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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

The un-filmable novel or help! my bookshelf is full of films

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19:05 / 26.11.02

Over in the movie part they're discussing how we could do a Jerry Cornelious movie, you know, which novel to use, who would direct, who would play Jerry, how badly hollywood would screw it all up (you know, the usual).

It's got me thinking on one of my favourite ideas - the unfilmable novel.

We all thought Fear and Loathing in LAs Vegas was movie-proof. Wrong, Gilliam did an excellent job. I though the same for American Psycho, James Ellroy considered LA Confidential unfilmable. But they have all been done to differing levels of success.

So my question is: which novel do you consider they could never, I mean just never, make a film out of?

My vote goes for the Robert Anton WIlson's Illuminati trilogy.

And as a side line is there one novel you are hugely surprised has never been converted to celluiod?

Oh and the heading is just my own scream at the state of my bookshelf, not through personal choice. Well not in the last five years anyway.

19:58 / 26.11.02

Illuminatus! was done as a stage play... there's nothing *too* unfilmable about it, I don't think. Its source text, however would be tougher: James Joyce's Ulysses.

20:38 / 26.11.02

Didn't stop Joseph Strick from trying.

Some poor masochistic bastard even took a stab at Finnegans Wake.

20:40 / 26.11.02

Gravity's Rainbow I would consider unfilmable. But some schmuck will try... which is the point: Lord of the Rings was considered unfilmable for years, as was Naked Lunch...

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:25 / 26.11.02

grant, Jack: there's a new version being filmed, with Stephen Rea as Bloom. It's been in production for a couple of years, due out in 2004, official site here. Principal photography's finished - I wonder what they're adding to it to take so long for release?

I think with some of these books - American Psycho or LA Confidential, that it's less about the problems inherent in filming the story, and more in making it in a way that's going to get past the censors and still make sense. For me, that's what held back American Psycho for so long. Most books have some kinda "character X did this" structure that makes them filmable on a base level - it's about whether "this" is visually acceptable to the prevailing climate, I guess. Showing it explicitly and getting someone to picture it in their head themselves is the key thing here, I think.

Personally, I think they shouldn't film Wilson's work. But not because I'm a staunch book-defender: I just think it'd be shite. I support the unfilmable tag for Gravity's Rainbow - it'd lose so much, and they'd probably throw in a naff voiceover...

How about the reverse, too - films that couldn't be turned into books? New thread?

21:45 / 26.11.02

I'd like to see them try The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman. But again, that's got as much to do with the censors (all the imaginative virtuoso gang rape) as it has it's fucked-upness.

21:51 / 26.11.02

In search of lost time.

23:30 / 26.11.02

There is a film of 'Time Regained', actually. I've not read that far, but the film's good.

Further than 'Ulysses', which has actually been filmed, I'd suggest 'Finnegan's Wake'. Film that!

00:18 / 27.11.02

See post 3 of this thread.

00:52 / 27.11.02

I'd say Stephen King's "Gunslinger", but it would be a simple matter of switching certain events in the story to suit a movie narrative. The only problem would really be that it would be Hollywooded: the raw, unrelenting damnnation of the character would be really prettied up, to the point of removing certain pivotal events.
Maybe the only real obstacle to filming many books is Hollywood, and their pandering.

The Return Of Rothkoid

01:29 / 27.11.02

Thinking about it more and more, I'd love to see a filmed version of Katharine Dunn's Geek Love. That would rock.

If they could get the flippers right, that is.

Constitution Hill

01:52 / 27.11.02

I'd love to see Bester's 'The Stars My Destination' make it to the cinema.

And i'd jump through hoops to see someone attempt Rudy Rucker's 'White Light' or anything by Mark Leyner. 'Et Tu, Babe' would make a fabulous film... Eh, i have to read all of those again now.

I've been trying to work out which Vonnegut book would make the best film, and I think it would have to be 'Hocus Pocus', though i can't imagine who'd play the lead role. Maybe Jeff Bridges in a decade or so.

As for unfilmable, how about Alasdair Grey's 'Lanark'?

14:12 / 27.11.02

I think it's safe to say Burroughs cut-up books are pretty much entirely unfilmable..

..though they did do Naked Lunch, kind of..

16:55 / 27.11.02

I'd say that Naked Lunch is still pretty un-filmable

17:49 / 27.11.02

Infinite Jest - so much would have to be eliminated, even in like a 12 hour version, that any attempt would share only the title with the book.

19:46 / 27.11.02

Though someone is bound to try, I'd say Philip K. Dick's VALIS trilogy is pretty unfilmable. No one could do the pink light justice, I'd think.

In agreement with everyone on GRAVITY'S RAINBOW.

Another book I don't see being made into a movie (probably more for religious reasons than anything else) is Heinlein's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. I don't think pantheistic paganism would go over well in today's political climate.

20:08 / 27.11.02

I don't expect to see a film of House of Leaves anytime soon, and I doubt Dante is really very filmable. On the flipside, I'd say that anything by Dostoyevski has cinematic potential, especially The Gambler, but the fellow appears to have been largely ignored.

20:58 / 27.11.02

Sorry, Jack, failed to notice that.

Duh.

23:43 / 27.11.02

We all thought Fear and Loathing in LAs Vegas was movie-proof. Wrong, Gilliam did an excellent job.

If you'd already read the book before you saw the film. I went to see it with a couple of friends who hadn't and they complained that it was impossible to follow. Watch it again as though you've never read Thompson and I think you'll find they're correct. The narrative structure of the written work doesn't lend itself to film and Gilliam made the mistake of attempting to remain totally faithful to the text. Sometimes you've got to make compromises for a different medium.

Unfilmable novel? Foucault's Pendulum.

Foust is SO authentic

17:29 / 28.11.02

I was just about to comment on a House of Leaves film. The author says it's not for sale - I say he just hasn't been offered enough money yet.

I'd be satisfied with a straight up The Navidson Record film.

18:14 / 30.11.02

No one I know, with the exception of my father, read Fear & Loathing before it came out as a movie and all the people I know who saw the movie loved it. I didn't think it was that hard to follow at all. And then I read the book and wondered how they could have possibly thought it would have turned out well, but it did, so, hey, more power to 'em.

00:08 / 01.12.02

i remember reading on disinfo.com the working diary of some woman who was actually working on the script for 'The Stars My Destination'. haven't heard about the project since though.

14:52 / 01.12.02

The only requirement for understanding 'F & L...' is having taken drugs at some point in your life. I started the book, but couldn't be bothered; the film is excellent.

03:03 / 02.12.02

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, but God how I'd love to see someone try...

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

06:30 / 02.12.02

SLAUGHTERMATIC or SHAMANSPACE by Steve Aylett.

08:58 / 02.12.02

Jeff Noon's Vurt. I did come up with a way it might be possible, but it would be a 6 hour miniseries (though I'd prefer 10). And ridiculously high-level FX. Which I don't think Channel 4 could produce. But if you can't fit it all in, it's not worth doing. It would be too easy to make it look crappy - the bleeding walls, etc - but at the same time the really tricky stuff, Scribble-as-cursor, would be impossible to make look decent - or at least how Noon intends it to look.

10:59 / 02.12.02

I think a Noon book would be just about do-able, but it would surely be rubbish.. I mean, I can well imagine somebody just filming the straight story with a load of random psychedelic guff over the top..

Steve Aylett's books though, yeah, it would take some pretty mad bastards to try and film them..

12:55 / 02.12.02

Well, it would be doable in the same way that Lovecraft is supposedly filmable, and yet you get shit like Dagon coming out.

I mean, someone trying to film Vurt would end up with eXistenZ, only worse.

Can you imagine it?

13:42 / 02.12.02

I can picture someone doing a wispy, anime version of Invisible Cities in vignettes, kind of like Robot Carnival.

Unfilmable: Foucault's Pendulum. And thank goodness, as I didn't like it much.

gentleman loser

00:51 / 03.12.02

I always wanted to see a movie version of The Forever War, but I know that Hollywood would just turn it into another Black Hawk Down or worse still, a steaming pile of sentimental Spielburg crap like Saving Private Ryan.

I guess we'll never see more William Gibson either, after the 9.0 earthquake disaster of Johnny Mnemonic.

01:14 / 03.12.02

Halality by Jeff Matthews, it hasn't yet been translated to English but it is a feverish account of city life -- my fave moment occuring when a NeoNazi takes over a train and makes everyone sing "I'm singing in the train..."

06:45 / 03.12.02

I am with Foust on the NAVIDSON RECORD film but my choice would be one of my favorite reads :

INFINITE JEST by David Foster Wallace.

There is no way they could slam that monster into a two hour flick. Would make an excellent TV series though ....

12:10 / 03.12.02

I guess we'll never see more William Gibson either, after the 9.0 earthquake disaster of Johnny Mnemonic.

Hey! It was and still is, the highest grossing Canadian movie of all time! Kicked Anne of Green Gable's ass it did!

...but yeah, it was so lame. No Molly...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:10 / 03.12.02

I'm surprised that Michael Marshall-Smith's books seem so stuck in production hell as they are written so much like film scripts with voice-over style exposition.

I second the call for Bester's 'The Stars My Destination' although I think 'The Demolished Man' would make a good future police procedural, though Hollywood would probably make it completely pointless by insisting that, as with 'From Hell', it couldn't be done where you know who the killer is.

And I'm surprised more use hasn't been made of Philip K. Dick's work. Spielberg was supposed to be working on 'Flow My Tears The Policeman Said', did he give this up to do 'Minority Report'? 'Ubik' is weird, but not in a way that would make doing a film difficult, and 'A Scanner Darkly' could be done with a similar treatment to 'Fear and Loathing'

17:44 / 03.12.02

There's a UK PC game based on Ubik. I saw a Dutch version 4 years ago but didn't buy it because I didn't understand Dutch. I found it a week ago in a remaindered bookshop, in English this time. I haven't had a chance to play it yet, though.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are TWO adaptations of Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita": one Italian/Yugolsavian (1972) and one Polish (1989). The Italian one emphasizes the big mass nudity scene (Fellini had wanted to do the movie), while the Polish one is a TV miniseries, available with English subtitles and is 6 hours long. I just ordered it from Amazon, so I hope to have it by Christmas.

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