On The Commitments and a Stephen King short story
I used Alan Parker’s 1991 film The Commitments in a course a few years ago on film adaptation of literature; the film is based on a novel by Roddy Doyle. The film is hard to find now. It is made with an almost entirely amateur cast of actors to tell the story of a group of young working-class Dubliners who form a blues and soul band that almost achieves real commercial success.
The film is discussed in a 5/17/2021 article in The Irish Times that says the film “captures a Dublin that looks like a bomb site” and deals centrally with the issue of urban decay. It seemed interesting because it deals generally with the way people can come together to form semi-successful groups, then fall apart because ego and anger get in the way. It is also funny. I got to meet one of the supporting actors in it when I was a teacher. I also like Parker as a director; I think his film adaptation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall musical album was very good. It deals with similarly bleak urban environments, in that case fictionally caused by something like World War II.
In other news: “Trucks” was a King short story from the early 1970s about a truck-stop and diner where trucks suddenly come to life and start killing people. There have been two film adaptations of it. It was brought to mind because I have not really driven a car in a few years and live near a busy street where it can be quite dangerous to walk because the sidewalks are immediately next to the traffic, and when you cross the street, even with a walking signal indicating you have right-of-way, drivers sometimes don’t care. The vehicles have not come to life diabolically as in the story, but some of the drivers seem to be very angry or have other emotional/mental problems. King’s story was prophetic because he was actually seriously injured in 1999 when a minivan driver lost control and hit him while he was walking beside a road. There is a cost to machinery and technology.