Friday, January 19, 2007

"The Hardest Novels to Film":
Guess what tops the list?

The Unfilmables: A List of the Hardest Novels to Film.

Naturally, Ulysses features first in the unfilmable list:

Considered to be the greatest novel ever written, Ulysses is ripe with obscure references, wit, and a style of lyrical writing that makes the book better said than read. There have been two Irish films, one in 1967 and other recent version in 2003, called Bloom. Both are utter failures, and the best they can do is have passages read over the basic action in a desperate attempt to maintain James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness style of writing. It’s the cardinal sin of adaptation. A true adaptation of this novel would have to substitute the written associations and wordplay with a solely visual language, allowing the power of the image and editing to represent the novel’s essence. I should also give Joyce’s last novel ‘Finnegans Wake’ a nod for being the most unfilmable novel of all time, despite this.
If anyone can do it: Quentin Tarantino has displayed a habit of… just kidding. If the novel does truly require a focus on imagery as opposed to the word, then Wong Kar Wai has proven his ability for doing just so. In The Mood for Love was a simple story about forbidden love, explored in the most luscious of ways. It’s sort-of sequel 2046 was even more abstract, a rough circle around the idea of first love unregained filmed in the most mesmeric and sensual of ways. Unconvinced? Then check this out.

This article also cites 100 Years of Solitude as unfilmable, but there I'd have to disagree. Not only are today's audiences more accepting of the surreal, but today's filmmakers also have access to the kind of technology that can bring surreal images to life on screen (without distracting, cheesy visuals). One point of the article I do agree with: it would be most interesting to see a Wes Anderson production of Catcher In The Rye.

(Thanks to From the Mind of Manxom Vroom for the link.)

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