didn't have any involvement in this movie, by the way - just one he (and his son) like to watch

There's a fun overview of the movie here.

There's not much more to say about this one. I have to agree with Bryant's take on it, which is while it's a nice one to have, it's not essential. If you're a King collector, you likely have it already; if not, you're not missing too much, especially in these days of Google Image Searches.

Speaking of, this is a fun site for the 'Goyles of New York.

I'll leave you with a few more images... if you live in New York, take King's advice from his intro/ essay: don't stare at them too long at them. They don't like to be watched. They prefer to do the watching...

This one might be just fiction. Only JM DeMatteis knows for sure...

King's Highway pt. 19: Sleepwalkers

There's really not all that much to say about Sleepwalkers. Having just watched it, I figured rather than put it off for another blog, let's get this one out of the way. (We'll get back to the Rogue States after this, in case anyone's as OCD as me and breathes a sigh of relief with this disclaimer.)

Directed by Mick Garris (who also did The Stand adaptation, as well as 1997's The Shining) with an original screenplay by Stephen King, this is not a bad installment of your general 80s/ early-90s horror film. I forget who said it, but someone said a decade (ie "the 80s") actually exists a few years into the next one, so what we refer to, say, as "the 60s" is really 1962-1972, "the 70s" is really 1972-1982, and so on. I agree. It holds true for most of the twentieth century, at any rate; beyond that, I'll defer to experts. Anyway, despite its 1992 release date, I'll consider Sleepwalkers as an average-to-not-bad entry in the 80s slasher/ supernatural genre. Like a Tales from the Crypt two-parter or something.

 

It hits most of the hallmark-tropes for either, as recounted ad infinitum elsewhere.

Why isn't it great? No real defining reason - the performances are good, the pacing is fine, the set pieces are more than acceptable. The f/x are dated but who cares. So what is it? Primarily it's the 80s/ Mom jeans and the general progression of the main antagonist (he who drives a shape-shifting/ dimming blue Trans Am into a Mustang and has the incestuous relationship with his Mom i.e whose whole life is sort of a rape-metaphor, if you want to sip some brandy over it.)

All right, I like Buffy fine, so I can hang with this, I guess.

Keep it moving! * Granted, "morphing" was in its infancy as CGI at the time, but this is inelegant, to say the least.

This isn't too bad, but... I mean, that's still a cat-guy under there, right?

 * trademark Dawn Byrd  

In a way, this cat thing was incredibly prescient. A time traveler from the distant past of 1992 who made his or her way to 2012 would go online and think the future was two parts cat pictures and one part porn-and-flesh-parade.

Perhaps it has always been this way, in one form or another.

A topic for another night! Anyway - it's tough enough to get past the 80s jeans, and then there's the cat-people thing, is all I'm saying.

Staying with cats for a second,

this whole movie is a 2012 cat lover's delight. And they're out there. Someone - going by that "Clovis" motivational poster I found, above - is way ahead of me here, but this whole film can be seen as "the Cat Lady's confession."

And there's a fun parallel to Cat's Eye, as well. If you recall, in that movie, the "glue" that binds the three stories is the cat's journey to an eventual home with Drew Barrymore. Whereupon, the cat saves Drew Barrymore from a troll who lives in the wall, who waits until she goes to sleep before pouncing on her chest and trying to suck out her life force. (This stuff is all... calling it Freudian doesn't do it justice.) The same happens here, right down to that slippery-zone between metaphor and strange Pagan relations, and cats saving the day.

I don't mean to make too much of it, with the Freudian/ Pagan relations stuff, just, hey, it's there if you want it.

Alice Krige plays the mother-villain. She first crossed my radar in the film adaptation of SK's sometimes-collaborator Peter Straub's Ghost Story.

Which I did see, back in the 80s (unbeknownst to my parents), but she is perhaps better known to the popgeek-critic-in-my-head as the Borg Queen:

Whether or not the Borg should even have a queen is the Roe vs. Wade of certain segments of the ST: TNG community.

There are a couple of fun cameos. SK, Clive Barker, and Tobe Hooper.

and John Landis:

And finally, I kept trying to figure out why Madchen Amick's parents looked so familiar. I couldn't place them, but once I sat down to write this and looked up a few things, I said Oh, of course:

NEXT: Probably back to the Rogue States. I'm going to take most of August off from the ol' King's Highway, but before I do, we'll get through all the novellas, the "Shawshank"/ Green Mile one, and Cell.

King's Highway pt. 17: He Who Walks Behind the Rows

The Highway rambles on! I'm fixing to take a pit-stop at the next service plaza. I started reading "1922" from Full Dark, No Stars earlier, saw it was set in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, and said "Oh, that's next to Gatlin, from 'Children of the Corn.'" Before I knew it, I said out loud...

Probably a good time to take a break, stretch my legs and hit the vending machine. I've got blogs in the incubator for "The Long Walk," the other novellas, and a Shawshank/ Green Mile one; I'll wait til I catch up on those, then hit the road again. Still plenty of asphalt between here and Derry.

I covered a bit of the short story earlier, but the movie arrived from Netflix for this eve so popped it in. I've seen it maybe four or five times over the years. It's one that keeps you coming back but not one you necessarily have to own. The plot: Burt and Vicky take a wrong turn on their cross-country trip and end up in wack-a-doo, NE, where the kids get their marching orders in dreams from some weird-ass thing in the corn, listen to the world's creepiest child, ever, and kill all/any adults/each other, once they come of reaping age...

That this one short story, originally published in Penthouse in 1977, has spawned this cottage industry of sequels and TV remakes that continues to the present day is at the very least remarkable. Of those sequels and remakes, Dawn and I watched the third in the series, Urban Harvest, on TV one sleepy weekend afternoon, (THE CORN COMES TO CHICAGO!) and some or most of the SyFy remake with Kandyse McClure, which hewed a little closer to the original story but was not particularly "fun." The original 80s version, tho, directed by Fritz Kiersh, is still fun.

Like "Trucks," it expands the original material quite a bit in its sublimation from story to screen, Back-story and new sequences are added, but nothing that really seems out of place or un-suggested by the source material. Unlike Maximum Overdrive, though, it adds the narration, forgotten after the middle of the movie, of a small boy, one of the Gatlin kids, who yearns to escape. I'm always wary of narration - particularly when it isn't consistent or disappears midway through - and prefer the p.o.v. to be more story-driven. The p.o.v. and plot, here, stay close to your traditional 80s slasher narrative (questionable decisions and exposition and pursuit punctuating kill-set-pieces). SK wrote an original draft for the screenplay, but the studio opted for this one. Considering its longevity in the straight-to-video and TV film market, I guess it was a profitable decision.

One more tiii-iiiime!!

The most notable difference from story-to-screen is probably the relationship between the married couple. Also, Burt becomes an emergency room surgeon in the movie - I kept waiting for that to be useful somewhere down the road in the film, but if it was, I missed it. Burt might as well have been a stunt double for Jackie Chan films, for all the good his profession served the plot. Maybe they were going for that Emergency Room Surgeon demographic.

The music is fun. That choral/chant "Saaaaataani-coooooo-us" sort of score, with 80s synth here and there.

Doesn't look all that different! This is from a blog series devoted exclusively to the movie.

Time travel moment - before I'd ever seen it, circa 1986 or so, I'll never forget my buddy Mike Simons rolling his eyes back in his head on the bus or train during a field trip and intoning "He wants you, too, Malachi..."

In casting my nets for this, I came across an interesting interview with Gwabryel, who illustrated this for a book called Knowing Darkness:

The story's main contributions to American folklore seem to be He Who Walks Behind the Rows (I've heard from more than a few European friends who drive across the US heartland that this story is never far from their minds) and "The Blue Man." That last one resonates mainly just with me, I guess, but when I first heard about the Blue Man Group, I immediately pictured a stage-show of skeletal remains in cop uniforms with corn-husk crucifixes towering over the stage.

Still, C of the C, like Cujo, has a weird staying power in the collective unconscious, does it not?

Seeing Peter Horton in this reminded me of Brimstone. Does anyone remember that one?

Hell, does anyone remember Thirtysomething?

It was a guilty pleasure for the few years it was on the air. Sort of like Tru Calling. (Although Brimstone to its eternal discredit did not have Jason Priestley as the Angel of Death:)

All in all, this is a fine entry in whatever genre you want to fit it in. The religious-crazies parable? The couple with the wrong turn to the crazy town in the middle of nowhere? The world as metaphor for violence/ cult of bad relationship drama? (This last, not so much in the 1984 movie but is the main point of the short story/ 2009 SyFy remake, I think) Take your pick. I, for one, was reminded of the Star Trek TOS episodes "Return of the Archons" or "Miri,"

Couldn't decide between "NO BLAH-BLAH-BLAH!!!" or "BONK BONK ON THE HEAD!" so there, both.

only dropped in the backrows of Nebraska.

But neither serum nor phaser slows

He Who Walks Behind the Rows.