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075: Missed Opportunities

I watched the premier of Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital last night, and I want my money back. I saw the original Kingdom -- Lars Von Trier's sepia-tone vision -- in the theaters when it had a limited US run back in 1996 and felt that if I had to pitch the series to movie executives that my simple statement would have been: Twin Peaks in a hospital. King's version, which is going to run like a two-legged dog for another thirteen weeks, may be classified the same way, but with the additional caveat of "as imagined by a first year film student."

I don't know who the hack is that they've got directing the pilot (and, frankly, this is one thing that Twin Peaks got right -- get someone who knows something about atmosphere to direct your opening shot), but Craig R. Baxley is a case study in missing opportunities. He apparently doesn't know much about atmosphere or direction (though, checking IMDB, it looks like he's had a long career as a stuntman/stunt coordinator before becoming the red right hand of King's teleplay work).

Not that King's script was any tighter. The teleplay tottered and collapsed under the weight of excessive dialogue. From the inane voiceover which spoiled the entire mystery as to why Kingdom Hospital was haunted -- they had to tell us three times that Hospital lay on "uneasy ground" in case we weren't smart enough to figure it out for ourselves after the historical flashback -- to the poorly rendered and reserved mental dialogue that the painter carried on with after he had been hit by the van to the laconic and folksy voices which were inserted to give the animals human voice, there was just too much talking. And maybe I just don't remember the original all that well or maybe it was a factor of it being subtitled which forced me to concentrate more on the action than the tersely worded dialogue that ran across the bottom of the screen. Regardless, what debuted last night was toothless, dull, and pandering even to eight year olds.

Which makes me miss Mark Frost's All Saints that much more. That would have done something.

Anyway, to tie this into the discussion about sound. Here's one suggestion as to what would have made Kingdom Hospital more memorable. The painter is out for a run, listening to his aw-shucks countrified rock music on his headphones. He's got one of those Walkman's which you strap to your hand so that you can run hands-free. The song he's listening to is blaring through his headphones. This should be all that we hear because this is what he hears.

He gets hit by the truck, left by the side of the road, hallucinates the ant-eater, sees the truck driver who finds him, and is eventually rescued by EMTs. All of this should have happened from his perspective with the music going. We know his getting hit by the van is a stand-in event for King's own accident; we can imagine what happens when someone gets fucked up by a speeding truck. What we don't know is how terrifying and horrible it would be to lie by the side of the road, unable to move, unable to turn off the music being pumped into your ears. You're cut off from the outside world, trapped in your own insulated bubble, and all you can hear is the music. You can't hear what the guy who hit you is blubbering before he runs off, you can't hear what the truck driver is saying when he finds you, you can't hear what the EMTs are saying as they diagnose your wounds. All you can do is stare at their horrified expressions as they look at your mangled body and listen to that fucking music.

You couldn't even hear yourself scream when they move you. You can feel it in your throat as you cry yourself hoarse; you can feel the echo of your pain in the back of your mouth. It feels like they've left part of you by the roadside, but you can't even turn your head and see which part. They may be trying to tell you, but no one has turned off the Walkman yet. It just spins on, keeping you in the prison of your own personal soundtrack.

Posted by Teppo at March 4, 2004 06:06 AM

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