"He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts."
In 1990 when Stephen King's It was turned into a television miniseries it was considered a phenomenon. People loved it. My parents let me watch it as a mere six year old and I was traumatized. This red haired clown with treacherous teeth that could morph into bright dead lights and ultimately a strange spider with seeming human arms terrified me. I couldn't, for years, shake the images that this adaptation firmly rooted in my brain. Sink drains, sewer systems and clowns became things of horror to me.
And yet, I was equally fascinated and enthralled with the story of It being my first exposure to the brilliant and creative mind of Stephen King.
Fast-forward 27 years. It has returned. (Side note: 27 years is also how long It basically hibernates in the novel after feasting on humans...intentional?) When I first started to hear rumblings of the film coming about, I was completely uninterested and had no desire to revisit the terrors Pennywise inflicted on my childhood. However, after deciding to read the book, it felt necessary to see how the story that I ended up loving on the page would be brought to life on the screen in a new way. It did take me quite awhile to fully delve in and give into the fear the story would inevitably incite, but I did, and I found that while Stephen King may be considered the king of horror, he is a masterful storyteller and creator of characters that stir empathy and deep affection in the reader.
I have slowly, over the course of the last year and a half, been warming to the works of King. I cannot recommend highly enough his book, On Writing. It has become a piece I revisit often for writing wisdom that I think is applicable to any kind of writer, even students in the high school classroom. I have read one another lengthy novel by King and am currently reading a third novel he has written with another horror writer Peter Straub.
It as a novel has a few controversies surrounding it, but before I address those, let me simply praise the wild imagination of its author. King is genius when it comes to crafting these very lengthy plot lines that not only carry through a 1,000 page+ work, but also cross over into other novels seemingly effortlessly.
What I loved about reading It was how often I found myself completely lost in the world of Derry and a part of the lives of Bill, Ben, Beverly, Stanley, Mike, Richie and Eddie. I felt with them, I feared with them, I was surprised and horrified alongside them, and I fell in love with them as they fell in love with each other.
King's imaginative work also included some salacious, if not grotesque scenes that I genuinely feared coming to life on film, more than I feared the antics of Pennywise, the dancing clown. But alas an R rating for the film justified in the cursing, murder of children and plain horror, forsook the sexual scenes that were downright uncomfortable in the novel.
I went into my first viewing of the film with mild trepidation of how it would work to shock and terrify. But I mostly approached this movie with great delight to see how these beloved characters, this band of losers whom I had fallen in love with would translate from page to screen . And in that regard, it did not disappoint, and because of that it felt less like the horror movie it is advertised as and more of a delightful story of friendship and how this group bonds through trauma. Truly, there are few other stories and characters that have impacted me the way the characters of It have.
These characters feel real and tangible. When reading through their experiences as children and as adults, as far-fetched as they may seem in a true real-life experiential, I can relate way, King adroitly brings the reader right in with them to know and understand and ultimately empathize with everything they are going through. Somehow, even the worst parts of humanity become understandable because of the way King weaves his words and invites the reader to experience every sensory detail in an up close and personal way.
Beyond the story and the characters themselves, there is nothing more compelling to me than when young actors can bring real, authentic emotions to life in film or television. I think it is rare to see the natural exude among child actors, especially when called to deal with things in a mature manner rather than in a completely child like atmosphere. Often a child's performance feels very calculated and less instinctual. Yet these young actors pull off the realistic reactions of fear, affection, and curiousity in a fully formed way for being such tender ages.
Beyond the cast, this version of It was such a masterful adaptation of a large chunk of the novel.
The noteworthy scenes from the novel that felt so essential to see were brought to life better than I imagined them as a vivid reader. I was so impressed that I would say the movie was just as good as the book, if not better in certain ways, which is so rare if not non-existent.
The film itself has stirred quite a buzz. It seems that people are responding well and I would say for the work itself, for the cast, the screenwriters, the director and King, it is well deserved.
I look forward to discovering another story to film adaptation that is done just as well. They are an infinitely rare breed.
No comments:
Post a Comment