THE CASTLE, KAFKA
The atmosphere of this book... is so visual and haunting. To visually recreate the scenes of this book with quality cinematography and set designs would be the bomb... The footage shot outdoors with an abundance of snow and whiteness in contrast with the darkness and murkiness of interior shots would be remarkable. Would the screenplay writer add an ending or leave it at a loose end?
THE SOUND AND THE FURY, WILLIAM FAULKNER
I think this has already been made, but from what I can gather that adaptation is a linear recreation of the book. But wouldn't it be cool to attempt a literal adaptation of this? True, it would be almost impossible, but the frenetic jumps in time would be interesting to see on the screen. It would be intriguing to see how a film-maker would try to create a cinematic equivalent of Quentin's mental collapse. With the increasing number of hollywood non-linear flicks I see no reason why someone can't take the bull by the horns and attempt to transpose this into visual form.
THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT, JOSE DONOSO
Many would argue that the sheer complexity of this novel + the number of perspectives, dual narratives would not tranfer well to the screen. Apparently Luis Bunuel kept telling Donoso that he wanted to film this, but that the narrative strand of the deformed mutants didn't interest him. He wanted to exclusively recreate the old ladies' home. Personally I'd rather see an attempt to construct expensive set designs of the castle Azcoita builds for his son 'Boy' + gory make-up and costumes done for the mutants.
HOUSE TAKEN OVER, JULIO CORTAZAR
Well, I've already written a screenplay for a short film of this, so it'd be nifty to see someone film it.
THE DROWNED WORLD, J.G BALLARD
Ballard is a very visual writer, so he really makes you feel this vision of an inundated London... The thrilling storyline would fare well in a film too.
3 comments:
I never got around to reading Kafka's The Castle, although I've read The Trial but haven't seen the Orson Welles' adaptation. But I could pretty well imagine the kafkaesque atmosphere presented by him & its great to see you interested in The Castle.
As someone who has a fair amount of interest in film-making (I'd say its my dream & an obsession to make films) & I'm a firm believer of the Auter Theory posited by French New-wave film-makers, its great to see that you too have great concern for the visual style which reminds me of Kubrick since I've seen his entire filmography. Although from your list of favourite directors, I haven't seen any works of Dreyer, Bresson & Kielsowski. So I can't say whose visual style might've appealed & inspired you the most.
P.S: Just out of curiosity, I have a question for you. What do you think of Jim Jarmusch??
Also its great to see that you love cronenberg. Although I haven't seen much of his work & I intend to do so, but the ones that I saw were really fascinating to me. I even loved naked lunch even though its strictly a meta-fictious interpretation. I was so captivated by the narrative & the style...
Yeah, these adaptations I propose are the kind of thing would Kubrick would have made... visual recreations of literary material. Those 'fav' directors of mine don't really follow in that vein, though their work can also be very literary.
From what I can gather there is a lot of great cinema from India... I've been wanting to see The Apu Trilogy by Satyatif Ray for a while. Is there any good contemporary Indian film-making of note?
It's really cool that you have that dream, but despite what this post may suggest I don't really want to get into film-making! The though of maneouvering high-tech cameras proficiently scares me... My dream is to sit in a small room straining my brain over a really complicated long-winded novel!
The only Jarmusch film I've seen is Broken Flowers, which is really fun... though I haven't looked into any of his meatier material.
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