In the past two weeks, I finished Doctor Sleep (the Stephen King book) and the director's cut of Doctor Sleep (the film written and directed by Mike Flanagan, who also did SK's Gerald's Game for Netflix in 2017). While I was interested in both just for entertainment value -- anything to distract from the rank shitshow of everyday life, right? -- I was also prepping for a section of Film & Literature at NCMC that was entirely focused on Stephen King. Sadly, there weren't enough students for the course to run, but I'm still thinking of how I was going to deliver the course.
In general, Stephen King seems to hit some form of six major themes in his work. And while looking at just those themes in his stories would be interesting enough, the extra dimension is to see how they get translated to film, what is kept and what is jettisoned as King on the page makes it to the stage. Aside from the darkly comic coked-out phantasmagoria of 1986's Maximum Overdrive that remains the only motion picture directed by SK, "a Stephen King film" can mean a lot of different things, largely dependent on the talent involved in the adaptations.
Film adaptations, television adaptations, and even whatever the hell 2008's "N" was -- the visual expressions of Stephen King's artistic creations can vary wildly. For every It, there's It Chapter 2. You get The Shining, but you also get The Dark Tower. "Hit & Miss" works not only to describe the Stephen King cinematic canon, but also a hypothetical collection of SK short stories that have yet to be written. And yet, the themes remain pretty constant. For me, looking at SK in an academic framework is like training wheels for a more nuanced literary analysis, a gateway drug for thinking critically about "low" art while finding it perhaps not so "low" after all.
For your consideration, here are the major themes, along with a few limited examples I planned on hitting in class. Your mileage, Constant Reader, will vary.
[1] “Lost” Children: Carrie; Firestarter; It; Hearts In Atlantis; Children Of The Corn; The Eyes Of The Dragon
[2] Technology: The Stand; The Running Man; Cell; Christine; Graveyard Shift; Word Processor Of The Gods
[3] Prison: The Green Mile; Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
[4] Parapsychology: N.; Carrie; 1408; Firestarter; The Shining; Secret Window, Secret Garden; The Dark Half, Everything’s Eventual, The Things They Left Behind
[5] Maternal Archetypes: Carrie; Cujo; Misery; The Shining; Rose Madder
[6] Paternal Archetypes: Apt Pupil; Pet Semetary; The Stand; Salem’s Lot
I mean, the above looks like it would add up to an interesting class, amirite? I didn't even include two of my SK favorites: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000) and Guns, the non-fiction essay he wrote in 2013. I'm not sure how I would have wedged them in, and now, sadly, I'll never know. Teaching classes like this at NCMC in the immediate future most likely won't happen, so here it remains, a good idea that I would have adequately executed to a slim minority of semi-interested students. Enjoy.
In general, Stephen King seems to hit some form of six major themes in his work. And while looking at just those themes in his stories would be interesting enough, the extra dimension is to see how they get translated to film, what is kept and what is jettisoned as King on the page makes it to the stage. Aside from the darkly comic coked-out phantasmagoria of 1986's Maximum Overdrive that remains the only motion picture directed by SK, "a Stephen King film" can mean a lot of different things, largely dependent on the talent involved in the adaptations.
Film adaptations, television adaptations, and even whatever the hell 2008's "N" was -- the visual expressions of Stephen King's artistic creations can vary wildly. For every It, there's It Chapter 2. You get The Shining, but you also get The Dark Tower. "Hit & Miss" works not only to describe the Stephen King cinematic canon, but also a hypothetical collection of SK short stories that have yet to be written. And yet, the themes remain pretty constant. For me, looking at SK in an academic framework is like training wheels for a more nuanced literary analysis, a gateway drug for thinking critically about "low" art while finding it perhaps not so "low" after all.
For your consideration, here are the major themes, along with a few limited examples I planned on hitting in class. Your mileage, Constant Reader, will vary.
[1] “Lost” Children: Carrie; Firestarter; It; Hearts In Atlantis; Children Of The Corn; The Eyes Of The Dragon
[2] Technology: The Stand; The Running Man; Cell; Christine; Graveyard Shift; Word Processor Of The Gods
[3] Prison: The Green Mile; Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
[4] Parapsychology: N.; Carrie; 1408; Firestarter; The Shining; Secret Window, Secret Garden; The Dark Half, Everything’s Eventual, The Things They Left Behind
[5] Maternal Archetypes: Carrie; Cujo; Misery; The Shining; Rose Madder
[6] Paternal Archetypes: Apt Pupil; Pet Semetary; The Stand; Salem’s Lot
I mean, the above looks like it would add up to an interesting class, amirite? I didn't even include two of my SK favorites: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000) and Guns, the non-fiction essay he wrote in 2013. I'm not sure how I would have wedged them in, and now, sadly, I'll never know. Teaching classes like this at NCMC in the immediate future most likely won't happen, so here it remains, a good idea that I would have adequately executed to a slim minority of semi-interested students. Enjoy.
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