By Eric Ortiz (@EricOrtizG)
Stephen King’s novels have been translated to the screen practically since they began to be published. “It all started with Carrie (the 1976 film based on King’s first published novel), the book was not well known until Brian De Palma’s movie came out,” affirms filmmaker Mick Garris in the documentary King on Screen (2022), which precisely tackles several film and TV adaptations of King’s prolific bibliography, generally associated with horror, suspense and small American towns.
In an interview with the Fantastic Pavilion, director Daphné Baiwir confirmed that she faced a difficult process when choosing which of the many adaptations were going to be highlighted in her documentary: “There were films that I really wanted to talk about, for example It (2017), the movie is incredible but I couldn’t schedule an appointment with Andrés Muschietti because he was working a lot. So I tried to speak a little bit about the film with other directors, but it’s not the same if the director is not here to talk about his work. Then during the editing process, we had to make something coherent in the structure and some of the films we would have loved to talk about, we couldn’t put them in the structure correctly. When you have Mick Garris and Frank Darabont, who made so many Stephen King adaptations, you know that you will talk a little bit more about their films.”
King on Screen stresses that King’s work goes beyond the confines of one genre. Rob Reiner – director of the coming-of-age classic Stand by Me (1986) – and Frank Darabont are the filmmakers who have most noticeably reflected the side of King that’s not anchored in horror. It’s no coincidence that the documentary amply covers prison-set dramas The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and The Green Mile (1999), as Darabont is, in fact, Baiwir’s favorite director.
For her, “The Shawshank Redemption is emblematic. When you have a list of the best movies of all time, it’s always mentioned, so being such a masterpiece I was absolutely sure that we were going to talk about it. It was something huge to have Darabont in the documentary. He has a lot of great and interesting things to say, it’s like having a masterclass.” In that sense, Darabont shares several stories, about how he turned down money and insisted on directing The Shawshank Redemption – at one point Reiner showed interest in taking command –, or how Bruce Willis himself recommended Michael Clarke Duncan for The Green Mile.
Rather than having a chronological structure, King on Screen is connected thematically, so the fact that The Shawshank Redemption is about characters stuck in a place, leads to the mention of other stories with similarities, like Storm of the Century (a 1999 miniseries written by King) and Misery (1990), for which Kathy Bates won the Best Actress Oscar. Later, another King adaptation starring Bates is discussed: Taylor Hackford’s Dolores Claiborne (1995). Having been raised by a single mother and later greatly supported by his wife Tabitha, King is said to know how to write remarkable female characters.
When asked about the scarce presence of female filmmakers in the list of King adaptations, Baiwir commented the following: “It’s something that is quite depressing to see, how few women actually are able to make films. Being a woman myself, I see how difficult it is, how small the budgets are to make a film, even in the documentary field. It’s a problem that we have on all levels, in cinema in general. There are many great women who could adapt King for sure, it’s a shame that there are only two (Mary Lambert and Kimberly Peirce, who directed 1989’s Pet Sematary and 2013’s Carrie respectively). I asked them but they wouldn’t appear in the documentary so that’s a shame, but I really wanted to talk about women because it’s something that is quite important in Stephen King’s work as well.”
While it’s clear that King has written more than just horror, he’s nonetheless one of the masters of this genre. The documentary features veterans such as Lewis Teague (Cujo), Tom Holland (Thinner), Fritz Kiersch (Children of the Corn), the aforementioned Garris (director of the miniseries The Stand and The Shining), Dan Attias (Silver Bullet) and Greg Nicotero – producer of the Creepshow series and disciple of George A. Romero, who was a friend and collaborator of King –. We also see filmmakers of later generations, who grew up reading King and watching certain adaptations: Vincenzo Natali (In the Tall Grass), Mike Flanagan (Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep), Josh Boone (2020’s The Stand), Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer (2019’s Pet Sematary).
To Baiwir, “Stephen King is talking to all generations, because you have directors who are in their seventies and have adapted Stephen King. On the other side, you have directors like Josh Boone and Mike Flanagan who adapt King’s work today. It’s interesting to see how universal Stephen King’s stories are. You can read a story that happened in the 1980s and it’s still factual today. It’s the way that the characters are described and the relationships between them. Also the fact that fear is universal, we are all afraid of death and things like that.”
Of course The Shining (1980) has an important place in the documentary. Not only it’s one of the most iconic horror films ever made, but also the story behind it – famously King didn’t like Stanley Kubrick’s version – exemplifies the nature of any audiovisual adaptation: there will always be changes from the original text and whoever expects a replica of the book will surely end up disappointed. The Shining was very personal to King, as it dealt with his alcoholism. Some of the interviewees say that King’s humane and emotional side contrasted with Kubrick, who is considered an intelligent but cold filmmaker.
“I totally understand Stephen King’s point of view on The Shining,” Baiwir said, adding that “Mike Flanagan did a great job with his adaptation of Doctor Sleep. It was difficult to convince King at first, but he managed to do a film that was between the two universes. For me it works really well.”
Questioned about other adaptations that have managed to capture King’s soul, Baiwir brought up another Darabont film: “The Mist (2007) is really heavy, really well done and deeply into horror. Even if the ending is quite different, it still works.” Flanagan was mentioned again for his potent Netflix adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017). According to Baiwir, “that was a very difficult one to make because it’s such an interior novel.” Additionally, Baiwir praised one of the movies starring John Cusack: “I really love 1408 (2007), even if it’s different from the novel, we are very much in Stephen King’s world with that one.”
Almost 50 years after the publication of Carrie, King’s books continue to be transferred to the big and small screen. As mentioned in the documentary, the last decade has seen a sort of renaissance that, at least for the next few years, won’t stop. “He’s writing great stories, I think that’s why he is so popular. Today, with everything going on politically, it’s particularly interesting to adapt him (in the documentary, for example, parallels are drawn between 2020’s The Stand, the rise of Donald Trump and the COVID-19 pandemic). Today it’s easier to adapt some of the stories with the great possibilities that we have, CGI and everything like that. At the time we finished the documentary, Firestarter (2022) wasn’t in the theaters yet, then there’s The Boogeyman (2023) and a lot more that are coming. It’s impressive to see how many adaptations there are of his books,” concluded Baiwir.
King on Screen was released in Theaters August 11 and will be available On Demand on September 8 and On DVD on September 12.