Hollywood's Stephen King [Paperback]

Tony Magistrale (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 22, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0312293216 | ISBN-13: 978-0312293215 | Edition: First Edition

For the past three decades, Hollywood has faithfully adapted much of Stephen King's fiction into film. Of the many major films that have been made, not one has lost money. Part of this may be explained in terms of King's own popularity in American culture; he has been, after all, a best-selling writer since the late 1970s. But more interesting is what this cinematic fascination reveals about postmodern American culture. In the first overview of Hollywood's major cinematic interpretations of Stephen King, Tony Magistrale examines the various thematic, narrative, and character interconnections that highlight the relationships among his films. Opening with a revealing interview with Stephen King, the book takes us through chapters that explore such popular films as Stand By Me, Misery, The Shining, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption among others.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ever since Stephen King's first book, Carrie, became a bestseller, Hollywood has scrambled to cash in on the appeal of the most popular novelist in recent history. More than 17 films have been adapted from King novels or stories, including such commercial and critical hits as The Shining, Misery and The Shawshank Redemption. In this perceptive and enthusiastic book, Magistrale, an expert on the American gothic genre, examines these films in the context of their sources, demonstrating how they elaborate on and, in some cases, distort King's meaning. Magistrale investigates such topics as the fear of menstruation in Carrie, infatuation with technology in Christine and male hubris in Pet Sematary. He also explores some of the conflicts King has had with the high-profile auteurs who adapt his books. Brian De Palma ruthlessly simplified Carrie's experimental narrative, for example, and Rob Reiner ditched the violent ending of The Body for his sentimental Stand by Me. For his part, King initially abandoned the Rose Red TV miniseries because of disagreements with Steven Spielberg, and he rejects Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining because it's "too artistic to operate effectively as a horror film." Of course, not every King film deserves this kind of analysis: for every rose, there's a stinker (e.g., Children of the Corn; The Lawnmower Man). Magistrale acknowledges some of these films are "celluloid disasters," but he maintains the rest constitute a body of work deserving of scrupulous academic treatment. Beginning with a lengthy interview with King himself, this book is a useful elucidation of King's work through the skewed lens of Hollywood. Illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...informative and well-written study for students and King enthusiasts alike, highly recommended."--Rosalind Dayen, Library Journal

"As the most perceptive of the myriad of critics who have studied Stephen King's canon over the last several decades, Tony Magistrale has a just claim to the title of premier King scholar in America. Now, in Hollywood's Stephen King, Magistrale has written an indispensable addition to the field. Like others before him, Magistrale examines a selection of movies and miniseries adapted from King's fiction or created by King himself, but two factors make Hollywood's Stephen King different from its predecessors: its stylistic lucidity and its literary focus. As always, Magistrale writes in an accessible but contemplative manner, one that allows both devotees and academics to grasp his work. In this study, he uses that style to probe King's most important movies and miniseries for their significance as literary parables that serve as social metaphors. For the most part, Magistrale eschews cinematic theory and technical miscellany; instead, he offers an exceptionally perceptive literary overview of the way Hollywood has interpreted--and misinterpreted--King's fiction.

After a preface that investigates and refutes the notion that King's films are not worthy of serious consideration, Magistrale divides his book into chapters analyzing a selection of those films that center on children, on females, on fathers, on heroes, and on technology. These chapters are bookended by a particularly candid new interview with King and an equally frank chapter on the strengths and weaknesses of King's made-for-television movies. The entire volume is worth reading, but its highlights include astute evaluations of Carrie and Cujo, Apt Pupil, The Dead Zone, The Running Man, The Night Flier, and both the cinematic and TV versions of The Shining. The section on Dolores Claiborne is simply the best analysis I've ever read of that under-appreciated film, and Magistrale is well ahead of most critics in his understanding of the moral implications of King's most somber work, the original teleplay "Storm of the Century." Overall, Hollywood's Stephen King amply confirms Tony Magistrale's position as the dean of King critics. This book is a keeper."--Mary Pharr, editor of Fantastic Odysseys: Selected Essays from the Twenty-Second International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

"Finally! Tony Magistrale explores many of the movie versions of Stephen King's works and provides important insights into both the films and the fiction on which they are based. As I read the manuscript, I kept making marginal notes like 'Insightful,' 'Interesting,' and 'Wow. Why didn't I think of that?' Reading Hollywood's Stephen King was a pleasure that brought back pleasant memories of the good film adaptations and explained why so many other adaptations were less successful. Hollywood's Stephen King is an important critical work and one that should be on the shelves of everyone who is interested in King, popular culture, cultural studies, and film."--Carol Senf, professor at The Georgia Institute of Technology

"Novels are novels, and films are films--and when the twain meet, it’s a miracle. Tony Magistrale’s informed commentary on Hollywood’s scattershot (and often scatter-brained) approach to the fiction of Stephen King helps explain why classics like Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption can be found on the same shelf as Children of the Corn III and The Mangler. A must-read for King’s many fans, as well as screenwriters and producers, and for moviegoers who wonder why so much can be lost in the translation from the page to the screen."--Douglas E. Winter, author of Run and Stephen King: The Art of Darkness

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; First Edition edition (November 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312293216
• ISBN-13: 978-0312293215
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,176,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good read, February 4, 2004

By 

easternshoremd (Easton, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hollywood's Stephen King (Paperback)

At first glance I thought this might be tiresome because it is literary/cinema criticism and I was immediately transported back to a college English class. Surprise, I couldn't put it down! Stephen King is a genius. Tony Magistrael has made a career of studying horror with an emphasis on Stephen King's writings and film adaptations of his work. You can't help but appreciate King's craftsmanship and the volume and variety of his work. Magistrael's enthusiasm makes me think reading books I've avoided because I thought they would scare the crap out of me, might really be fun after all. I'm buying Misery today. And then, I'll watch the movie.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very good with a few flaws, October 30, 2004

By 

Bryant Burnette "Bryant Burnette" (Tuscaloosa, AL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hollywood's Stephen King (Paperback)

This is a very good book that serves as a valuable addition to the canon of works exploring the phenomenon that is Stephen King. I would heartily recommend it to people who are King fans and who also like to read critical analysis of his stories.

This book focuses on the films that have resulted from King novels and stories. Magistrale's best readings here are of Kubrick's "The Shining" and Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile," but he has something interesting to say about pretty much every movie he covers (which is not every single King film, unfortunately).

There are a few places where the book falls down a bit, though. For example, Magistrale seems to be convinced that the only version of Tobe Hooper's "Salem's Lot" that is commerically available is the truncated version released to theaters overseas. In fact, his entire criticsm is based on that edition. I've owned the complete four-hour version (three hours, actually, since the commericals aren't included) on DVD for several years. It's readily available from any online mercant, and has been for a long time now. How that simple fact managed to slip by Magistrale is a mystery to me, but it is the sort of ridiculous error that makes me wonder how many other things he might have gotten wrong.

Also, for a book that, I think, tries to be a critical overview of Stephen King movies, there are far too many digressions to discuss how things were done in the novel on which the respective movie was based. If one of Magistrale's points is that the King film canon is deserving of serious critical attention, then it is a disservice to constantly return to a discussion of how the novels are different.

Still, this is one of the better books of criticism I've read on the subject of Stephen King. I recommend it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Red Blooded Criticism, October 10, 2004

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hollywood's Stephen King (Paperback)

Magistrale is one of those academics who has made a whole career writing about the work of a living author. It must make the author awfully uneasy thinking of all those people whose living literally depends on the products of one's brain. King must respect him, however, because he gives him his time and an awfully frank interview which opens up the book on a happy note. King has been treated both well and badly by Hollywood, and he must know that some of this bad treatment is his own fault. Though some fans think otherwise, people who like movies know that when King is in charge of adapting his own work (or even worse, writing originals for the screen) the results are almost always dire. Can't figure it out, how a man whose writing is so perfectly "cinematic," whatever that means, can have so literal and unimaginative a film sense. Oh well, at least we have the novels on the one hand and Rob Reiner, Brain De Palma, Stanley Kubrick and Frank Darabont (among others) to re-imagine King's work and make it come alive on the big screen. Save us from the Mick Garrises of the world!

Magistrale manages to make sense of some of the complexities of the film universe, and he can explain in high toned English why a film like CARRIE might be good and THE MANGLER unredeemably mediocre. I like the way he arranged the films into different categories, so there is a body of proto-feminist films, like DOLORES CLAIBORNE, and then a body of "high-tech gone awry" films like CHRISTINE and the beyond belief bad MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE. Magistrale is a highly intelligent man and his writing is not pretentious at all. He is the type of writer you'd like to know as a friend.