Ah, the supposedly unfilmable novel. There are loads of these things out there, deemed untranslatable for the screen for various reasons they just sit and moulder - well, unless they're being read, of course - despite a loyal cabal of fans calling for them. The past few years have seen a few titles long considered unfilmable tackled successfully and so I present a list of five that I'd like to see done and who I'd like to do them.
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The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Directed By: Ole Christan Madsen
There have been a couple made for television attempts at this in the past and a couple projects loosely based upon it. Heck, there's even a report that someone's trying to do it up properly right now, but considering that the director of that project produced Fear Dot Com, The Musketeer, Simon Sez and Maximum Risk I'm going to go way out on a limb and suggest that long before this actually happens someone in control of the purse strings will come to their senses and pull the plug. A producer of Fear Dot Com producing Kafka? 'Tis a scenario worthy of a Kafka story itself. Shudder.
But enough of that. With Nordkraft Ole Christian Madsen proved that he's got technical skills to burn. With Prag he porved he has a deft knack for subtly understated mordant humor. With his in-production Flame and Citron he's tackling a project with a depth of political subtext. To do Kafka correctly you need all of these things and Madsen looks to me to be a guy who's got the right combination of smarts, raw talent and a grasp of the mind-set. Should he be unavailable, give it to The Bothersome Man's Jens Lien.
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Neuromancer by William Gibson
Directed By: Kaz Kiriya
Yeah, Kiriya's busy as all hell right now but the man is shockingly proficient on the visual end of things and unafraid to take risks, both of which will be required to make this happen. The down side to Kiriya, of course, is that he has also shown that he's completely unafraid to alter source material to suit his own ends and that he loves to polish things up to a high sheen which means any finished product would likely differ significantly from the gritty world of Gibson's novel, but I'd love to see what he does with it.
Worth noting here that the book has been optioned by music video director Joseph Kahn.
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A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
Directed By: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
The lady-friend suggested Michel Gondry for this one, which also strikes me as a compelling choice but I've switched my vote to Jeunet at the last moment for one key reason. Both directors have visual skills like few others, skills needed to capture the surreal edge to Murakami's novel, but Murakami's surrealism has a certain disturbing edge to it, one fueled by alcohol and loss, while Gondry tends to go more for whimsy. Jeunet seems to be more in spirit with the writer's work. Of course, if you want to see the surrealism played out large you could also pitch it to David Lynch who would spin it into something entirely different but would no doubt be mighty compelling.
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On The Road by Jack Kerouac
Directed By: Shane Meadows
Most things that show up in these lists do so for reasons of technical issues or sheer length, neither of which is a problem for Kerouac. The problem here is that there really isn't any sort of arc to the story. Sure, stuff happens, but it's all about the characters and the flow rather than about the plot and there are very few people who can pull that off. Walter Salles is rumored to be working something up on this one but, with all due respect, he's the wrong guy. If you could talk him into leaving his beloved British midlands alone for a while, Englishman Shane Meadows should be the man at the helm. He has a loose, improvisational style that suits the jazz influence on the book not to mention how his stuff manages to seem both verite and highly stylized at the same time. Plus Meadows is one of the absolute best when it comes to manipulating rhythms and working music into his films, both of which would be absolutely vital if anyone's ever to do Kerouac justice.
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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Directed By: Darren Aronofsky
Much like The Metamorphosis this has been tried a couple of times on television, notably with a pair of horribly bad mini-series prepped for the US networks - one of which starred Harold and Maude's Bud Cort in the lead - and core ideas have been pilfered for countless projects. How any broadcast network could think that they could do justice to the book while still be allowed to air the thing is beyond me and the end result has apparently been a negative feeling around the project despite it appearing - to me, at least - to be one tailor made for the big screen.
And there's no doubt in my mind that Darren Aronofsky would be the ideal candidate to put it there. He's already dipped into many of the themes in his earlier work, his technical skills mesh up well with the requirements of the novel, and he's one of few American directors working today with the right combination of intellect, passion and guts to pull this off.
Wasn't Chris Cunningham going to do "Neuromancer" at one point?
The Icelandic theatre company Vesturport are producing a stage version of Metamorphosis that are premering next month. They have produced it overseas with great success.
Hmmm, interesting choices.
How about Elric of Melnibone by Rob Zombie. I think he could sustain the agony, the pain and violence. And I am confident that one could challenge Zombie to pull off an epic.
The boring choice would be of cause PJ.
Right there with you on Stephenson and I actually don't think Snow Crash would be that hard if they could figure out a way to represent the word-virus. Crypto would be a bear, though. I'd rather seen it done on HBO than SciFi, though. No chance you could do it in feature length ... the Baroque Cycle could work as a series as well ...
I believe "A Confederacy of Dunces" has been in development hell longer than I've been alive.
Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought that Pen-Ek Ratanaruang could do justice to a Murakami novel. "Last Life In The Universe" has always felt Murakami-esque to me: Ratanaruang's got the themes of alienation and melancholy down pat, as well as the light surrealism and absurdism.
How about The Third Policeman, by David Lynch?
I think David Gordon Green was slated to direct "Confederacy" at one point. Kind of thought it would happen with him at the helm.
How about Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination" - it'd be easy to do it as a revenge thriller in sci-fi clothing, but to really get at Gully's personal metamorphosis would be a challenge. I think John Carpenter has called directing an adaptation of this a dream project.
Have to agree about Neuromancer, it's an awesome novel, and so influential that it deserves a movie. Not sure I'd like Kiriya to direct though. I'd love to see Danny Boyle take it on. Or perhaps Neill Marshall.
Really, there are lots of Cyber-punk novels that need to be filmed. A favourite of mine is When Gravity Fails, by George Alec Effinger. Which has serious issues when translating to the silver-screen since the characters use mind-altering implants that let them more or less "become" other characters. It's insanely well written, and the setting (which is future Arabia) just adds to the awesomeness.
But my number one unfilmable novel would be Hyperion and the subsequent sequel. Not unfilmable due to narrative complexity (although the time travel could seriously screw things up), but sheer amount of things in there. So many characters, so many settings, so many events. At one time Scorcese and DiCaprio expressed their interest, and it could have been one of the greatest scifi-movies ever. But nothing happened. I've always wanted it to be an HBO-series.
I'd love to see a Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World adaptation myself.
Two books that I would love to see filmed are Naked Lunch and Our Lady of the Flowers, but both are probably impossible. I like Cronenberg's take on Naked Lunch but it's obviously not a literal translation. The only director I can think of to do Naked Lunch is the obvious choice Lynch, but I doubt that he would even consider it. Perhaps Jodorowsky? That would be pretty sweet actually and he would have the balls too. As for Our Lady, I'm thinking the Dardennes, but I don't know if they would be able to capture the humour. Plus, as a film, I think it would be totally against the Dardennes' cinematic objective.
gravity's rainbow by pynchon would probably be unfilmable
Stars My Destination is my favourite book, ever. Would love to see an adaptation but I fear they would make a horrible mess of it. Ron Perlman might make a good Gully Foyle, though.
Someone needs to tackle Iain M. Banks Culture series. Consider Phlebas animated by Gonzo, please.
Oh, thanks for the info Caterpillar. I am not quite sure if I should be happy or start worrying. The Golden Compass has I nice look, but the motion, the dynamic seem a bit wooden and static.
But now I hope for a box office smash hit, so he can get the budget for an R rated epic.
I read something about a planned adaptation of THE STARS MY DESTINATION but haven't heard anything in quite a while so probably nothing came of it. That has the potential to be something really special but right off the bat I can't think of any director I'd completely trust with it.
As for all the guys bringing up cyberpunk books... Sorry, folks, it's too late. 15 years too late, at least. See, unlike a classic like THE STARS MY DESTINATION all the cyberpunk fiction of the 80ies and early 90ies is now horribly, embarrassingly dated. And the parts that aren't dated have become reality. And all the rest has been picked clean and ripped off by countless comic books, cheesy B movies (including the MATRIX flicks) and a truckload of anime. Faithful adaptations of NEUROMANCER and SNOWCRASH would get laughed right out of the multiplexes.
By the way, speaking of unfilmable: LORD OF LIGHT by Roger Zelazny. A movie would have to be structured completely differently from the book and I just don't see it being possible. Another one that I think is impossible to do is Clive Barker's IMAJICA. Not only is it insanely epic in scope and would require a budget of several million dollars even with all the advances in special effects but there's also the fact that parts of it are all-out weird very NC-17 porn and the porn sequences are essential to the plot so you can't just go and cut them out.
Another unfilmable for me would be Charles Williams' 'Descent Into Hell', Darren Aronofsky directing. What do you think, Todd? ;)
Cheeky man, you know I'd love to see wome Williams adapted.
I think a proper adaptation of Snow Crash is possible, you might have to push out the technology somewhat, the dystopic future/satire. I've always wanted to see that pizza delivery committed to celluliod.
If someone were to give it the Robocop style satire it deserves, I'd be quite content!
Also, ambitious directors should be pointed in the direction of Alistair Reynolds massive-scale sci-fi. I'd love to see a trilogy made out of Revelation Space or Chasm City. Chasm City is in fact quite cinematic in structure, but could never be contained in anything less than 10-12 hours of runtime.
Damn. I was going to mention Williams as well, but I don't consider him unfilmable. I guess "Descent into Hell" might be the most difficult to put on film coherently, but I would love to see any of his stuff done well -- even starting from the more conventional "War in Heaven". Aronofsky is definitely the kind of person I would picture doing it though.
Oh and so as not to seem like I swiped the idea from him, I first thought of Tsukamoto for SANDMAN only after the incomparable Grady Hendrix suggested the idea to me. My reasons are however my own.
What about Forever War?
The 'sequel' to SNOW CRASH, THE DIAMOND AGE, should be pretty unfilmable too. If for no other reason than it spans the adolescence of the titular Young Lady. Having the main character age from (what was it?) 4 to 12 would be quite hard to fake, and condensing her education to a few weeks or months wouldn't make sense. And for the most part, when Nell is the focus she's doing math or learning basic programming concepts. The set requirements would also boggle: Atlantis/Shanghai, the 12 Castles of the Primer, the Celestial Kingdom, the Coastal Republic, the Drummer's oceanic orgy chamber...
And yet, SciFi is turning it into a 6 part miniseries.