Cinema Blend brings up an interesting point in its review of Mike Flanagan's OCULUS. Noting that Occulus is a possession story, the article then points out that it "that bears striking similarities to Stephen King’s It (and provides filmmaker Cary Fukunaga with a template on how to juggle King’s sprawling text when he attempts that adaptation later this year)." (cinemablend.com)
I've been a bit worried about the IT remake when I heard they were moving the timeline up the the 80's. I really (REALLY) liked the trip back to the 50's. I didn't grow up in the fifties, so it's not that I have sweet memories of the era. But the novel was good -- really good -- at bringing the era to life. I did grow up in the 80's.
I have to say it's good to know I'm not the only who thinks the timeline of the story needs "updating" for "modern" audiences.
ReplyDeleteThere are two shortcomings to this, as far as I'm concerned. The first has to do with the inner consistency of the story itself, and why it's such a wise choice to leave the past setting in the 1950s.
In the story, it's implied that the title character, It, has been around for a long, long time (roughly since the age of Dinosaurs). This revelation is made in 1958. Part of what makes the reveal of the length of time It has spent in Derry so effective and threatening is that the reveal itself takes place within a flashback to a long vanished time. This gives the reveal both a scale and authority it might not otherwise have had.
Taking those elements, and making them as recent as say, either the 80s or the 90s places a limit on the imaginative potential of such a scene, and on the story as a whole. Part of the whole point of the book is the weight of time and the past, and that requires a scale much bigger than just the recent memory of generations Y and Z, or the Millennials. Therefore, to truly be effective and give both characters and story some scale, they should probably stick to the timeline of the book, which wouldn't be a problem in terms of the age of both adult and child actors.
The second aspect of this "update" process is sort of worrying. What this need to make all things "current" in film says to me that most studios (if not most filmmakers) think the audience has such a low IQ as to have no curiosity, or willingness to think or learn about the past and it's possible meanings. That's really an insult to the audience when you think about it.
ChrisC