February 20, 2006
The teaser for Tom Tykwer's adaptation of Patrick Suskind's Perfume is one of the most potent trailers I've seen in a while.
Finally seeing that image of Grenouille's famous nose in motion left me thinking about those unrealized adaptations that refuse to die. We always hear of those pet projects which directors harbor for decades (and which so rarely live up to their gestation periods - Gangs Of New York, for example), but then there are those properties that are even more difficult to tap, that are not bound by the passion of a single filmmaker but set a whole progression of imaginations afire. Perfume has been on its way to the screen in fits and starts ever since it was published, starting off in the hands of Kubrick and then going from director to director (not to mention Kurt Cobain) until Tykwer finally managed to pull it off (at least in theory - I'm certainly hoping the trailer is a portent of high quality to come). When a book or concept hits some chord within an artistic zeitgeist, can it ever truly be unfilmmable? I'd say yes, absolutely, but that doesn't mean it won't be filmed anyway. I wonder if there's often a bit of schadenfreude going on: do filmmakers fall so in love with these stories and respond so greatly to the themes in them that they simply cannot let them exist entirely as another artist's handywork? That they have to, by translating it to their own medium, find some way to take a bit of credit for it? And by the time they've realized that maybe they shouldn't, someone else has been similarly struck and is ready to take up the torch.
I could write something here about how I hope Moore's oft-in-development Watchmen never sees the light of a projector, but I think you get my point.
As a footnote: I've written a lot - and will keep writing - about literary adaptations simply because I hope to make a few of my own someday. I love film and literature equally (almost), and I want to make sure I fully understand all the whys and hows of my own intentions before I run the risk of screwing up some masterpiece of prose.
Posted by David Lowery at February 20, 2006 06:18 PM
Comments
To me, one of these kind of adaptations is LIFE OF PI, that finally has been grabbed by Jeunet (after Shyamalan had been on it for some time...). It is a marvellous novel, so rich and so involving and adventurous - the only thing it lacked for me was the desire to have read it while actually being lost at sea together with a bengali tiger. (And I hope that is what the film can provide... eventhough this is one of those 'unfilmable' that you mention).
I also felt that EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED was such a book... but the film kind of made it anyhow. I still prefer the book, but Schreiber's work was inspired and gave me something more to the experience.
So, David... what literary works would you've adapted to film? Which one's need it, in your mind, to also be told as cinema?
And is there any stories that actually goes the other way around? "Wow... this film would've actually been better as a novel..."
Posted by: Karsten at February 21, 2006 08:13 AM
Hmmm. Maybe Crash (the Haggis film, not the Cronenberg one) wouldn't have been so noxious if it had been a novel. Prose is a more forgiving medium for parable and coincidence; in this instance, though, that prose would have to be really damn fine. Maybe Tom Wolfe could have written it.
The one book I'm obssessed with adapting is Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex. I have it all planned out in my head, all pared down and focused. This is a definite case of a book that doesn't need to be retold through cinema - or, rather, the book doesn't need it, but I do! Of course, being a recent Pulitzer prize winner and all, I'm sure it's already been snatched up. I'll probably end up making an original film with similar themes someday, but in doing so I'll have to be very careful not to infringe on what Eugenides so beautifully accomplished.
And then there's my dream of adapting McCarthy's The Crossing, but that's one potentially hubristic goal I may never actually try to attain. I might just let it live in my head - and on the page, of course.
Posted by: Ghostboy at February 21, 2006 12:01 PM
Been a while...
Hah, I wonder whether Margaret Atwood's Blind Assassin is filmable or not. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind adapting Coelho's The Alchemist, has the potential to be a pretty fun flick.
Most of the stuff I have in mind are mostly fantasy stuff, unfortunately. Those stuff by Steven Erikson and George R R Martin (especially the former) would be pretty insane if put onscreen.
Posted by: Edmund Yeo at February 22, 2006 10:41 AM