When Blindness opens Oct 3rd we'll have to have a discussion about what type of books can be transferred to the screen and which can't. Or rather: which should and shouldn't. Everything can transfer.I was thinking about this topic because of Brittanica Blog's count down of the top ten films of 1968. Today's selection (#9) Romeo & Juliet is, of course, drawn from an eminently transferable property. I love Franco Zeffirelli's celebrated film version for roughly the same reasons everyone else does: it understood how youthful the play was and finally portrayed it that way lushly onscreen. It's interesting to me that Baz Luhrmann's terrific similarly fresh & hormonal Romeo + Juliet (1996) wasn't greeted as ecstatically by the Oscars when it came out three decades later. "It's too much. It's too fast!" you could hear the naysayers naysaying when confronted with its chaotic emotional and visual rollercoaster. But too much too fast is the brilliant dagger point of that particular Shakespearean tragedy.
The first 1968 selection (#10) was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, the movie adaptation of Carson McCuller's fine ensemble novel. I am usually curious to see movies based on books I loved and this would definitely qualify as a book I love. And yet... I can't bear to think of this one as a film, so I've never sought out the feature. The book's prose, characterizations, the lyrical projected tragedy... I can't see them in the same way visually as I do in my head. The book only devastates through the knowledge that slowly seeps as to what will come to pass... not what happens really. It's an emotionally projected tragedy and when movies try to do that, well, they do it through narration. It rarely has the same effect as your own internal voice.Is there any book you've loved that you never want to see onscreen?
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Anything by Haruki Murakami. For those unfamiliar with his novels, they are often characterized by supernatural and sometimes sexual/psychological experiences. So much of the plot of his books take place within the protagonist's head, in some sort of alternate world. Most of his books would just be complicated to pull off, without delving into the psychological aspects. "Eternal Sunshine" slightly reminds me of the psychological and inner dialogue of the main character in a Murakami novel, but I doubt a film like it could even be attempted or compared. The material isn't transferrable.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, as directed by Ron Howard, would render me suicidal.
Four words: Catcher in the Rye
catcher in the rye hands down. best coming of age tale of all time that is way to complex to be made intoa film. thank god salinger made it clear when he was alive that he never wanted it adapted and his family won't sell the rights... hope that doesn't change
i'll talk about this in a real post but i think if any director should be asked to adapt books it's probably ARNAUD DESPLECHIN because man alive can he jam a lot of information into scenework.
Midnight's children - Salman Rushdie. I think magical realism is too difficult to translate to film.
JB that sounds like a writer i might like. any suggestions for a novel to start with?
1. Ditto Haruki Murakami
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Howard would render me homicidal. The very idea is enough to induce nightmares.
3. Right now, probably On the Road by Jack Kerouac. The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Austerlitz by WG Sebald. Underworld by Don DeLillo
4. That said, PIXAR needs to adapt The Invention of Hugo Cabret for me. It could be glorious. And is it to much to ask David Cronenberg to tackle London Fields with Maria Bello, James McAvoy, Ralph Feinnes and Viggo Mortensen for me?
Murakami? Tackle Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart first. Then get ready for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Just imagining Cronenberg directing Bello, McAavoy, Fiennes and Mortensen all together...
I think I would never see that... because in the moment it got announced I would probably die of excitement...
;)
Otherwise... I'd love to see The Hidden Queen and Requiem for a S.S. tranferred to film...
and never One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Yah. Even though I personally dislike Garcia Marquez and Murakami, I can agree that they'd translate awfully onscreen. And there's quite a few books that have already been converted into films that...well, shouldn't have
Madame Bovary, Our Lady of the Assassins, La Ciudad y los Perros.
Oh Nat, another great idea would be doing something about movies that are actually better than the book. Has anyone read Sideways, the book? It's better not to...
Anything by John Irving should never be attempted on screen.
Some Irving adaptations have been pretty good films (The World According to Garp is I think the best example. The actors all nail their characters), but film can't truly capture the scope Irving uses. There's so much character in his novels, so much humanity and pain. Irving writes densely, and the true essence of his novels cannot be captured on film, I believe.
I was thinking the other day that it seems like great, great films that are based off books always veer away from their source, while lesser ones stay too close.
Probably Michael Cunningham's Flesh and Blood. I hear it's supposed to be made into a mini-series on Showtime, which would actually be great, because I can't imagine a film capturing the utter complexity contained within those 400 pages. And I don't just mean emotional complexity, but also the sprawling narrative. So much happens over so many years. I'm afraid they're going to do what they did to A Home at the End of the World.
I'm very conflicted about The Catcher in the Rye. On one hand, with the perfect Holden, perfect director and perfect writer, it could, possibly, be a great film. But, on the other hand, I had to see how much they'd have to butcher it to fit it into a 2 hour run time. I simply can't bear to see any of those scenes cut. They're all so important to me!
Easily 'Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison. The book is one of my favorites, and is, in fact, referenced in a number of Spike Lee films, but the film's somewhat hash-brained style of storytelling, and some of the visuals make it impossible to make a competent film.
Songmaster and the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card. Love, love, love those books, but never want to see them destroyed on film.
Don't know if justice could ever be done to the Vampire Lestat either. Queen of the Damned got closer than Interview, but something really rich and beautiful in Anne Rices novels gets lost in the films....oh, maybe the raw sensuality and homoeroticism.
I guess Here! could try, but it would come out more like a campy almost porno.
Actually i think Catcher in the Rye could be really amazing on film. Especially if it's done with out narration. I don't recall a whole lot of dialogue.
A nearly silent Catcher in the Rye could be even more haunting than the book. And a love affair with old new york.
Alan Moore's Watchmen, conceived from the ground up to function first and only as a series of four-color boxes and prose fragments.
As I think we are all aware, I am not going to get my wish.
House of Leaves.
I think it is absolutely unfilmable, but the book is a masterpiece.
I'd say "Norwegian Wood" as a sort of introduction. It's probably the most accessible of his novels, and also the least "supernatural" if you want to call it that. Then by all means go for "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." I'd also recommend "Dance Dance Dance" which does seem the most heavily influenced by supernatural events as a whole. I'm hesitant to recommend "After Dark" because its scope seems so small in comparison with his other novels.
But I definitely agree with Salman Rushdie. But I can't hardly imagine any studio taking on a project with such a controversial subject as "The Satanic Verses." Not with the fatwa and everything...
Can we get a review of "Blindness", or at least a review of Julianne Moore's performance???
I love James Purdy, and part of me would be very excited to see NARROW ROOMS, EUSTACE CHISOLM, or IN A SHALLOW GRAVE made into a film. (SHALLOW GRAVE had a very weak adaptation in 88 starring Patrick Dempsey, but I digress.) But the other part of me would cringe at the thought, because I don't know how they would translate the seething hate, Southern Gothic feel, or wild and often very violent homoeroticism. I had heard that Jim Sharman had planned to adapt NARROW ROOMS before his death. That might have worked (shrugs).
If Naked Lunch can be successfully adapted, everything can.
filmfan --they have asked reviews held until release but mostly i'm just swamped with the other NYFF and critics screening
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED is tonight. I'm so nervous.
I used to answer this question "The Earthsea Trilogy" and I was right. The television adaptation was unwatchable and condemned by LeGuinn.
I'll say Middlesex should never be adapted. Nor The Left Hand of Darkness, to get back to LeGuinn.
I've read a TON of books and there isn't one that I love so much that I wouldn't want to see it on the big screen. I'm sure there are that can't be done, but never have I found one that shouldn't be done.
That's to say that all of the books I've read should be turned into films, however, they should be done at Oscar nomination level, not just callously adapted.
I know that the adaption of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is coming our way, and I'm cringing at the thought of that wonderful novel, with it's complex cross-cutting of chronology, being reduced to film.
I think the greater the book, the more likely the film adaptation will be a disappointment. This is not a strict rule of course, but it's similar to what anon 11:11 was saying. A good book (as in "just ok") actually leaves more wiggle room, I think, because those books depend more on their stories and plot rather than great, memorable prose, which is the thing that can't be transferred anyway. Whereas when you have a GREAT book - great in prose, great in richness, in texture, etc - than everything that made it great and beloved is usually lost. (Again, I know there are exceptions. I haven't seen Tess of the d'Urbervilles, for instance, and so can't comment on the adaptation of Hardy's novel. I know that in some respects I liked the film version of the Hours better than the book, although in the end I think both are a trifle overrated.)
For every adapatation that makes me want to tear somebody else's hair out, there's one that introduces me to an author I've never read, and wouldn't have read otherwise. I never would have read Carson McCullers if I hadn't seen the movie, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". And having an interpreter like Alan Arkin is like having a guide into the unknown.
Janice, i think you hit on something about the great prose. It really takes a great film maker to be able to interpret something like that.
It's sort of like Actors trying to do Shakespeare. It's difficult and equally wonderful because of the prose.
My literary and insightful comment is that Leonard Whiting has an amazing ass.
all such deep insights are welcome!
Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite authors and I cannot imagine how his complex and twisted novels can be captured on screen. Maybe it is impossible.
My favorite Murakami novels are "The Wind Up Chronicles" and "South of the Border, West of the Sun".
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