Misery: Movies About Writing (Copy)

As James Caan has recently passed, I decided to re-post one of my earliest movie blogs. Here ya go.

Stephen King has said that of all of his characters, Annie Wilkes is the one he would not want to be quarantined with. Especially if she was his number one fan.

I’ve read this book once and only once. The movie I’d only ever seen pieces of until now and I have to say: nothing puts editing critiques into perspective like watching Misery. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the story, but just in case, it’s about an injured writer who is in the clutches of a deranged woman who adores his books.

First, the movie in general. I confess I get excited to see Lauren Bacall and Richard Farnsworth in something that I haven’t seen a million time. And of course Kathy Bates is brilliant and horrifying. It does weird me out that it’s Rob Reiner film. Before this he had directed such serious dramatic works as This is Spinal Tap and the Princess Bride . . . alright and Stand By Me which is a little more hard hitting, but also based on a King story. By the way, the screenwriter for Misery is William Goldman, author/screenwriter of the Princess Bride. That’s your random trivia of the day.

First of all, I just want to point out that Wilkes isn’t AS AWFUL in the movie. In the book, some of her actions almost made me throw up. In the movie, she’s still awful, but a fraction less awful (I don’t want to give away anything in the book so just know that I found the movie slightly tamer . . . slightly).

I actually watched this as background noise while going through some editing notes for my next novel. In both the book and the movie there is that moment Annie forces the author Paul to burn his latest book which she found filthy. Of course, the typed pages she sets on a grill are the only copy and she is threatening his well-being if he doesn’t light a match over it. I imagine there are some who watch this and think that the manuscript is no where near as important as Paul’s food, medicine, and life. But this really is one of the most gut wrenching scenes for any creator. You put months and years into a story or any artistic endeavor. It’s not like in those old movies where they write it overnight and it’s perfect as is. Writing a novel especially takes literal blood, sweat, and tears (usually during the editing process) not to mention a bit of booze or chocolate (usually during the writing process).

To anyone who has ever had a project lost, especially to the horror that is computer glitches, you know the frustration and sorrow it causes. The first time this happened to me I was twelve and the floppy disk (that’s right - I’m old) with my first attempt at a novel saved to it stopped letting me open the novel. A friend of my brother’s claimed he knew how to retrieve the file and took the disk from me. I waited several weeks before re-starting the process and trying to remember everything I’d already written once, only to have him then tell me that 1) he’d totally forgotten he’d promised to fix it and 2) that there was no way he could fix it, why did he say that? Although I am clearly still bitter at this betrayal of my trust to he’d have an opportunity to briefly look like a hero, I do have to thank him for one thing. My anger towards him helped me move on from my anger towards the entire situation and I did rewrite the book. Several times, actually, but that’s another story.

In the film version of Misery, they don’t really cover Paul’s thought process at this time, but I’d hate to confess that it’s a little similar to my own in the book. His bitterness and rage towards Annie helps him to keep thinking about how he’s going to rewrite that “filthy” novel just to spite her.

This brings me to other major writer moment of the movie. Annie insists that Paul write a novel the resurrects her favorite character, a romance icon called Misery (get it? Huh? Huh?). When he starts this novel begrudgingly, she gives him serious critiques about continuity. And he has to admit that she’s right. This is possibly the most realistic and undeniably frustrating moment in a writer’s life. When someone whose opinion you don’t even want makes you write something better.

That having been said, I still wouldn’t want her hovering over my bed to get me motivated. Damn it, Annie Wilkes!

Image copyright Columbia Pictures, Nelson Entertainment, and Castle Rock Entertainment (please no one sue me, I’m poor)

It Chapter Two: Movies about Writing

I am going to focus on the career of a single character mainly for this blog, but first a few notes about the It story by Stephen King in general. Spoilers ahead. Also, no troll comments about how Bill Skarsgard is a better Pennywise monster than Tim Curry. Both are magnificent and I love them equally.

For those of you unfamiliar, the It franchise is based on the book about seven people who reunited in their hometown to fight an ancient, shape-shifting, murderous monster they battle 27 years earlier as a group of children. The group is made up of Bill, Beverly, Ritchie (who is my favorite character), Eddie, Mike, Ben, and Stan. For the recent films, they split the story in half, so their kid moments make up one very excellent film and their adult moments (still with kid flashbacks) create a less excellent but still pretty good sequel. I’m going to be talking just about the sequel today.

As a kid, I grew up with the Tim Curry version and I watched it pretty much every time I caught it on TV. Just like most of my generation who watched that made-for-television masterpiece (which my boyfriend says is cheesy, but that can be correct), the scenes featuring them as kids are always so much better than the grownups. It made me sad as a child to think that the seven main characters barely spoke after high school. And that they forgot how close they had been. The parts of the story where they are young really do play out like an extreme adventure movie - seven friends who can send a supernatural killer clown into hibernation with the power of friendship. I couldn’t understand how a bond that strong could possibly be destroyed, even by time and poor memory. As an adult, it makes sense. It’s no-less sad, but it’s realistic. And that in it-self is a tragedy. Understanding why that is just the way life goes even when a killer clown is involved is pretty bleak.

Still, the the second movie’s character that I will be focusing on is Bill, the group’s leader, played by James MacAvoy. Bill grew up to be an author and screenwriter. His wife is an actress who is starring the adaptation of his latest book. One of the earliest scenes in the film involve Bill on set being asked by both his wife Audra and Peter Bogdanovich (as “director”) to rewrite the ending before they shoot it. This is of course given Bill block and becomes a running theme in the movie. One of the things I objected to in this film was that they minimized Audra’s part (and before anyone argues, yes, I have read the book not just watched the TV Curry mini-series) which I feel is important to Bill’s adult life as a writer. His abilities directly impact Audra’s career and so she is both supportive, but tough. Her having a larger part in the original story is a part of what gives Bill a chance at closure and continuing his career at the end of the story. But instead, she just sort of fades out in this version. By the time she shows up again, you’ve kinda forgotten who she is.

Bill argues that his endings are the way they are because real life doesn’t give nicely wrapped closure. However, as a reader sometimes a form of closure is needed to get a book out of your head when you’re done.

When the Losers Club as the group is called reunites, Beverly (Jessica Chastain) even mentions to Bill how scary the movies he writes are, but that the ending sucks. But the greatest scene to bring this up involves Bill in a thrift shop trying to buy his childhood bike. The shop owner is none other than Stephen King (remember in the 90s/early 00s when King had cameos in all of those crappy TV movies like Langoleiers and The Stand? This is better than those. No pizza delivery or pretending to be a professional in a suit. In fact, I kinda wonder if King’s costume was something his wife Tabitha found in the back of their closet.

Bill notices that King as the shopkeeper has a copy of his book. When asked if King would like a signature, he responds, “No thanks. Didn’t like the ending.” Ba dum dum.

In the end, Bill is more confident in his writing (although he wife doesn’t even get to make an appearance at the end) partially because he now has complete memories of his childhood. The ironic part is the changes the made to the end of It for this film weren’t that great either. So go figure.

Secret Window: Movies about Writing

Let’s do one more Stephen King adaptation this October. I know I watched Secret Window once before (probably around 2005 or 2006 when it would have been played on TV), but I remember not being all that impressed with it. Not that it’s a full out bad film, just that I didn’t feel like I really needed to hold onto it in my memory or ever watch it again. Yet here I am, watching it again.

Since this is another based on a Stephen King short story about a writer - it is very much a movie about writing. Johnny Depp plays Mort Rainey, a depressed novelist who is in the midst of a divorce and writing a book based on his experiences of his wife (Maria Bello) cheating on him. He decides to do this in a remote cabin by a lake. So imagine his surprise when a man dressed like an Amish reject shows up at his door claiming that Rainey “stole his story”. Mort ignores the man named John Shooter (John Turturro), yet does end up reading the original manuscript and realizes it’s almost identical to something he wrote called “Secret Window”.

Shooter starts to terrorize Mort and Mort starts collecting evidence that he wrote the story first. However, Shooter continues to threaten him with murders and arson, wanting Mort to republish the story with Shooter ending and name. All of this causes Mort to constantly flashback to the time leading up to his wife’s infidelity and lose his grip on reality. There is also some guilt there being pushed down by a haze of cigarette smoke and Doritos. Mmm. Product placement.

Oh! I remember why I blocked this movie out! IMPORTANT SPOILER ALERT: The dog dies! The cute, personality-full dog dies!

Other SPOILER ALERT: Shooter and Mort are the same person. Oh come on! This movie came out in 2004. You can’t tell me someone didn’t spoil the ending by now. But I’m bringing it up for a reason. The best scene is when the audience discovers that when Mort talks to himself, it’s a moral version trying to get him to admit to doing wrong and protect people. That Mort apparently is the weakest of his personalities because when Shooter shows up, everything becomes a full blown horror story. It all stems back to Mort’s anger at his wife, his own writer’s block, and the fact that he actually DID plagiarize a story early in his career (this is hinted at throughout the movie, but stated outright in the original King story). If anxiety ever caused me to have Dissociative Identity Disorder, I would hope my other personality would have a better accent.

I do like the scenes where Mort is actually trying to write. He talk to himself the way we all do (admit it, you do) with the usual distractions around him like a slinky and comfy couch. I especially like when he re-reads a paragraph and tells himself, “Bad writing”. He then deletes the little bit he’s actually written. I can’t help agreeing with him on this. I’m constantly told that the important part is to get it on the page then go back and edit, but that drives me insane! Clearly (SPOILER ALERT), it was something else that drove Mort insane in the film, but maybe bad writing was a factor.

Okay, let’s talk about the John Turturro - shaped elephant in the room - plagiarism. King’s story is actually based on the unfounded accusations that he stole some of his story ideas. Here’s the problem: some authors get so hung up on the nit-picks of plot development and character creation that they forget that time their English teacher told them that there are finite types of stories. Look at Shakespeare! He was a great wordsmith, but all of his plots came from mythology and history. What drives me nuts are the writers who try to copyright a common word, a phrase, or a genre. You can’t stop people from having ideas and coincidences happen. Even King found out after he published Under the Dome that it was the plot of The Simpsons Movie.

1408: Movies about Writing

It’s October! Time for some more Stephen King! I never actually watched this all the way through before, but I’ve read the short story.

Mike Enslin (broody John Cusack) is a writer of paranormal investigation books. The movie opens with him doing a sad looking book signing (I say sad looking from the perspective of a movie watcher not from the point of view of another writer - as long as someone shows up you’ve got something). He’s disillusioned about both his current career as he’s never seen a ghost and about his past aspirations to be a serious dramatic novelist. Like anything about a writer based on something by King, this is fairly authentic involving the process of research, struggles, and just the basic need to have a good enough selling point. The paranormal research pays the bills and Enslin needs a new angle. He’s sent an anonymous postcard of a New York hotel with the cryptic message, “Don’t go in 1408”. His publisher played by Tony Shalhoub helps get Mike into the room when the hotel’s manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson - yay!) refused to book it. The room has a history of suicides and madness therefore Olin has kept it vacant as long as possible.

He discusses this in his office with Mike, first asking if he drinks.

Mike responds, “Of course! I just said I was a writer.”

Where does this stereotype come from that writers drink to help them create? I know there is a history of alcoholic creatives in the world, but the only times I’ve tired to drink and write I got through a paragraph before being distracted by a music box. It was shiny and the music was so soothing.

Still, Mike insists on staying in the room with his trusty tape recorder, a device I’ve never tried myself because it means listening to your own voice to actually type stuff later. But I guess if you’re John Cusack, you don’t mind the sound of yourself. From there things get freaky (I don’t want to give away the scares). At first, Mike decides he’s “losing the plot” and thinks he’s being drugged. Then, the ghostly events begin to reveal his self-tragedies, his relationship with his father (who never liked his writing), and why he started to write about ghosts in the first place. His character arch involves his cynicism, his grief, and this idea that his writing stems from a place of giving up. It’s an interesting change from the original short story.

I was also surprised how many people are in this who I recognize from other movies and shows - Isiah Whitlock Jr., Drew Powell who was on Gotham, Andrew Lee Potts (who I think is just nice to look at), and even the woman who played the TV reporter in Princess Diaries 2. Yes, I happen to like Princess Diaries 2. I can like Stephen King and Princess Diaries.

Misery: Movies About Writing

Stephen King has said that of all of his characters, Annie Wilkes is the one he would not want to be quarantined with. Especially if she was his number one fan.

I’ve read this book once and only once. The movie I’d only ever seen pieces of until now and I have to say: nothing puts editing critiques into perspective like watching Misery. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the story, but just in case, it’s about an injured writer who is in the clutches of a deranged woman who adores his books.

First, the movie in general. I confess I get excited to see Lauren Bacall and Richard Farnsworth in something that I haven’t seen a million time. And of course Kathy Bates is brilliant and horrifying. It does weird me out that it’s Rob Reiner film. Before this he had directed such serious dramatic works as This is Spinal Tap and the Princess Bride . . . alright and Stand By Me which is a little more hard hitting, but also based on a King story. By the way, the screenwriter for Misery is William Goldman, author/screenwriter of the Princess Bride. That’s your random trivia of the day.

First of all, I just want to point out that Wilkes isn’t AS AWFUL in the movie. In the book, some of her actions almost made me throw up. In the movie, she’s still awful, but a fraction less awful (I don’t want to give away anything in the book so just know that I found the movie slightly tamer . . . slightly).

I actually watched this as background noise while going through some editing notes for my next novel. In both the book and the movie there is that moment Annie forces the author Paul to burn his latest book which she found filthy. Of course, the typed pages she sets on a grill are the only copy and she is threatening his well-being if he doesn’t light a match over it. I imagine there are some who watch this and think that the manuscript is no where near as important as Paul’s food, medicine, and life. But this really is one of the most gut wrenching scenes for any creator. You put months and years into a story or any artistic endeavor. It’s not like in those old movies where they write it overnight and it’s perfect as is. Writing a novel especially takes literal blood, sweat, and tears (usually during the editing process) not to mention a bit of booze or chocolate (usually during the writing process).

To anyone who has ever had a project lost, especially to the horror that is computer glitches, you know the frustration and sorrow it causes. The first time this happened to me I was twelve and the floppy disk (that’s right - I’m old) with my first attempt at a novel saved to it stopped letting me open the novel. A friend of my brother’s claimed he knew how to retrieve the file and took the disk from me. I waited several weeks before re-starting the process and trying to remember everything I’d already written once, only to have him then tell me that 1) he’d totally forgotten he’d promised to fix it and 2) that there was no way he could fix it, why did he say that? Although I am clearly still bitter at this betrayal of my trust to he’d have an opportunity to briefly look like a hero, I do have to thank him for one thing. My anger towards him helped me move on from my anger towards the entire situation and I did rewrite the book. Several times, actually, but that’s another story.

In the film version of Misery, they don’t really cover Paul’s thought process at this time, but I’d hate to confess that it’s a little similar to my own in the book. His bitterness and rage towards Annie helps him to keep thinking about how he’s going to rewrite that “filthy” novel just to spite her.

This brings me to other major writer moment of the movie. Annie insists that Paul write a novel the resurrects her favorite character, a romance icon called Misery (get it? Huh? Huh?). When he starts this novel begrudgingly, she gives him serious critiques about continuity. And he has to admit that she’s right. This is possibly the most realistic and undeniably frustrating moment in a writer’s life. When someone whose opinion you don’t even want makes you write something better.

That having been said, I still wouldn’t want her hovering over my bed to get me motivated. Damn it, Annie Wilkes!

Image copyright Columbia Pictures, Nelson Entertainment, and Castle Rock Entertainment (please no one sue me, I’m poor)