Director's Chair: Frank Darabont

04 July 2008

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From his difficult beginning of being born in a refugee camp in France after his parents fled their home in Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution Frank Darabont had become involved in filmmaking by the age of twenty.

He found immediate success as his short adaptation of The Woman in the room, originally written by Stephen King, made it to the semi-final listing for Academy Award consideration in the early eighties.

Darabont built up a good relationship with King and his big movie break came in 1994 when he adapted King's book Rita Heyworth and Shawshank Redemption into The Shawshank Redemption.

Before this he had found some success as a writer, for mainly television. As well as directing Shawshank he also penned the script starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins.

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison for the murders of his wife and her lover in the late 1940s.

However, only Andy knows that he didn't commit the crimes. Sent to Shawshank Prison to do hard time, Andy, a taciturn banker in the outside world, has to learn to get by in the brutal, cutthroat confines of prison life.

His quiet strength slowly earns the respect of his fellow inmates--most notably, Red (Morgan Freeman)--and even much of the prison staff.

But Andy's seemingly stoic acceptance of his unjust imprisonment hides a fierce determination for freedom.

Darabont's film about one man's fight for freedom has become one of the greatest films in cinema history as it went on to receive seven Oscar awards, including Best Picture.

Darabont didn't direct another movie for four years he turned back to script writing, working on The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones for American television.

But in 1999 he returned to the director's chair with another Stephen King adaptation this time he brought The Green Mile to the big screen.

The story is told in a flashback narrated by Paul Edgecomb to his friend Elaine Connelly. Edgecomb is now living in an old-age home some six decades after working as the head guard on Death Row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary.

Edgecomb’s tour of duty at Cold Mountain in the Depression-era South included watch over a quartet of killers awaiting their final walk down "the Green Mile," the stretch of green linoleum flooring that took convicts from their jail cells to the electric chair.

Over the years, Edgecomb walked the mile with a variety of cons. He had never before encountered someone like John Coffey, a massive black man convicted of brutally killing a pair of nine-year-old sisters.

Coffey certainly had the size and strength to kill anyone, but his demeanour starkly contrasted with his appearance.

Beyond his simple, naive nature and a deathly fear of the dark, Coffey seemed to possess a prodigious, supernatural gift. Edgecomb began to question whether Coffey was truly guilty of murdering the two girls.

Once again Stephen King's material in the hands of director Darabont was a huge success as it went on to bag four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

Next up for Darabont was The Majestic, starring Jim Carrey about an up and coming screenwriter who is accused of being a Communist, an accusation that leaves his career in tatters.

The Majestic was released in 2001 and this week sees the return of the director to filmmaking after a six year hiatus.

And true to form he returns with another Stephen King adaptation The Mist.

A small town comes under a vicious attack from creatures hiding in the thick mist that has lingered after a violent thunderstorm.

The villagers point the finger of blame at an experiment called 'The Arrowhead Project' which is being conducted at a secret military base nearby.

They soon discover that they are being hunted by unworldly creatures that are entering through an inter-dimensional rift which may have been caused by the experiment at the military base.

They retreat to a local supermarket where they must face off against each other before they can present a united front against an enemy they can't even see.

Darabont's future project includes a remake of 1966 film Fahrenheit 451 which he will direct and write.

The Mist is out now.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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