John Hodge is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter best known for his collaborations with Danny Boyle on “Trainspotting” and “Shallow Grave.” His latest film is the ambitious fantasy “The Dark is Rising.” In an exclusive piece for MTV below, Hodge explains why he took on the project.
I wasn’t going to do “The Dark Is Rising.” It’s not that I dislike fantasy but I wouldn’t class myself as a devotee. The Potter books and films are obviously very good (that many people can’t be wrong) but nothing is for everyone and they don’t do it for me. But then I got to thinking about the story of DIR and it seems to me that the fantasy is not what it’s about. It’s about a boy finding his place in a large family, or more than that, starting to think about his place in the adult world in general. And once I found that perspective, I really wanted to do it.
On one level, that interpretation might make no sense to someone looking at the bare facts of the novel, but I think it’s what gives the book its human appeal. Without that, the tale of the battle between good and evil has no impact. So I focused on the boy and tried find ways to dramatize his problems in a cinematic way.
The word cinematic is crucial here. Previous attempts to turn this book into a film have been unsuccessful for thirty years. Simply realigning the prose into script form will not work. You have to think about what the audience is seeing and how the images and events add up. Either that or use a ton of voice over.
The most basic aspect of drama is conflict. A relationship in which two people are unfailingly polite and decent towards each other is not very dramatic. Nor, let’s be honest, is it an accurate reflection of most family life. We’re all human and the petty squabbles and jostling in any family are all just part of the process. I didn’t want to portray the Stantons as wildly dysfunctional, because they’re not, but there is an issue that looms over them, quite realistically: the loss of a young baby boy.
In the book, this is sort of shrugged off, but how can it be? A human being is gone and no one talks about it. So I think a lot of the tension in the family, a lot of the friction, stems from that event. And at a certain point in his life, reaching adolescence, Will is dealing with that problem, drawing the family back together. OK, so he’s saving the world and all its inhabitants at the same time from the universal power of evil, but the way I see it - that’s the easy bit.
I hope you enjoy the movie.
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Respectfully, Mr. Hodge, I believe that a theme of the books is that Will *isn’t* part of the family–he’s immortal and will always be outside of his family, outlasting them, dealing with things they can’t imagine. His place isn’t in his family, or in the adult world, but in a network of beings much deeper and more vast. Will never had to find his place: it was made for him well before he was born. You might have done better to explore him coming to terms with the fact that his path is going to be very different than he expected.
August 5th, 2007 at 12:07 am
I daresay the death of the first son was “shrugged off” in the book because it happened about 2 decades earlier and they’d long since done their grieving.
Also, what ACD said. Will has a place in his family before he comes into his power. He loses it because he finds his true place, as an Old One. This is made abundantly clear.
August 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I love how Mr. Hodge takes the book to task for shrugging off the loss of a family member when it’s pretty clear that the parents did grieve, and then moved on - after about twenty years, the pain fades a bit, wouldn’t you say?
Will’s love of his family is precisely why he has some trouble with the idea of being an Old One - he has to keep secrets from the people he loves now, and that’s hard and it hurts him.
August 8th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I am going to hope that the movie is better than the previews make it seem. I loved this book as a child, and Walden and Mr Hodge have turned it into another fuzzy, toothless family film.
And Mr Hodge, a little tip: if you don’t consider yourself a fantasy “devotee,” please refrain from adapting fantasy books.
September 21st, 2007 at 2:32 pm
The Dark is Rising, not about the fantasy? Good grief. You may as well say that Harry Potter is not about the magic. The fantasy and British mythology play a huge part, especially in the later books- oh, I was forgetting; you haven’t read them.
Writing a screenplay in a genre you specifically aren’t fond of is probably not a good move. Especially when this screenplay is supposed to be an adaptation of a beloved book series.
Even the aspects of the book that did appeal to you, you seem to have completely misunderstood. The whole point of Will’s family is that they’re loving and supportive of one another.
Also, I agree with the previous commenters, who said that the family would have moved on twenty years after the death of their son. I’d like to add that I have heard rumours that you have given Will an evil twin brother. I find it more incredible that Will’s parents would ignore him and brothers incessantly bully him if he were the only surviving (to their knowledge) half of a set of twins.
Finally: a crypt full of snakes? A tsunami in the middle of Buckinghamshire? A kung-fu fight? In a Viking village? On a VEGETABLE CART? What in the name of all that’s holy were you THINKING?
December 8th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I had so much excitement when i heard someone was making The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. This is the first i’ve read anything about the film. As i digested Mr Hodge’s piece i was so disappointed. Oh dear what can it be like if he didn’t get it?? My consolation is that at least those who’ve responded did - whew. Ah well we can all keep the truth alive until there is the next chance. When someone turns a great and noble tale into a misunderstood banal family conflict and thinks that the battle of good v evil is boring then no wonder a Vilking village is more interesting to them. We shall wait and we shall dream.