Misery is scary. I mean, it is messed up scary.
The Shining
Know what it's a lot like? The Shining. Think about it: A man trapped (as Danny was trapped) while he watches the person who controls his life go steadily more and more insane.It turns out that Paul is not Annie's first captive. Discussing a photographer she murdered, Annie tells Paul:
He was going to go up to the old hotel and sketch the ruins. His pictures were going to be with an article they were doing. It was a famous old hotel called the Overlook. It burned down ten years ago. The caretaker burned it down. He was crazy. Everybody in town said so. But never mind; he’s dead.That's pretty neat!
Sledgehammer or AX ?
Now, for the worst part: The famous scene in which Annie breaks Paul's legs. . . that's not in the book. No sir. No leg breaking here. It's worse -- fantastically worse. Instead of breaking is legs, she chops off his foot with an ax and cauterizes with a blowtorch.What King is really good at is build up. Annie doesn't just swing and ax and ouchie. . . Paul has a new boo-boo. No, King builds up to this. It is painful as he watches Annie set up shop and prepare to do the deed. More than that, there is a lot of dialogue here as Annie talks on and on. And, she just happens to mention she gave him a pre-op shop. As she rambles, the reader and Paul both wonder the same thing -- why did a serial killer just give Paul a pre-op shop? What kind of operation is Mr. Sheldon in for?
I would have thought so much talking without action would be a writing no-no. . . but it actually builds incredible suspense. As a reader, you connect deeply with Paul because you are wondering, "Where's she going with this? What's that crazy lady about to do?"
Once Annie has decided what she is going to do, and has explained to Paul why she's going to do it -- she drops into something like a trance. She's no longer just crazy Annie, she is now deadly Annie.
he understood that when this was over, she would have only the vaguest memories of what she had done, as she had only the vaguest memories of killing the children and the old people and the terminal patients and Andrew Pomeroy.
The careful buildup doesn't mean King cheats the reader for a moment once the chopping begins. I'd offer up some quotes here. . . but I won't. The writing at this point is unusually vivid -- and should be read in context.
To ax or not to ax? That is the question.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Goldman has written a sequel to his invaluable book on Hollywood (Adventures in the Screen Trade) called Which Lie did I Tell: more adventures in the screen trade where he talks about adapting Misery.
He was adamant the ax and torch stay in while Rob Reiner insisted the film would work better if it was just a hobbling. Goldman was stubborn, no ax, no film. So Reiner settled on a compromise, watch a cut of the film with the hammer instead of the ax in front of a full audience and if not satisfied your money refunded with an entire reshoot of the scene to be inserted into the final cut at a later date.
So Goldman watched the hammer print in a fully packed theater (I'm guessing full of a lot of King fans). He learned a great lesson in adapting a work to the screen that day. What worked on film would have been over the top on screen it seems, instead of wincing as he and everyone else in the theater did, it would have taken everyone right out of the movie and wouldn't have taken all that followed seriously. Instead, Goldman says, the hobbling made the film.
Incredibly enough, I think the adaptation of Cujo reads better than the novel just as a story. Go figure.
ChrisC
The ax-and-blowtorch treatment would, on film, have been maybe a bit TOO horrible for mass audiences to embrace. It might have kept the movie from being the big success it was.
ReplyDeletePlus, really, I don't want to see that. It's bad enough on the page!
Yes, Stephen King movies shouldn't become SAW.
ReplyDeleteMake sure you never watch "The Mangler Reborn," then...
DeleteAmen.
ReplyDeleteChrisC