Last updated: Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Dollar babies a Kingly present
'Coolest sentence' inspires filmmaker
ORONO -Introducing the first Dollar Baby Film Festival, Cleveland-area filmmaker James Renner revealed Saturday night that it was a sneak peek at his cousin's copy of "The Gunslinger" (the first book in the "Dark Tower" series) that really sparked his interest in the work of Stephen King. "When nobody was looking," he recalled, "I went over to his book, opened the first page and read the first sentence there, and it went: 'The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.' And after that, I knew that something in the pages was really important. That was the coolest sentence I had ever read."
Renner, who organized the festival featuring nine films based on King's short stories, added that he just finished the seventh installment in the "Dark Tower" series during his plane flight to Bangor. He said, "it was kind of poetic in that really nerdy and cheesy kind of way."
Renner's own movie, "All that You Love Will Be Carried Away," was among the short films shown in the Donald P. Corbett Business Building auditorium on the University of Maine campus. More than 100 people attended the screenings.
Since the early '80s, King has made it possible for aspiring filmmakers to purchase the screen rights to his short stories for the rock-bottom price of $1.
"I don't know of any other author that has [done] anything like this, I haven't heard of any Dean Koontz dollar babies," Renner joked.
There are, of course, a few restrictions. The biggest being that the films can't be shown for profit, which meant most of those shown Saturday hadn't been seen widely outside of the film-festival circuit, especially on the big screen. All of the night's proceeds benefited the Wavedancer Foundation, a nonprofit organization King established to help disabled artists, writers and performers.
The night began with a screening of the first and perhaps best-known dollar baby, "The Woman in the Room," about a man struggling to come to terms with a chilling decision to help end his ailing mother's pain and suffering. The 1983 featurette was directed by Frank Darabont, who has since gone on to direct the more famous King-based features "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile."
Also featured were more recent dollar babies, including two films by Robert Cochrane, "Luckey Quarter," about a single working mom who dreams of a winning streak that could end her financial woes, and "The Dark Tower: Roland meets Brown," Cochrane's winning entry to the American Gunslinger contest based on scenes from King's famous series.
A premiere of Renner's "All That You Love" capped the night's screenings. In the 26-minute film, Joe Bob Briggs, who hosted "MonsterVision" and "Joe Bob's Drive-in Theater" on TNT and Fox, puts in a surprising performance as a depressed traveling salesman obsessed with bathroom graffiti and suicide. It also includes a cameo by famously cranky Clevelandite Harvey Pekar of "American Splendor" fame.
The festival ended with a question-and-answer session with the directors, in which each recounted, among other things, their experiences with the dollar-baby deal with King. And although the famed Bangor author wasn't in the audience (rumor was he was at a Red Sox game in Boston), the filmmakers gave thanks to one of his assistants who attended on his behalf.
Overall, Renner said the festival was a success and hopes to stage it again at UMaine.
"I want to try and track down other dollar babies that we couldn't track down for this one and show everything, if we can," he said.
George Bragdon can be reached at gbragdon@bangordailynews.net.
http://www.bangornews.com/editorialnews/article.cfm?ID=436522
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