Frank Darabont is in a very animated state.
He’s sitting in a corner booth at the upscale Gold Coast eatery RL discussing one of his favorite subjects — author Stephen King. His eyes are wide and his arms are flailing, which might be horrifying for the next table, since the director has a chunk of liver ready to escape from his fork at any second.
“My thing with King is I’ve been a fan since I first read ‘The Shining’ in high school,” Darabont says before plunking that piece of liver into his mouth, washing it down with a gulp of wine. “I instantly became what he calls ‘the consummate reader.’ He is a master storyteller and he tends to give you such a rich direction to go with his characters. That’s the most potent tool in his toolbox — his characters.”
Darabont knows this better than most, having received best-adapted-screenplay Oscar nominations for two of King’s works, “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile.” The two have collaborated a third time with the “The Mist,” based on a King short story, which opened in theaters Wednesday.
This is the first time the 48-year-old filmmaker has attempted to direct one of King’s horror stories (though Darabont admits he would have loved to have had a shot at “The Shining”). In the latest tale, a mysterious mist descends on a small town in Maine, trapping a group of people in a grocery store. What they soon find out is that a species of creatures lives within the mist, wreaking havoc.
But, as usual, there’s always more to a Stephen King story. The real drama lies within the walls of the store, where fear forces the group (including Andre Braugher, Marcia Gay Harden and Thomas Jane) into “Lord of the Flies”-style factions trying to handle what becomes an apocalyptic situation.
“Stephen King writes these archetypal characters that are recognizable to us all and then puts them in these extraordinary circumstances,” says Harden, who plays a religious fanatic in the film. “We may think, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’ — how would I behave if I were in this circumstance? What would I do if confronted with this situation.”
Braugher, who also starred in a miniseries adaptation of King’s “Salem’s Lot,” agreed with Harden.
“He seems to have a unique ability to get inside characters,” said Braugher, who plays a level-headed yet ornery attorney in “The Mist.” “Every novel takes you deep inside of the heart and the mindset of his characters and then he throws them into extraordinary circumstances. He takes the time to set it up so that we’re walking in the same footsteps as the heroes. It’s all about human beings being themselves. That’s where he grabs his audience and keeps his audience.”
And if moviegoers pay close attention to “The Mist,” they’ll also find subtle commentary about fear-based political agendas and the religious right. You know, typical King stuff to give his work more depth.
“That is one of the great pluses of adapting King,” Darabont says. “Not to get too pretentious about it, but he’s not going to let you down when it comes to having some greater meaning. When you have that kind of material in front of you — within the trappings of the scary there is always something potent and human happening — it’s not that hard to adapt. And if you don’t like the story, why bother adapting it in the first place?”
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Director’s King love extends beyond his adaptations
Filmmaker Frank Darabont is a huge Stephen King fan.
“He’s single-handedly responsible for bringing horror into the mainstream,” Darabont says. “You never saw someone’s grandma reading a horror novel in an airport lounge until Stephen King came along.”
Excluding the works that Darabont has adapted to the big screen — “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile” and the latest, “The Mist” — these are Darabont’s favorite novels written by the author:
‘The Shining’: “It was the very first book of his that I read. And not that I’ve read every great horror novel of the 20th Century, but this would have to be one of the great horror novels of the 20th Century. It launched me on this lifelong love of this man’s work.”
‘The Stand’: “If you are into stories that are apocalyptic, nothing is better than this. I love that he just mercilessly took out the world with this virus. I love the ambitious, sprawling ensemble tapestry of the story.”
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‘The Dark Tower’ series: “This gunslinger series is some trippy, cosmic, out-there amazing stuff.”
‘The Long Walk’: “This was published under the Richard Bachman pen name. Man, talk about some metaphorical stuff. Very intense, in-the-moment character piece.”
‘Misery’: “Wow, what a muscular piece of work that is.”
— Terry Armour
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