New York – New York (AP) – King Stephen The first editor, Bill Thompson, once said: “Steve has a movie camera in his head.”
So vivid drawn is King’s fiction that the base of about 50 feature films has been offered. For half a century, since Brian de Palma’s 1976 film, “Carrie”, Hollywood has become, and returned to King’s books for his wealth of character, nightmare and pure entertainment.
Open any of those books at random, and there is a decent possibility that also finds a film reference. Rita Hayworth. “The Wizard of Oz”. “Singing in the rain.” Sometimes, even King books based on their novels appear. That King’s books have been such fodder for films, in part, how much of a spectator is its author.
“I love anything, from ‘The 400 Blows’ to something with that guy Jason Statham,” says King, speaking by phone from his home in Maine. “The worst movie I saw was an excellent way to spend an afternoon. The only movie in which I left was ‘Transformers’. At some point I said:” This is simply ridiculous. “
Over time, King has developed a personal policy about how he talks about the adaptations of his books. “My idea is: if you can’t say something pleasant, keep your mouth closed,” he says.
The most notable exception was “The Shining” by Stanley Kubrick, which King called “a great beautiful Cadillac without engine inside.” But from time to time, King is a fan of an adaptation that is excited to talk about it. That is the case with “Chuck’s life” Mike Flanagan’s new adaptation of King’s novel by the same name published in the 2020 collection “If bleeding.”
In “The Life of Chuck”, which is released in cinemas on Friday (June 13 at the national level), there are separate stories, but the tone fixing opening is apocalyptic. Internet, like a stunned prize fighter, wobbles in his last legs before going down. It is said that California is taking off from the continent as “like the old wallpaper.”
And yet, in this story of the Doomsday, King is more sincere. “The life of Chuck”, the book and the film, it is what matters in life when everything else is lost. There is dance, Walt Whitman and Joy.
“In ‘The Life of Chuck’, we understand that life of this type is shortened, but that does not mean that it does not experience joy,” says King. “Fear and existential pain and things are part of human experience, but so is joy.”
It is revealing that when King, our preeminent horror provider, writes about the times of fatality, ends up reducing it to a single life. While darkness and fatality have done so, and probably always, they will mark their work, King, a more playful, instinctive and gender omission writer of what is often accredited: “Chuck’s life” is an excellent example of King, the humanist.
“Many people suppose, because they write so many things that are so scary that they forget the reason why their horror works so well is that it is always juxtaposing it with light and love and empathy,” says Flanagan, who has twice before adapting the adapted king (“Doctor Sleep”, “Gerald’s Game”) and is in the middle of making a series “Carrie” for Amazon.
“You forget that ‘that’ is not about the clown, it is children and their friendship,” Flanagan adds. “The ‘stand’ is not about the virus or the demon that seizes the world, it is the common people who have to join and face a force that cannot defeat.”
King, 77, has written somewhere around 80 books, including the newly released “Never shudder.” The mysterious thriller brings back to King’s recent favorite protagonist, private researcher Holly Gibney, who made her independent debut in “If It Sanges.” They are Gibney’s insecurities, and his willingness to push against them, which has made King return to her.
“It gave me great pleasure to see Holly become a safer person,” says King. “However, he never exceeds all his insecurities. None of us does it.”
“Never Flinch” is a reminder that King has always been less a genre writer than one of the characters first. It tends to fall in love with a character and follow them through the thick and thin ones.
“I’m always happy to write. That’s why I do so much,” says King, laughing. “I am a very cunning boy because I got rid of all those dark things in books.”
The dark things, as King says, has not been difficult to find lately, according to him. The type of climate change disaster found in “Chuck’s life,” says King, often dominates his anxieties.
“We are advancing little by little to be the only country that does not recognize that it is a real problem with carbon in the atmosphere,” says King. “That is crazy. Certain right -wing politicians can talk everything they want on how we are saving the world for our grandchildren. They don’t care. They care about money.”
In social networks, King has sometimes been a critic of President Donald Trump, whose second mandate has included battles with the arts, the academy and Public financing for PBS and NPR. During the next four years, King predicts: “Culture will go underground.”
In “Never Finch”, Holly Gibney is hired as bodyguard by a women’s rights activist whose conference tour is plagued by mysterious acts of violence. During the book, King includes a tribute to “supporters of women’s right to choose who has been killed to fulfill their duty.” “I am sure that they will not like that,” King says about right -wing critics.
The original germ for “The Life of Chuck” had nothing to do with current events. One day in Boston, King noticed that a drummer was looking for Boylston Street. He had the vision of a businessman in a suit that, walking, cannot resist dancing with the abandonment of the drummer’s rhythm.
King, a harmful dancer (although only in private, points out), clung to a story that would become the unpredictable nature of people, tracking the inner life of that imagined pin. In the film, it is played by Tom Hiddleston. Chuck appears for the first time, strangely, in an advertising fence that pursues and confuses a local teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who is fighting that his students care about literature or education with the possible end of the world invade.
It is a fun irony but perhaps not coincident that many of King’s best adaptations, such as “Stand by me” and “The Shawshank redemption”, come from the author’s warmer heart stories. “The Life of Chuck”, which won the People’s Choice Prize last autumn at the Toronto International Film Festival, is after a similar spirit.
When King came to attend the world premiere of Tiff, Flanagan was surprised. The last time King had done that for one of his own adaptations was 26 years ago, for “The Green Mile.” That film, like “The Shawshank Redemption”, were box office disappointments, King recalls, a destination that expects “Chuck’s life” can avoid.
“He sees this movie as something that is a bit precious,” says Flanagan. “He told me some things in the past about how serious it is, how is a story without an ounce of cynicism. As was being released in a cynical world, I think he felt protective. I think he really means something for him.”
Stephen King’s industrial complex, meanwhile, continues to shoot. Soon this year they are a series of “Welcome to Derry” and “The Institute” and a “The Long Walk” movie. King, himself, has just finished a draft of “Talismán 3.”
If “Chuck’s life” has a particular meaning for the king, it could be because it represents something intrinsic about his own life. The small existence of Chuck, apparently notable, has grace and meaning because, as Whitman is cited, “contains crowds” that surprise and delight. King’s fiction is evidence, Montones, which he does too.
“There are some days when I feel and I think ‘this is going to be a very good day’, and it is not, at all,” says King. “Then, other days I feel and think for myself, ‘I am really tired and I don’t feel like doing this,’ and then I set fire. You never know what you are going to get.”
