(Text/Yang Shiyang)
Whether it is a fan of Stephen King or a fan of HBO, at the beginning of the trailer for "The Outsider", there must be expectations for this new drama, but perhaps no one expected that this new year's drama can Have such good results. Even if its subject matter is not new, and even if it has a tendency to go up and down, its re-excavation and confident handling of such subjects are enough to make him included in the list of candidates for the best series of the new year.
Objectively speaking, many of the American dramas adapted from Stephen King's works are not satisfactory. The thunder and the rain are small, "The Mist", and "Under the Dome", which was originally set as apocalypse but turned into a romantic story, is a lesson from the past. In the past two years, this embarrassing situation has been reversed, and some surprising works have been produced, such as "Mr. Mercedes", such as "Castle Rock" by Stephen Kim Dae-sung, but unfortunately none of them have " Out of the circle", and this "The Outsider" became a wallbreaker.
Anyone who has read Stephen King’s novels knows that this man known as the "horror story maker" is actually a babbled writer. Most of the books are thick, and even the secondary lines and foreshadowings in the works can be developed separately into one. The new story, to be honest, if it were not for his fame, it is estimated that many editors would want to cut off half of the space before allowing it to be published. He himself wrote so tirelessly and wrote a "Stephen King Universe". He complained in the famous memoir and writing textbook "Writing This Matter" that no one has ever asked them questions about language of these types of novelists. Everyone felt that the language and structure of these popular writers were not worth the trouble of analyzing. In other words, readers of most types of novels love only the "story" they write, not how they tell the story. From a certain angle, they can only write good-looking stories, and they will always be in the pastime literature. Turn around, and awareness of how to tell, language, and structure is the secret of serious literature. Perhaps because of such obsessions, Stephen King has been trying to capture people's hearts with the structure and language he believes, even if there is not much attention.
We must admit that what Stephen King excels at is indeed not the language, nor even the story, but his "ideas". Each of his works has a shining core concept, which can be summed up in one sentence. A very suspenseful summary. Stories and horror stories are developed around this idea. Some are hatred and distortions in the real world, and some come from supernatural weirdness and weirdness. This structure model is very suitable for film and television adaptation, but it is a test of the re-creation of screenwriters and directors. Ability, that idea is the definite "core", and the flesh needs to be shaped by the director himself. Therefore, those film and television works that are completely adapted to the rhythm of Stephen King's original work usually fail. Only the creator who uses that shiny idea can really activate Stephen King. "The Outsider" is such a typical example.
For "The Outsider", the core idea is-the supernatural ability to possess, transform, and twist a person into a murderer. This is a very classic Stephen King-style narrative template. There are almost everything he is obsessed with, there are bizarre crimes in the real world, there are distortions and reliefs in the psychological dimension, and there are three levels of unpredictable malice in the supernatural space. Forge a story together. If you want to compare the style of "The Outsider", it is the supernatural version of "True Detective" + "Murder" + "Sin Night Run", crime drama fans can understand what this means-dark tone, cold atmosphere , Slow heat, weird, people are trapped in a charming sticky texture with their thoughts and secrets.
The story begins with the rape and murder of a boy. The popular teacher and baseball team coach Terry Maitland became a murderer and was arrested in public. Soon, the case turned to an incomprehensible strange situation. The boy’s brother was armed with a gun. Retaliation, killing the suspect while being shot on the spot, his mother died of grief, and his father committed suicide by hanging himself. This is not the most weird part. Under the premise of multiple testimonies, the suspect was also confirmed by surveillance video to appear at the same time as the crime. Attend a literary seminar in another place. The mistakes of the police, the deviations of the witnesses, the tricks of the suspects, or not such common logic can be explained.
This story has the standard male protagonist in the cold-hard social detective novels, deeply saddened, facing devastation alone, and an independent female private detective who is autistic and introverted and extremely smart. They have something to fight together. Unpredictable-own demon and supernatural evil. These are almost the most important motifs of Stephen King-the distorted mind of people in weird environments, the extremely evil human nature revealed in reality, and the unexplainable supernatural powers.
"The Outsider" was successful because the director did not deal with the story according to the arrangement of a "supernatural drama", but instead used a method to structure the plot of a real crime drama. This is a very clever way. It always tells the audience through the characters that the parties involved in the case, like us, also sneered at the gods, ghosts, and demons in ancient legends. The strange power of the language is chaotic. In other words, this story has been advancing on the track of realism, but finally reached a surreal end gradually. It is this point that has caused disagreements among drama fans. Some people think it is "foul", while others are fascinated by it. There is an important rule in that famous detective story, that is, no supernatural force can commit crimes. Some people think that "The Outsider" maintains the structure of a detective novel step by step, but throws the pot at the head of the supernatural force with one push. But in fact, we should look at it from another angle. From Stephen King to the director, they didn’t want to lie to anyone. From the beginning, it was declared that this is a supernatural setting, but it uses a different, more realistic setting. The way of telling is complete. In fact, looking back at the game now, this kind of method is the truly appropriate way of telling the supernatural setting. A story that was originally the easiest to float has been effectively tied with a plummet. Everything becomes credible. The director of "The Outsider" is Jason Bateman, the director and actor of "The Place of Dark Money", and sometimes you will find the aesthetic style of the two unified.
Stephen King expressed his satisfaction with the effect of the adaptation of "The Outsider". This satisfaction is not because he restored the story in the original work, but because the director filmed the atmosphere and mood that the writer wanted to create. As a horror novelist, the atmosphere and mood are both MSG and carbs. It is this thing that makes people really happy and satisfied. From this perspective alone, the adaptation of "The Outsider" really understands Stephen King, who has always been obsessed with language and literature.
(This article was first published in Beijing Youth Daily, unauthorized reprinting is strictly prohibited)
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