Background
for Teachers
Rob
Reiner’s Stand By Me is a perfect film for a high
school English classroom, grades 9-12. Students at all levels
will take away something of value from this beautifully crafted
but short movie (89 mins.). Many people are surprised to learn
that Stand By Me is based on a coming of age novella by
Stephen King, The
Body (part of the Different
Seasons (1982) anthology, along with The
Shawshank Redemption and The
Apt Pupil). You may want to read and discuss this work with
students and then view the film. Teachers who decide to import
The Body into their curriculum will find that it is a perfect
companion piece for texts as different as the Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer’s The
Pardoner’s Tale, and Hawthorne’s “Young
Goodman Brown.” A cautionary statement: Both the screenplay
and the novella focus on the experiences of young males. These
boys speak and act the way boys often speak and act. They use
profanity on occasion, they knock each other around a bit, and
two of the boys light up cigarettes in both the story and the
film.
Stand
By Me focuses on the changing relationships of four adolescent
boys as they make the transition from junior high to high school.
Each is wounded in some way. Gordy has in essence been orphaned
by his parents after the death of his older brother, a star athlete.
Chris Chambers, Gordy’s bright and sensitive best friend,
comes from an abusive family situation. Verne is fat, slow, and
immature. Teddy grew up with an alcoholic father, who is now institutionalized.
The father apparently pushed Teddy’s head down on a red-hot
burner—part of his ear is now missing and he has an anger-control
problem himself.
In
addition to their difficult family situations, the boys must also
contend with challenges from the outside world. Older boys threaten
them at almost every turn. There are natural dangers, as well”
a dog reputed to be vicious and leeches that attach themselves
to Gordy’s groin area after he ventures into a pond. But
the defining event in the film is the death of a young boy who
went missing some days earlier (in the antecedent action of the
film). One of the boys overhears his brother say that the child
was hit by a train and that his body is in a forested area outside
of town. The four friends go in search of the body and en route
make discoveries about themselves. They return to their small
Maine town changed by the experience.
To
tell this story, King and Reiner use the archetypal journey motif,
a structure particularly suited to the coming of age story where
a young person--usually a male**-- crosses the threshold from
innocence to experience, immaturity to maturity, or childhood
to adulthood. The journey motif has distinct and easily identifiable
components. There is typically an event that prompts the young
person to leave the known or comfortable world and a trip or journey
ensues. The culmination of the journey involves a discovery of
some sort. (In Stand By Me, the characters make a discovery
about death.) Following the discovery, the traveler returns to
the world he knows, changed for the experience. In Stand By
Me, the motif plays out in two ways: The older Gordy narrates
the film. In the first scene, he sits in a car on a rural road.
The camera tilts to take in the newspaper headline: “Chris
Chambers fatally Stabbed in Restaurant.” Two adolescent
boys bike by and Gordy, now a writer, begins a journey backward
in time. This journey introduces the journey over time and space
undertaken by the four boys.
**The
female coming of age story typically follows a different trajectory
and the discovery is often tied to sex. An excellent (and underrated)
female coming of age film is
Mermaids (1990), with Wynona Ryder, Christina Ricci, and Cher.
This movie makes a superb companion film to Stand By Me. It, too,
is rated R.
Viewing
Notes for Stand By Me
Ch. 03, “Eavesdropper”: Teachers whose students
have read Stephen King’s story may want to stop the film
at the end of the first discovery: Vern learns about the approximate
location of the dead boy’s body. This section presents an
opportunity to discuss Reiner’s debt to the original text
and his departures from it. The teacher may also want to introduce
(or review) the journey motif and elements of the coming of age
or initiation story. A natural discussion topic at this point
is Gordy’s relationship with his parents and the impact
of the death of his brother on the family. The challenges of the
other boys have begun to appear by this time and students may
want to talk about those issues as well.
Ch. 06, “Following the Tracks”: The boys have
ventured out of town. They are not yet chastened by the experience
because the real challenges related to this expedition have not
yet presented themselves. (Each of the boys has, of course, been
handling serious problems at home for quite some time.) The prospect
of getting out of their small town is exciting to them. If students
have not read the book, ask them to make some predictions at this
point.
Ch. 07, “Train Dodge”: Reiner has Teddy “play
chicken” with an oncoming train. This scene sequence is
beautifully photographed with Reiner alternating between long,
establishing shots (to show Teddy’s position on the tracks)
and tight shots of the boy’s face which enable us to see
his determination. We also realize in this section that Teddy
has serious emotional problems that are linked to his relationship
with an abusive father. (This issue also surfaces in the “junkyard”
scene where the owner of the salvage yard taunts Teddy by making
fun of his father.)
Ch. 13, “You Think I’m Weird?”: The depth
of the relationship between Chris and Gordy is established in
this scene. Ask students whether this section of the film makes
them uncomfortable. Reiner’s take on male friendship is
unusual here in that it focuses on the shared intimacies of two
adolescent boys, not common interests, such as sports or girls.
Their extraordinary sharing continues in Ch. 17, “Low-Life
Chambers Kid.”
Ch. 27, “We’re Headed Home”: The boys
have had their encounter with death—and older, threatening
boys. They retrace their steps along the railroad tracks and arrive
home changed for their experience. Gordy and Chris are more chastened
than the other two. Ask students to discuss the operation of the
initiation and journey motifs immediately after they finish the
film. This discussion will serve them well in the event they are
assigned an analytical essay on the topic.
|
