This is from David Aaron Gray's blog, reposted with permission. Thanks! (Check out his map, it's pretty cool)
From: www.davidaarongray.com
When thinking of an American state that will be the location of your film or story, I bet you could name 44-48 of our United States before you would settle on boring old Maine.
Well, the author behind Shawshank Redemption (as well as countless terrifying tales), Stephen King, chose Maine for the location of virtually all of his well-known works. And if you have ever been to the 23rd state admitted to the Union you'd quickly realize that it offers writers and directors a remote venue in which to tell their disturbing story (equipped with dark and disquieting natural scenery).
Besides being a popular attraction for Stephen King fans, Maine's only other appeal exists in its potential to become a swing state in a Presidential Election (but this is somewhat rare).
As a side note, Maine must have been unpopular with the founding fathers. If you look at a map of the East coast of the U.S., it would be logical to make Maine the 14th state admitted to the Union (post the Revolutionary War which created the original 13 states). But no, as I mentioned earlier, Maine doesn't get into club America until 1820 as state #23 (after Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi). There were even serious rumors circulating in March of 1820 of making California a state before Maine. Now, you don't need to look at a map to conclude how insulting this would be to residents of Maine. For all we know, the only people in 1820 who could actually attest to the existence of this so-called "California" were Lewis and Clark.
Maine only got in as part of the famous Missouri Compromise whereby Missouri would be a slave state and Maine a free one. I think the South got the better end of that deal.
Well, maybe not deemed important to Congress, Stephen King, lobsters and a bunch of summer camps still call Maine home and below is an annotated map of some famous films set in lucky #23:
No comments:
Post a Comment