Chat show, film, book, or a fan’s imagination?

On IG, YouTube, TikTok, and everywhere else in the world where people publish video clips, there’s one particular clip that’s become a huge meme. It trended, it went viral, it went on and on, and now, people have forgotten what it was, originally, and what it meant, originally. That clip, which I enjoy but also makes me mad, is of actor Tom Hiddleston dancing to the track, Rasputin, by Boney M. The reason I get irate is that this viral clip actually does not lead people to experience the moment of beauty, truth and insight into the human condition that is in the original clip in the film in which Hiddleston acted and danced that dance – The Life of Chuck.

This thing’s got a lo-o-ong backstory…

This thing that people have been going crazy about, is made-up. The original footage of the clip with the Rasputin soundtrack is from his 2013 guest appearance on the British talk show Alan Carr: Chatty Man, where he was talking about the film in which he stars as “Loki”, Thor – The Dark World. He gets up to dance briefly with sharp, sexy – and by now, familiar – moves to a track that I don’t recognize – but it’s not Rasputin. Afterwards, a fan or fans – who knows – mapped the audio of Boney M.’s 1978 (yes, that old!) single, Rasputin, over the original Alan Carr interview clip.

Yes, he is yummy, but people, don’t get distracted! It’s only half the story! This clip is fan-made – Hiddleston did not dance to this tune in the actual interview.

This started a long-running internet meme, one I’ve seen over and over on IG. And then fans mapped the track, Rasputin, to the original footage of Hiddleston dancing in the film, The Life of Chuck. I’ve also seen that one over and over on IG and elsewhere.

I told you it has a long backstory!

Apparently Hiddleston recognizes a fan favourite idea when he sees it, so that, on chat shows and interviews ever since, he has happily danced. People just love him doing it. It’s a bit like Benedict “Cumberbunny”, as I call him, being unable to say the word “penguin” correctly. He can, but it’s more amusing when he doesn’t.

I call Rasputin a track, not a song, because the Boney M. lyrics are just word salad mixed with made-up stuff, i.m.o., with the main thing being the beat. The dance choreography and the 1978 original version go really well together, and Hiddleston is an excellent dancer with savoir faire and sex appeal. He is so cool.

But remember that, for the actual dancing in the more than five-minutes dance sequence in The Life of Chuck, Hiddleston and co-star Annalise Basso rehearsed for about fifty days leading up to the shoot, working with choreographer Mandy Moore to learn the swing, salsa, the moonwalk, etc. – whatever the drummer was performing in the soundtrack.

Going even further back in the backstory

But where did the original footage of Hiddleston dancing come from? The Life of Chuck film is based on the short story or novella by Stephen King, also called The Life of Chuck, which is in a collection of four horror stories called If It Bleeds. If It Bleeds was published in 2020. Stephen King and Mike Flanagan wrote the story for the film. I got a hold of the script (or transcript) of the film, because – and this is important – the dance scene has practically no dialogue, but, as in the book, it has a third-person narrator. King and Flanagan’s text for the screenplay is very similar to the text of the novella. (And of course, King wrote both, so it would be.)

But it’s horror

But here’s the thing, yes? The novella is a horror story; in a collection of horror stories; horror stories by Stephen King, the master of suspense and horror. The fan clip from the film, set to the Rasputin soundtrack, has nothing at all to do with horror, or anything scary, or the subject and meaning of the original. As with memes of this kind, viewers and fans have taken it, changed it, made it their own, attached their own meaning, and forgotten its origins.

The original, though, is beautiful, it’s meaningful, and it’s also a bit scary. And whenever I read it, especially now that I do music production every day, I realize how profound the words by King are. The Life of Chuck is the story of “Chuck Kranz”, an ordinary everyman whose life could have been extraordinary. (“Kranz” is German, and means “wreath” – like a Christmas wreath, or a wreath placed on a coffin.) The film, like the novella, has three parts, Act 1: Thanks, Chuck!, Act 2: Buskers, and Act 3: I Contain Multitudes. The dance scene is from Act 2 in the film.

The actual text script

The dance sequence set-up

Excluded text for purposes of shortening, indicated with […]

ACT 2 BUSKERS

Narrator: With the help of her friend, Mac, who has an old van, Taylor Franck sets up her drum kit in her favored spot on the Eighth Street Promenade. [people chattering] It’s Thursday afternoon. 

[…]

Narrator: Taylor, and Mac too, work part-time at Doctor Records on Castle Street. But on a good day… [van door closes] …Taylor can make almost as much busking. [van engine starts] Buskdrumming isn’t what her parents saw for her when she enrolled at Juilliard, and they don’t know yet that she dropped out. Juilliard wanted you to think about what you were doing, but as far as Taylor is concerned, the beat is your friend and thinking is the enemy. [slow tempo drumming]

[…]

Barista: Got an oat milk latte for Chuck.

Narrator: Charles Krantz, Chuck to his friends, is dressed in the armor of accountancy. Gray suit, blue shirt, blue tie. His Samuel Windsor shoes are inexpensive but sturdy. He’s here for a weeklong conference titled “Banking in the 21st Century.” He’s been sent by his bank, Midwest Trust, all expenses paid. Chuck has enjoyed the speakers and the panels. He was on one panel and is scheduled to be on another before the conference ends at noon tomorrow, but has no wish to spend his off-duty hours in the company of 70 other accountants. He speaks their language, but likes to think he speaks others as well. 

At least he did, although some of the vocabulary is now lost. Now, his sensible Samuel Windsor Oxfords are taking him for an afternoon walk. His life is narrower than the one he once hoped for, but he’s made peace with that. He understands that narrowing is the natural order of things. He has a wife, Ginny, to whom he is scrupulously faithful, and an intelligent, good-humored son in middle school. 

He also has only nine months to live, though he doesn’t know that yet.

[drum music playing]

Narrator: Taylor has been on the job for 10 minutes now and has nothing to show for it. She sees a Mr. Businessman type coming toward her and something about him, God knows what, makes Taylor want to announce his approach. She slips first into a reggae beat, then something slinkier. And for the first time today, Taylor feels a spark and begins to whack the cowbell on the downbeat. It’s pretty cool. The groove has arrived, and the groove is like a road you want to follow. 

She could speed the beat up, get some tom in there, but she’s watching Mr. Businessman and that seems wrong for this dude. She believes Mr. Businessman will just go on past on his way to the business hotel, and when he’s gone, Taylor will switch to something else. But instead of floating on by…

[Chuck puts down his briefcase and starts to dance to Taylor’s drumming.]

[upbeat drum music playing] ♪♪[drumming stops] [drumming resumes] ♪♪ Onlooker 1: Woo! ♪Onlooker 2: Yeah! ♪♪ [people exclaiming] ♪ Onlooker: Woo! [crowd cheering]

[Chuck holds out his hand to invite a woman in the crowd.]
Chuck: Come on. Come on, little sister. Let’s dance. Dance.

[people exclaiming] Yeah! [crowd cheering]

Chuck: I’ll lead you. I got you. 
♪ ♪ [crowd cheering]
[more dancing]

Chuck [stops and takes off glasses]: Uh. It’s okay. It’s my glasses. It’s my glasses.
[crowd cheering] ♪ [Dancing and drumming continues, varies.]

Taylor Franck: No more today, folks. No more today. No more today. We gotta quit while we’re ahead. [crowd groans]

[Scene continues to final voiceover]
[gentle music playing]

The meaning of life, and the loss of it

The horror element in this story is actually quite subtle; it is the loss of meaning in life. It’s about wasting your life on joyless things, on fitting in, on being “normal”, and letting your dreams go unrealized. Chuck gets dizzy and feels a pain in his head midway through the dance. That is a sign that he is getting sick, but does not know it.

It’s about the fact that we all die, and when we get close to that time, it is too late to do anything that counts as self-expression, or creativity. Whatever creative or joyful thing you had hoped to do, or wanted to do, but – for whatever reason – didn’t do, will remain undone. Non-existent. And for what? Why shouldn’t you, as a human, an individual, do what brings you joy, if it hurts no-one? And if it might just bring joy to someone else too? Regret at not having done something, like revenge, is a dish that is always served cold and tasteless.

This is the meaning of the dance clip, which is rarely shown with the subsequent narration about its meaning to Chuck. Chuck is everyman. You, me, the lot of us little microscopic germs on the face of the planet. Music and dancing are things that makes people happy – myself included. Do it. Make something. Make music. Go out there and dance. I agree with Stephen King: “That is why God made the world. Just that.”

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this passage – the narrator’s closing words in Act 2, in the film and the novella, is deeply meaningful. They really hit me in the gut when I read them, because some days, I feel like Chuck. I get tired, I forget stuff, my arthritis acts up. But there’s still the music, and in the moments when I can’t sit still and have to get up and dance, the world is OK again. I am determined not to end up like Chuck Kranz, a character stuck in a situation that is nightmarish despite it being mundane. Or perhaps nightmarish because it is mundane.

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Transcript

Here’s a link to a pdf of the audio transcript of the of the film, fyi.

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