The Beginning of the End... and Then What To Do - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

 

     The new, multi-part adaptation of Stephen King's apocalyptic classic, The Stand, began last night on CBS All Access. Especially as this will be rolling out into February I'll be aiming to keep this piece spoiler-free. The comments on these blog posts are rare, so that's probably not going to be a point of concern, but I'm not planning on moderating them for spoilers if anyone wants to chime in.
     I hadn't gotten around to reading King's 1978 novel until the 1990 release of the "uncut" version, which had something in the area of 200 additional pages. I've generally enjoyed the King I've read, but I'm far, far from the superfan who's read everything he's put out.
     Much as with the the 1994, 4-part adaptation, while I had mind's eye and ear versions of each of the main characters in place, I was and am initially content to let each production be whatever it was/is going to be. None of it changes the original work, which one can always go back to and revisit. Differences in the interpretation are just that, ranging from the tastes of the screenwriter and director, to pressures from the studio backers and investors, and may have allowed business alliances and/or focus groups decide who's going to play who. It's an imperfect world, but that's a consequence of existence.
     As is the case with many a compelling writer, King's cosmology is fraught, and his universe tends to be one I'm interested to visit, but wouldn't want to live in. The forces of Good and Evil there are too often camps of ultimately such pained, Old Testament-feeling extremes that as I project myself into the

story I find I'm looking for a third Party to join. Unfortunately, there, as in U.S. politics, that's not a viable path if one wants to count for anything.
     If God seems the better option it's largely because the Devil turns out to be a really personal prick who inevitably turns on you. God's mostly just interested in having people bend the knee, and be his instruments in often raw deals. The sanest path is a Nietzschean one, hoping to remain unnoticed by either side, but the rules never seem to allow that. As with all things Religion, it's left to one's personal interpretation. Does one die because they've rejected God's plan and are squashed like a bug, or because they simply have no hope if they reject His "Love"? God, star of the Old Testament, is in my view the ultimate Bad Relationship partner. Egocentric, demanding, emotionally-insecure, and given to great rages which He insists are the failing of His victims.
    Your mileage may vary.
     Executive producer Benjamin Cavell has said that in drafting this version they saw this story as "...Lord of the Rings in America." That it's the "...struggle between the forces of light and darkness for the soul of what's left of humanity."
    In the nine months running up to this premier, during which we've been under pandemic protocols of varying and uncertain levels, I've repeatedly wondered if when this arrived I was even going to want to watch it. The day rolled around and I was interested enough to tune in at a early opportunity.
     Because it's obvious from the opening scene, and so shouldn't count as a spoiler, I'll note that they've decided to tell the story by starting it rather deep in, then jumping back five or so months to when they were in the early stages of what seemed to be a really bad flu season.
     I understand some of the reasoning for this, as this multi-part (when I wasn't looking it went from being 10 parts to only 9) format, if handled in a more linear way, saw them looking at the possibility of boring the audience into early bad taste, word of mouth reviews with one or more hours of pre-plague character introductions. I get that. What I'm worried about with the choice they've made

is that too much is being tipped too early to the audience about the characters, their personal and relationship arcs. Based on the first episode I can see us coming out the other end with people wanting a drastically re-cut version, as I expect we're going to gradually see many of the key developments in-between as we move through the episodes. It's frustrating to try to convey that without examples, but I'd promised myself I'd be avoiding handing out spoilers, especially this early on and in the main body of these posts.
     I will say that, based on the first episode - even more so than in the 1994 tv adaptation - Harold Lauder's not getting his due as a sympathetic character. They may try to aim for some of it later, in the fleshing out as we bounce between Then and Now, but I'm afraid the best they're going to be able to achieve is Harold as tragic character. Those notes are already being foreshadowed in this opening episode. We'll see. Those of us who are bringing the novel with us, somewhere in mind, will tend to use that information to fill in character elements, and I'm guessing some - possibly many - will do that with Harold.
 I would just advise fellow readers and viewers, even

just as a thought experiment, to challenge yourself to just seeing the characters in this adaptation as they're presented. To resist bringing in those outside sources, so you can see them the way they're appearing to people who are meeting these characters - these versions of the characters - for the first time.
     I'll be very interested to see what others have to say on it, especially as the story unfolds. So far the only person I've exchanged anything with over that first episode is someone who has neither read the novel nor seen the '94 version, and who watched the first episode only knowing what she'd heard and read about the story and characters. In the end, I expect that she'll be representative of the bulk of the audience for this, which made it all the more interesting to catch her early reactions. In a way I envy those who will be able to take it so completely as its own thing, as that's the ideal I'm trying for in any adaptation. First, let the thing be whatever it's going to be, and not immediately give in to the "but in the book..." reflex. There'll be plenty of time for that once it's finished. For now, let this project be whatever it turns out to be.
     On a different tack, we next reach back over sixty years.
     Just last week I became aware, via an article in The New Yorker, of a stillborn project developed by Orson Welles and done for Lucy and Desi Arnaz. The details are in the article I linked to.
     Here, available on YouTube, is the one and only episode of the series that was filmed. It's somewhere between The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents in concept, with Welles as the host, though unlike TZ & AHP, the host remains as narrator throughout the tale.
     Called "The Fountain of Youth", it's an adaptation of a John Collier story titled "Youth From Vienna."
Developed and shot in 1956, for whatever mix of reasons it didn't attract any sponsors. Most likely it was Welles' reputation for being so obsessed with being a one man band, and drastically blowing deadlines.
 How it unfolded, and likely got to be well known within the industry, was that the Arnazes allowed Welles to move into their guest house for what was intended to be three weeks while the show was staged, shot and edited. That turned into three months, and ultimately may have required threats of gun violence from Desi to get him out of there. In his wake were a considerable sum of telephone and grocery bills. There are variations on the story, but none of that's more of a consideration to us beyond the category Reasons Why Orson Welles Couldn't Get Steady Work.
  The original five-day shooting schedule turned into six weeks, then he threw a $10,000 (remember, this was in 1956, when that was more than the median house price in the U.S.) wrap party and charged it to Desilu.
 In the end, it sat on the shelf until it was aired, only once, on September 16, 1958 for NBC's Colgate Theatre.

      Using several of the techniques Welles was enamored of, including visual effects using rear projection and optical printing - as he'd done with Citizen Kane - it's a more technically complicated work than it at first might appear. That 1958 airing won a Peabody, but by that point Hollywood had long since declared Welles dead as far as being a commercially-viable creator, relegating him to pure celebrity - someone to make personal appearances, where he would be witty and historically significant.
     Running less than half an hour, it's worth the time even though you'll likely see the arc of the story coming from a considerable distance. It's easy for me to imagine, under some very different, magical  circumstances that somehow could have kept Welles motivated to work within deadlines, that this could have turned into one or more seasons of an anthology series that would have become a very familiar piece of television history. But... that's not what happened in this timeline.
     Something I'd forgotten was returning until it was here - making for a sort of senior moment surprise - was the return of the layered, socio-political, sci-fi saga The Expanse. It returned to Amazon Prime for the start of its fifth season on Wednesday the 16th. The first three episodes of the season appeared simultaneously, with the remainder set to appear weekly.

     I'd spent a little time going over elements of the series roughly a year ago. 
     This series is an adaptation of the novels of the same name by James S.A. Corey. While it can take a little time to get into - being introduced to the array of characters, while trying to grasp the heavily class-driven politics of a future where humans have spread out into the Solar System - I found it to be very worth the investment. It starts off with strong notes of a noirish mystery, something which deepens and broadens as it eventually links up with the political inrigues. A relatively rare case of intelligent science fiction making it to screens, as opposed to the usual sci-fi and/or space opera.
     This is to be the penultimate season, as they've already greenlit the sixth as the final one. Given the volume of source material - eight novels, five novellas and three short stories - I'm sure the fans of those works are a little disappointed that this won't be going on farther, but I also trust they know it's fortunate that the show's seen the opportunity it's been given, and that it's being afforded the space to wrap up.
     I had a general intention heading toward this week, realizing that my next post would fall on Christmas itself, to hit more of a seasonal theme in the selections, but I'm no stern taskmaster, and other things caught my attention. We'll see what comes together for Christmas day itself, then.
     In the meantime, here's an odd project Heath Waterman undertook.
     Searching through hundreds of versions - full stories, dramatic, comedy and animated versions, snippets from Dickens-derived commercials, etc. - of A Christmas Carol, he created this often bizarre supercut of the story. Running under 54 minutes it's entertaining both in and of itself, and in the particulars of the various sources. There's fun in seeing both the familiar and unfamiliar sources. Even when the immediate source is unfamiliar, it all remains so very familiar because we've been soaking in this tale all our lives.

       Still seeking my own path into this holiday season, hoping to find some measure of contentedness a week from now, I think that's more than enough for this week. I have to go try to figure out, to find the time and strength and wind, for my own little holiday miracle. I wish you the best in finding yours. -- Mike