JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 263 из 359However, during the course of fooling around with this,trying to make it work out, I came across a reputable scientific theory that objects might in fact be pushed through space by the pressure of light, and that dormant life of some sort might conceivably drift through space . . . and [this] eventually worked the book out.
*As previously noted, the late-seventies remake of the Finney novel resets the story in San Francisco, opting for an urban paranoia which results in a number of sequences strikingly like those which open Polanski's film version of Rosemary's Baby . But Philip Kaufman lost more than he gained, I think, by taking Finney's story out of its natural small-town-with-a-bandstand-in-the-park setting.
"I was never satisfied with my own explanation of how these dry leaflike objects came to resemble the people they imitated; it seemed, and seems, weak, but it was the best I could do.
"I have read explanations of the 'meaning' of this story, which amuse me, because there is no meaning at all; it was just a story meant to entertain, and with no more meaning than that.
The first movie version of the book followed the book with great faithfulness, except for the foolish ending; and I've always been amused by the contentions of people connected with the picture that they had a message of some sort in mind. If so, it's a lot more than I ever did, and since they followed my story very closely, it's hard to see how this message crept in. And when the message has been defined, it has always sounded a little simpleminded to me. The idea of writing a whole book in order to say that it's not really a good thing for us all to be alike, and that individuality is a good thing, makes me laugh.” Nevertheless, Jack Finney has written a great deal of fiction about the idea that individuality is a good thing and that conformity can start to get pretty scary after it passes a certain point.
His comments (in a letter to me dated December 24, 1979) about the first film version of The Body Snatchers raised a grin on my own face as well. As Pauline Kael, Penelope Gilliatt, and all of those sobersided film critics so often prove, no one is so humorless as a big-time film critic or so apt to read deep meanings into simple doings ("In The Fury ," Pauline Kael intoned, apparently in all seriousness, "Brian De Palma has found the junk heart of America.")-it is as if these critics feel it necessary to prove and re-prove their own literary; they are like teenage boys who feel obliged to demonstrate and redemonstrate their macho . . . perhaps most of all to themselves.
*As previously noted, the late-seventies remake of the Finney novel resets the story in San Francisco, opting for an urban paranoia which results in a number of sequences strikingly like those which open Polanski's film version of Rosemary's Baby . But Philip Kaufman lost more than he gained, I think, by taking Finney's story out of its natural small-town-with-a-bandstand-in-the-park setting.
"I was never satisfied with my own explanation of how these dry leaflike objects came to resemble the people they imitated; it seemed, and seems, weak, but it was the best I could do.
"I have read explanations of the 'meaning' of this story, which amuse me, because there is no meaning at all; it was just a story meant to entertain, and with no more meaning than that.
The first movie version of the book followed the book with great faithfulness, except for the foolish ending; and I've always been amused by the contentions of people connected with the picture that they had a message of some sort in mind. If so, it's a lot more than I ever did, and since they followed my story very closely, it's hard to see how this message crept in. And when the message has been defined, it has always sounded a little simpleminded to me. The idea of writing a whole book in order to say that it's not really a good thing for us all to be alike, and that individuality is a good thing, makes me laugh.” Nevertheless, Jack Finney has written a great deal of fiction about the idea that individuality is a good thing and that conformity can start to get pretty scary after it passes a certain point.
His comments (in a letter to me dated December 24, 1979) about the first film version of The Body Snatchers raised a grin on my own face as well. As Pauline Kael, Penelope Gilliatt, and all of those sobersided film critics so often prove, no one is so humorless as a big-time film critic or so apt to read deep meanings into simple doings ("In The Fury ," Pauline Kael intoned, apparently in all seriousness, "Brian De Palma has found the junk heart of America.")-it is as if these critics feel it necessary to prove and re-prove their own literary; they are like teenage boys who feel obliged to demonstrate and redemonstrate their macho . . . perhaps most of all to themselves.