Arts

Time flies

Peter Ackroyd

The film has been adapted from a novel by Stephen King but, then, practically every film is; just as shower curtains immediately revive memories of the late Alfred Hitchcock, so the sight of a timber- framed house somewhere in the mid-West evokes images of devil worship, can- nibalism or ritual murder derived from the pages of Stephen King's books. He has now joined the company of Edgar Allen Poe and Daphne du Maurier, as a writer whose vi- sion is best interpreted in cinematic form. In fact it has been said that he writes films rather than books but that is perhaps unfair — in the case of The Dead Zone, for exam- ple, a script-writer, appropriately called Mr Jeffrey Boom, has been called in to engineer the transition and much of the film's effectiveness derives from the peculiar talents of its director, David Cronenberg, who has previously specialised in various forms of cinematic horror. The

sight of an exploding head, in his Scanners, was one of the most unpleasant cinematic experiences of recent years — at least on a par with the spectacle of Jeremy Irons com- mitting buggery on a female prostitute in Swann in Love. Cronenberg is rather more restrained on this occasion, however: the one moment of conventional gore concerns the suicide of a psychopathic killer, who manages to drive a pair of scissors through the roof of his mouth and then lies quiver- ing in the bath. I averted my eyes during this scene, but was told about it later.

The Dead Zone begins with a quotation from Stephen King's predecessor, Edgar Allen Poe (the old lines about the raven), and then the contemporary terror begins. A schoolteacher (played by Christopher Walken) falls into a coma after a road acci- dent, to emerge from it after an interval of five years complete with the powers of 'se- cond sight': by the simple expedient of touch, he can intuit the past or future of those around him. He successfully saves a child from burning (in this scene, he is transported to the nursery and is seen lying on the fiery bed) and a boy from drowning, but it is only when he inadvertently shakes hands with a politician that his problems really begin: not because he contracts scabies, but because he 'sees' that the aspir- ing senator will be elected president and begin a nuclear war. It is perhaps a little melodramatic, but what other reason is there for going to the cinema? And it is, in any case, an intriguing idea: the schoolteacher has fallen through a hole in time as a result of his coma, and when he returns to life he cannot put time together again. It is also a theme perfectly ap- propriate to the cinema, where ordinary chronology is dissolved into a succession of discrete moments.

Such is the story, and David Cronenberg makes the most of it: he relies a great deal upon heavy shadows and endlessly an- ticipated climaxes, but he manages to create a brooding atmosphere so successfully that 'We did inherit the earth, but the mighty appealed.'

The Spectator 12 May 1984 h e could probably turn The Sound of Music into a 'video-nastie' (if it is not one already). Cronenberg sets the mood from the beginning and never disrupts it — rather in the manner of a magician who begins sawing the woman in half and, however slowly he wields the implement, holds the audience's attention until the end. The ac,; tual scenes of prophecy are remarkably We" done, for example, and the sudden changes of time are rendered so startling (compiete with loud music) that the spectators are literally jolted into the future or into the past. This ability to render in a convincing manner scenes which are otherwise incredible is much more difficult than .,..... seems, since it requires tact more than trickery — just as the need to maintain the steady momentutn of a narrative is obviou. s enough in theory but rarely achieved in practice. Most 'horror' films fall at the first hurdle, generally when the 'special effects' appear too special, but not in this ease. Cronenberg owes something of this sac" cess to Christopher Walken in the central, role; he is a very skilful actor, who

first

came to public notice in The Deer Hunted and here he looks convincingly pallid art' woebegone. The character is meant to be alarmed and depressed by his sudden ac`

:

quisition of psychic powers, and no on can look more depressed than Mr Walken' He moves in a strange manner, as if ansurae of his own body (since he was once dancer, this is a triumph of acting). Fleul:,, he not like to touch people, afraid of revelations which that experience migh! of ford, and so he holds himself aloof tro": them and retreats into a corner. He stumble over his words (one hopes this is also acting) in other words, he manages to to haunted and in his prophetic trances he le genuinely frightening. Although !hp dialogue may not be exactly Shakespea.rlaa in quality, he manages to invest it wIth,_, certain amount of authenticity, and the of tensity which he radiates may not be oat place in a film which cannot otheryi.sy claim to be of any great significance- It indeed be essential to it, since films of tthe kind rely to a large extent

assimilation of quasi-religious sym

upon bolisM redeem otherwise melodramatic material]; `The Lord has delivered you from trance,' his appalling mother exPlal°, at Yc°to him as he recovers from his coma, and a various points he is either apPlatIde,d„casan recipient of God's blessings or revile(' e

agent of the devil. Since in

religious experience is often conceived the melodramatic terms, such films may bent ot only proper vehicle for its expression._ there are some good cameo roles also:.r

wit .

tin Sheen plays the aspiring senator appropriate amount of relish, and Fier° fLoormwhisicbhaacrkt ,inratthheerrothleanof have destined him. America tP.

The tension of the film • the

dissipated at a relatively late stage 01 nathtuerPe,sYsceell proceedings, when the political earriPa_e'r, enters the narrative in too overt a manner, „ is slightlY

but otherwise this is a successful exercise 0. seem

have creating and maintaining a narrative which in other hands would have been the Material for the crudest sensationalism. Of course k is a film for an idle hour, but there is nothing wrong with that — in any case, seeing the film is quicker and probably less Wearying than reading the book.