rank Darabont, director of this holiday season's hotly anticipated The
Green Mile, has carved out perhaps the most specialized niche in the
movie business: prison pictures based on Stephen King stories. His last
movie, five years ago, was the critically acclaimed The Shawshank
Redemption, for which Darabont received an Oscar nomination for best
screenplay adaptation. With The Green Mile, based on King's
best-selling serialized novel of the same name, Darabont turned in a screen adaptation
in eight weeks and directed the film himself. At a press
briefing, Darabont spoke in depth about the humanity of King's work.
Give us a little history on this project. How did you get involved, and why, and how did it come together?
Darabont: It really came about originally as a result of a phone
call from Steve King. Or maybe I called him. But it was, "Hey, how are ya?
How ya doin'?" And in the midst of this conversation, he said, "You know,
I've been kicking this story around, and you'd be great for it. I know you
don't want to do another prison movie. But let me tell you this idea." And
I found the idea intriguing enough that I asked him if he ever wrote the
thing, to give me first crack at it. And about six months later, I got the
first volume in the mail from his publisher. And I read that first volume,
and said, "Okay, I can see I'm making another prison movie." I actually
committed to the film before I had read the remaining five volumes, just
based on the quality of that first book and his brief description.
Is it a concern to you that you're the prince of prison pictures?
Darabont: I am. That's all I'm going to do the rest of my life.
(laughs). It gave me a moment's pause, because I certainly wasn't looking
for the next prison movie to make. I never imagined that I would make
another one. It just happened to be the card that was dealt me by Steve
King. It was the one story that had come along in five years that I really
became completely captivated by and felt I had to make. Which is actually
why I had waited five years. Because I've really got to fall in love before I
want to direct again. I don't want to do it just to do it. It's too hard.
This has been two years of getting my ass kicked. It's just a tough gig.
So, I was waiting. And wading through lots of Die Hard rip-offs that were being sent my way.
The film took a little longer to make than expected and cost a little more than expected, didn't it?
Darabont: I don't know that any part of it was any harder than any
other part. Every aspect of directing is kind of a difficult one for me.
Although I have to say, in dealing with my cast on this movie, it was about
the easiest part of the whole process for me, because the cast was so
superb, and they were also devoted really to bringing the material to life.
That part of it was a pleasure.
Talk a bit about working with the cast.
Darabont: They had a great rapport, these actors.... Before these
guys even meet, necessarily, you're kind of shuffling the deck in your head
and trying to come up with what you think will be screen chemistry. That's
how Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins were put together. I thought, "There's
going to be an interesting mix." Once I knew that Tom [Hanks, who plays
Paul Edgecomb] was on board, I immediately offered the script to David
Morse [Brutus "Brutal" Howell]. As I was writing the piece, doing the
adaptation, these faces were popping up in my head, and I thought, "That's
going to be a great combo. Tom and Bonnie Hunt [Jan Edgecomb], that's going
to be a great combo." It's just an instinctive thing. They happen to be
great actors too.
Was Morse a hard sell, having already starred in the not-very-good TV adaptation of King's The Langoliers? Did he have any
qualms about it?
Darabont: Once he read the script, he was on board. It's not the
name on the script so much as what's on the pages of the script. And I
think David was really quite taken with it when he read it.
Stephen King stories, even the horror stories, all have an element of
humanity in them. Why is it that so many of them go wrong?
Darabont: My theory has always been that the adaptations that go
right recognize the thread of humanity in Steve's work. They pay attention
to that texture and those characters. The ones that don't figure that's
not important. They figure that what's important are the trappings of the
ghoulish. So what you're left with is the fur and the fangs, and you lose
Stephen King altogether. The good ones--The Dead Zone, Stand By Me
and Misery--they didn't leave Steve King out of it. They got that
between-the-lines texture that he has. And indeed, the key word is his
sense of humanity. He's a real humanist, isn't he?
Michael Duncan mentioned
that it was Bruce Willis that helped him get the role of John Coffey. Can you tell us about
that?
Darabont: If I ever have any casting problems, I'm calling Bruce….
What a lucky thing for me that Bruce Willis was out there and was a fan of
these books. He loved the books, and he heard that we were making the
movie. He grabbed Michael Duncan on the set of Armageddon and he
said, "Mike, read this. You're perfect for this. You've got to go in and read."
And he called us and said, "I've got your John Coffey." So, Bruce is our...yenta. Our matchmaker? Bless his heart. Because I can't imagine anyone else
pulling off that role as thoroughly as Michael did.... There was something
about his soul that I couldn't quite let go of. I kept going back to this
guy. We were seeing and reading other actors through a period of some
months. And I kept saying, "Yeah, Michael Duncan, there's something about
him." He so exceeded my hopes for the character.
Please talk a little bit about the length of the film.
Darabont: To me, length is an artificial and arbitrary factor in a
film. It certainly hasn't hurt the audience that has seen the movie. There
was obviously a concern, because nobody sets out to make a three-hour
movie. Nobody particularly wants that. Certainly the studio didn't want
that. But I think a film has its own organic need to be whatever length the
movie needs to be, whether it's 85 minutes or whether it's three hours.
Once we test-screened it for the very first time down in Scottsdale any argument on the part of the studio over length just evaporated,
because the audience was riveted to this thing, and with it every moment,
which was, let's face it, a great relief to me as well. It proved that I
wasn't crazy, that this story that Steve King had written was that
compelling. In fact, one of my fond memories of that first screening was
that if somebody had to go to the bathroom, they got up and ran. They
scurried, because they didn't want to miss it.... I've seen plenty of movies
that were an hour and 50 minutes long that seemed like I was there for
eight hours.
Everyone's come out with a slightly different interpretation of the
movie, that maybe it's a Christian parable, or it's about an angel...I'm
sure there are also people that will interpret it very literally. That here's a black man who is taken advantage of, then exterminated by whites. Can you address that?
Darabont: I'm not trying to duck the question, but I have to say,
one of the great pleasures of having made this particular movie is that
I'm still trying to figure out what the metaphors are.... The great pleasure
for it for me is that the thing really does work on so many levels, that
I'm going to be fascinated to see what conclusions people draw and what
metaphors they apply. It's a function of what the audience brings to it....
How people interpret it in terms of a stand on the death penalty, or in
terms of the spiritual questions it raises, or the racial questions it
raises, great. It means whatever you want it to mean. That's so thrilling
to me as a filmmaker, I can't even tell you. You go to see a movie
nowadays, and its completely pre-digested for you. You leave it in the
theater the moment you walk out the door; you don't take it home with you.
By choosing not to turn the camera away during the executions, aren't
you making a statement or taking a position?
Darabont: If you decide that I am, that's fine. I don't think I am.
I don't think the movie takes that position. But I think it raises the
question in an honest way. Raising the question in a dishonest way is if
the camera doesn't see it. If we're going to embrace the death penalty,
then at least let's look at it honestly for what it is. If we're going to
dismiss the death penalty, let's look at it honestly for what it is. This
is one of the reasons I found Saving Private Ryan to be such a
powerful film. Because if we have to wage war, okay, but let's look at it
really for what it is. Let's not romanticize it. Then we make our decisions
from there.
What's your take on King's announcement that he's not going to write
anymore?
Darabont: I don't know if that's exactly what he said. I think...he's maybe reordering his priorities, which I frankly don't blame him for,
given how close he came to no longer being here. [King sustained serious
injuries after being struck by a van in June.] I honestly can't speak for Steve because I'm not him.... But I
can't believe he's going to stay away from what he was put here to do. He
may want to take a break from it, and who can blame him?
Why is a prison, the place where we least expect to find humanity,
attractive to you as a filmmaker?
Darabont: Again, I have to bring the war story back into it. For
some reason, prisons and wars kind of strip away a lot of bullsh*t. It shows
people at their...most extreme, one way or another. The issues are far more
immediate. And maybe it just lends itself to a more heightened sense of
drama.
What makes Tom Hanks the perfect Paul Edgecomb?
Darabont: Any number of reasons. But he was the face in my head. He projects such an inherent integrity and decency as a person. That's one of
the reasons I think people respond to him so well. And that's real. Tom
isn't acting there. He really is that way, the way Michael Duncan projected
that incredible wisdom, that incredible soul--Hanks projects this deep
integrity. Which is probably one of the reasons that people keep comparing
him to Jimmy Stewart, which I know annoys the hell out of him.
What is your next project?
Darabont: The next project, I'm fairly convinced, is that I'm going to direct a film called The Bijoux, which is my opportunity to make a
Frank Capra film, in the pure sense of the word. It's a romantic comedy,
set against the backdrop of the House Un-American Activities hearings in
1952. It's a very different kind of movie for me. But again, one that has a thread of humanity in it. It's got a great story going.
