dreamer
12-10-2004, 10:02 PM
reposting this from another BB for no better reason than that it's slow here. I've just read the book and seen the movie for the first time (and again w/ the commentary. Most Stephen King fans apparently hate it. Any comments here?
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Watched Hearts in Atlantis a second time last night, for the commentary track. The Shining talk sets it up well, as I think HiA is the same: the movie and the novel are best seen as seperate entities, although the movie is a good adaptation on the most basic level.
Would it be fair to guess that people who don't like the film tend to be King fans upset that the film doesn't live up? People who haven't read the book should like it, at least. I'm going to argue that most of the alterations suit the film, even make it stronger as a work in it's own right.
It's a beautiful movie, evocative of a gone age (moved on), beautifully photographed with a touching score and a strong, quiet performance by Hopkins as Ted Brautigan. He doesn't match the book's physical description (for that matter, neither does John Lithgow, who I imagined in the role), but he invokes much below the surface. Equally important, Bobby's mother retains all of her ugly flaws but remains human, when in other hands she might have become an ogre. The screenplay is sweet without being maudlin.
So let's get tot the alterations. First and most obvious is the Low Men. Should they have remained as descibed? I don't think so. This is a slice of life tale that already asks the audience - a general audience, many of who won't have read the novel, that's the most important consideration - asks the audience to accept on faith the existence of psychic phenomena. The Low Men asks another leap of faith...and the novel has nothing to do with them. They're unimportant but for thir function as a catalyst. General rule of storytelling, establish the rules of your universe then stick to them. If it's a tale of aliens invading, don't throw in magic out of left field. If it's a tale of vampires, don't have a time traveler show up. That's a part of what got the film Dreancatcher in trouble - general audiences all said "Whoah! Too many elements!" Since the film is not about them, King's explanation would have been not just excess baggage but a distraction. Audiences want explication, they would have insisted on knowing the full story - beyond anything King wrote in the novel.
In fact, the Low men were originally left entirely unexplained in the movie's first edit. Audiences were unhappy, so new footage was added with dialog indicating they worked for the FBI, warngling psychics to draft into Hooer's witch hunts. Surprise #1: that wasn't the notion of the director or writer, but King's. That's the idea that King started with for the novel before tying it into the Dark Tower! I think it's brilliant, really, a fascinating idea that deserves a movie al l it's own...ans works best here by tying the supernatural element to reality instead of further propelling it towards pure fantasy, and by being a further evocative ressurection of that specific era.
Next change. The ending.
***********************SPOILERS!!***************** ******
The finale with Carol's daughter. Where's the happy ending? The reunion? Yes, that bothers. It's questionable. It does ring truer, though, and that's important for the film's purposes. Life goes on, and while it echoes the past it never truly mirrors it. In the novel Carol herself proclaims that "Carol Geber is dead", and in a sense she means it . That girl is gone. In it's way, the film's ending echoes that. Carol Geber has left her mark on the lives she touched, but it's a new incarnation of her that carries foreward.
The change that's most questionable is Bobby's attack on Harry Doolin. Surpise #2: Goldman's screenplay originally followed the novel, with Bobby ambushing Doolin, and the needed reconciliation between Bobby and his mother comes when she backs up his story to the cop who investigates Harry's charges. The director felt that Bobby would have lost the audience's sympathy fo the hero. maybe that's true. OTOH, we lose an important element of what King was driving at in the way his novel expores the way our lives are shaped by the events in them, how our souls becoem ever more grey, how hard it is to stand up for what we believe in and how that stand is often just as grey in action even as the ideal burns bright (if you'll forgive the ineptness of this proseletyzing.). Bobby made a deliberate choice to act, born of influences he could not possibly have been self-aware enough to understand, standing up for what he knew was right but with darker aim and results. I think audiences could have hancdled an ending that was more complex without losing the heart of the preceeding story, and that the complexity could only have added to the film's power. Instead, it becomes one more incident, with Bobby almost accidentally forced by circumstance to defend himsels. that's the film's only failure for me.
Aside from that, it's a soulful movie intelligntly crafted. The novella "Low Men in Yellow Coats" remains intact but for the finale, and plays with both more heart and more solid credibility than most King adaptations. The other stories in the book it would not have been possible to include in a coherent film.
Don't hesitate to disagree just because I'm new! http://www.darkdreams.org/vbulletin/images/smilies/biggrin.gif Disagreements are good to read, have a way of bringing out more in-depth thought.
Oh, and the commentary track claims that King loved the movie! Is this true?
******************************
I'd forgotten to add that King also is exploring the cruelty of "the pack" against the outsider, and the strength it takes to stand against it if you're one of the pack. This is absent entirely from the movie, though it required the other stories to complete it.
*********************************
Watched Hearts in Atlantis a second time last night, for the commentary track. The Shining talk sets it up well, as I think HiA is the same: the movie and the novel are best seen as seperate entities, although the movie is a good adaptation on the most basic level.
Would it be fair to guess that people who don't like the film tend to be King fans upset that the film doesn't live up? People who haven't read the book should like it, at least. I'm going to argue that most of the alterations suit the film, even make it stronger as a work in it's own right.
It's a beautiful movie, evocative of a gone age (moved on), beautifully photographed with a touching score and a strong, quiet performance by Hopkins as Ted Brautigan. He doesn't match the book's physical description (for that matter, neither does John Lithgow, who I imagined in the role), but he invokes much below the surface. Equally important, Bobby's mother retains all of her ugly flaws but remains human, when in other hands she might have become an ogre. The screenplay is sweet without being maudlin.
So let's get tot the alterations. First and most obvious is the Low Men. Should they have remained as descibed? I don't think so. This is a slice of life tale that already asks the audience - a general audience, many of who won't have read the novel, that's the most important consideration - asks the audience to accept on faith the existence of psychic phenomena. The Low Men asks another leap of faith...and the novel has nothing to do with them. They're unimportant but for thir function as a catalyst. General rule of storytelling, establish the rules of your universe then stick to them. If it's a tale of aliens invading, don't throw in magic out of left field. If it's a tale of vampires, don't have a time traveler show up. That's a part of what got the film Dreancatcher in trouble - general audiences all said "Whoah! Too many elements!" Since the film is not about them, King's explanation would have been not just excess baggage but a distraction. Audiences want explication, they would have insisted on knowing the full story - beyond anything King wrote in the novel.
In fact, the Low men were originally left entirely unexplained in the movie's first edit. Audiences were unhappy, so new footage was added with dialog indicating they worked for the FBI, warngling psychics to draft into Hooer's witch hunts. Surprise #1: that wasn't the notion of the director or writer, but King's. That's the idea that King started with for the novel before tying it into the Dark Tower! I think it's brilliant, really, a fascinating idea that deserves a movie al l it's own...ans works best here by tying the supernatural element to reality instead of further propelling it towards pure fantasy, and by being a further evocative ressurection of that specific era.
Next change. The ending.
***********************SPOILERS!!***************** ******
The finale with Carol's daughter. Where's the happy ending? The reunion? Yes, that bothers. It's questionable. It does ring truer, though, and that's important for the film's purposes. Life goes on, and while it echoes the past it never truly mirrors it. In the novel Carol herself proclaims that "Carol Geber is dead", and in a sense she means it . That girl is gone. In it's way, the film's ending echoes that. Carol Geber has left her mark on the lives she touched, but it's a new incarnation of her that carries foreward.
The change that's most questionable is Bobby's attack on Harry Doolin. Surpise #2: Goldman's screenplay originally followed the novel, with Bobby ambushing Doolin, and the needed reconciliation between Bobby and his mother comes when she backs up his story to the cop who investigates Harry's charges. The director felt that Bobby would have lost the audience's sympathy fo the hero. maybe that's true. OTOH, we lose an important element of what King was driving at in the way his novel expores the way our lives are shaped by the events in them, how our souls becoem ever more grey, how hard it is to stand up for what we believe in and how that stand is often just as grey in action even as the ideal burns bright (if you'll forgive the ineptness of this proseletyzing.). Bobby made a deliberate choice to act, born of influences he could not possibly have been self-aware enough to understand, standing up for what he knew was right but with darker aim and results. I think audiences could have hancdled an ending that was more complex without losing the heart of the preceeding story, and that the complexity could only have added to the film's power. Instead, it becomes one more incident, with Bobby almost accidentally forced by circumstance to defend himsels. that's the film's only failure for me.
Aside from that, it's a soulful movie intelligntly crafted. The novella "Low Men in Yellow Coats" remains intact but for the finale, and plays with both more heart and more solid credibility than most King adaptations. The other stories in the book it would not have been possible to include in a coherent film.
Don't hesitate to disagree just because I'm new! http://www.darkdreams.org/vbulletin/images/smilies/biggrin.gif Disagreements are good to read, have a way of bringing out more in-depth thought.
Oh, and the commentary track claims that King loved the movie! Is this true?
******************************
I'd forgotten to add that King also is exploring the cruelty of "the pack" against the outsider, and the strength it takes to stand against it if you're one of the pack. This is absent entirely from the movie, though it required the other stories to complete it.