Hollywood's Stephen King

I've been watching and collecting Stephen King movies this summer. It's been good for my wallet in a tough economy. While King's books might increase in value, the same is not true of his movies.

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I loved the colorful, well written "Creepshows."

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I also have a copy of Tony Magistrale's "Hollywood's Stephen King." This is not easy reading! Magistrale's sentences drag on and on, leaving me absolutely frustrated. By the time he finds a spot to land a period, I forgot the subject of the sentence.

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Awkward!
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Here's a sentence that drove me nuts, "It is unfortunate that a television movie that wrestles so convincingly with topics such as child abuse, the compulsive urge of certain children to bully others who are perceived to be weak or different, the bonds of redemptive symapthy that develop among adolescents who share the struggle to overcome the labels of looser and outsider, and the effort to reinvigorate adulthood with the recollected spirit of childhood essentially abandons these issues in a conclusion unworthy of the seriousness these topics inspire." p.189 This book is full of such examples! It leaves me screaming.
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Stephen King Theologian
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Worse, Magistrale is like a Stephen King theologian. In ministry I spend a lot of time reading serious, heavy, work on the Bible. Often a theologian will see things in the Biblical text you're pretty sure God himself didn't see! The same is true of Magistrale. He seems to see things that neither King nor the movie makers would have seen. (In theology that's called eisegesis. I call this eiseKingsis). In particular the articles on Dolores Claiborne and Kubricks' The Shining come to mind. There are pages and pages anlyzing the Shining's bathroom scene. Actually, I always found that scene rather boring.
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Concerning Dolores Claiborne -- might Mr. Magistrale be reading too much into the movie when he says: "The fully exposed well in the earth, certainly a vaginal image, is linked to Dolores (full of sorrow) Claiborne (clay-born: earth mother) while the "death" of the sun, the latter associated with masculine archetypes in Greeka nd Roman mythologies, underscores the smbolic destruction of the father patriarch." p.78
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WHAT?!!!! The well in the earth is a vaginal image? That's what King had in mind? Might we, maybe, perhaps be reading into the text? Reminds me of theologians who grasp "gap" theories out of Genesis 1. The well is a vaginal image? Sorry, I'm lost on that one. I loved, absolutely, loved Dolores Claiborne (the book, not the movie), but I must admit: I missed the vaginal image of the well!
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My wife said: "Uh, honey, I think you bought a college text book." Then pitty the poor college student who has to endure this. Poor guy goes in thinking: "This class is going to be fun--" but he's in for a big bummer surprise.
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By the way, while I'm whining, may I just mention that the paragraphs in this book also seem to be -- well, uncomfortably long. May I recommend to Mr. Magistrale a copy of On Writing? I know he read it, because it is cited more than once. Perhaps he might reread the more techincal sections, though.
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The Scholar Has Spoken!
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I peeled back the price sticker on the back of the book mumbeling, "Who is this guy?" He's professor of English at the University of Vermont. Oh. That explains a lot. I'm a college grad, and I've got to say: I keep books from college up on my shelves in the office. They don't get read. Why? Because books written by college professors are -- well -- a little dry and hard to read.
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May I suggest: "Chewie, take the professor to the back and plug him in to the hyper drive!"
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The problem is that Magistrale actually has some interesting ideas. I did, after all, keep reading. But I had to press on, for sure! He does a very good job explaining why various King films fall short -- or all out fail. The interview with King in chapter 1 is also insightful.
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Magistrale writes, "In 1986 Michael Collings published The Films of Stephen King, the only book length scholarly analysis ever published on King's movies. Collings' work, now out of print, is, of course, restructed to films released prior to 1986. [Uhhh, did anyone catch all those commas?] Four outher magazine-books, oversized and lavishly illustrated with movie stills, have been published since the Collings volume appeared; Jessie Horsting's Stephen King At The Movies (1986), Jeff Conners Stephen King Goes To Hollywood (1987), Ann Lloyd's The Films of Stephen King (1993), and Stephen Jones's Creepshows: The illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide (2002). Each of these texts is primarily concerned with satisfying the average fans curiosity about the making of King's movies -- cataloging technical data, plot line evolution, credits, budgets, on-location gossip, King's own evaluation of the finished product -- essentially, the data behind the production histroy of each film. While certainly valuable and interesting on their own terms, none of these recent publications offers much by way of serious film interpretation." p.xii
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So, in other words, the other books weren't scholarly enough. They were just for us laymen who like to know the behind the scenes gossip. While Douglass E. Winter might praise Magistrale's writing, this King fan is going back to Creepshows. Seriously, who needs scholarly discussion about a Stephen King film! But I must admit, none of the other books caught on to the earth as a vaginal image in Dolores Claiborne.
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Do we really need a scholar to help us understand Miximum Overdrive? No! Again, his best work is in simply (though nothing is simple here) explaining why King's work sometimes fails to deliver on screen.
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The reason I dug into Stephen King's work as a teenager when I wouldn't read anyone else is because he's easy to read! He uses words I'm used to. He writes sentences that may not be perfect English, but they drive the story. His dialogue is spot on -- people really talk that way! (Well, people don't talk that way to me, but I'm a pastor).
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Unfortuantely this is book is like an Ed Wood movie. Big idea, but poorly executed.