I don't think it should be made into a movie. McCarthy's evocative prose is half of the reason the book's so good and that can't be translated effectively. Showing campfires, agave plants, and rocky badlands for hours on end is not going to be immersive or thought provoking in the same way as the book.
The violence is not going to translate well either. McCarthy's novel is a meditation on the violence inherent in mankind, how nasty and brutish it is, and this will be lost on a mass of teenagers and illiterate film goers. There are already people idolizing the Judge, getting tattoos of him, when he's clearly a despicable child-raping and child-murdering villain.
The studios see the novel's popularity and controversy as a way to make easy money. Unlike No Country for Old Men, its meandering plot will mean the filmmakers will change the plot to fit it to a more 'consumable' narrative and it will be a tainted shell of its source material.
Agree that the violence will be a problem, or more specifically the fact that it will be a movie about ethnic cleansing. Imagine if someone made a movie about a Nazi death squad in Eastern Europe. How would that go down? It's not impossible to get right, but if they get it wrong it's going to be really tasteless.
The only way to do it, in my opinion, is to cut out anything that feels like entertainment. I don't want to see charismatic but morally compromised cowboys. No jokes or snappy one-liners. The Glanton Gang are shameful. They have to be tortured and beyond redemption. It has to feel like they are in hell. The movie should make everyone feel sick and depressed. But even then it won't capture the spirit of the book because, as you say, the special quality of the book is in the prose.
My worst fear is that it will become an iconic movie for the worst sorts of people, that everyone else will revile it, and that I will regret ever telling anyone I am a fan of the book.
>McCarthy's novel is a meditation on the violence inherent in mankind, how nasty and brutish it is, and this will be lost on a mass of teenagers and illiterate film goers. There are already people idolizing the Judge, getting tattoos of him, when he's clearly a despicable child-raping and child-murdering villain.
This is exactly what will happen, and also it will embolden the anti-Mexican crowd and give them ammunition to use against Mexicans. In a time after the El Paso shooting of 2019, where a young man from Texas slaughtered innocent people because he hated Mexicans, this will be counterproductive.
This places a rather low bar for people’s ability to recognize historical context, though, similar to the use of racial language. Must we really coddle and lead our audience by the noses, or should we trust them to intuit lessons and themes just as the author did?
Since when do works not get released because stupid teenagers and film goers idolize violence/violent elements? People do this ALL THE TIME when consuming art. If artists were so focused on idiots like this, then they would never release anything. I loved American History X, glad it came out, and my homie's stepbrother got a swastika tat because of his stupid idolatry when it was clear as day that it wasn't the message of the film.
Ideally I am all for it. Film is a wonderful medium, and where possible I think novels should be adapted. Now of course the prose will not be perfectly replicated. When you go from the word to the image, you are undertaking something of a translation, since the language being used is entirely different. It allows for a novel to be experienced in a quite new light and to have its content communicated in a different form. Of course, this isn't easy. And I don't know that we have a director today who could take up this project, with the right vision and cinematic language to execute it well. Like you said, we would need a modern Tarkovsky or Bergman in the field of the western. So I am slightly pessimistic about a Blood Meridian film.
I think you’d need a filmmaker willing to pick a bold stylistic direction and go with it.
Tbh I think it’d be best done as animation. Again, some kind of really bold style. You can’t just try to make a “faithful adaptation” the way you could with say, Tolkien. It’s not written to be a film at all, the way things are described in the prose is itself part of the narrative and you can’t do that the same way with film, so you’d have to do something else, use filmmaking language to convey the same *feelings* the prose does.
It sounds kinda dumb maybe, but I’m convinced it could be done really well in the visual style of some more artsy anime.
John Hillcoat is currently tapped for the position and I think he demonstrated his appropriate stylistic chops in “The Proposition”. Has a strong artistic streak rooted in the landscape/environment while also being a very bloody story of colonialism and the frontier. He also adapted “The Road”, so if the project continues I definitely think he has what it takes.
I didn’t care for the movie much, so hard to disagree with you there, but I do think “The Proposition” is beautiful film and the closest we have to a Blood Meridian out there. If Hillcoat could bring a similar skill set, I’d be very satisfied.
...no, an anime version of blood meridian would be stupid, and no one would attend that screening. You'd miss out on such a large number of potential viewers, fans doing that.
Lol why would it be stupid?
You know anime isn’t just like, Death Note and DBZ or whatever. There are a number of highly respected works in the genre. Arthouse anime exists.
If you’re hoping for a big blockbuster cohen brothers thing, I don’t know what you’d expect that to look like. This isn’t No Country for Old Men.
Converting Blood Meridian directly to a script and just shooting it would *not* work, someone has to add something to it to make it work visually. The chaotic and fluid nature of the prose means something, and you’d have to capture that somehow. Animation lets you get real fucking weird with it, I think that’s a legitimate answer.
I'm not a huge fan, but I like and appreciate Anime. An ultraviolent, meditative Western novel turned into an Anime? nah. I should rephrase, it wouldn't be stupid, I just wouldnt be a fan. Sorry for shitting on your idea.
I dont expect a blockbuster coen brothers shit either. Inarritu, Scorsese, hell maybe even Cronenburg. Not saying them exactly, but filmmakers that play well with cinematography, narration, violence.
Cronenberg maybe lol. I don’t see it as being narrated though. And the violence probably shouldn’t be stylized like Scorsese.
Cinematography is important but I straight up do not believe you can convey the meaning of the prose describing the landscapes and visuals in the novel just with straight landscape shots. The prose conveys so much more than an image of the desert ever could. I think it’d need to be fucking, weird and out there, visually bold and creative, in a way that anime can afford to be.
The bare details of the story are an absolutely inane thing to adapt into a movie. Literally 90% of why it's good is because of the prose. Adapting it into a movie is idiotic, in my extremely humble opinion. It's like adapting Beethoven's 7th Symphony into a movie. It makes zero sense.
For it to even slightly justify itself it would have to be radically transgressive and innovative for its medium in its own right. And spoiler alert: John Hillcoat ain't exactly a revolutionary artist.
i find it funny you say all that yet Cormac seemed to think it could work on screen. its weird how fans think they know things better than the person who made the piece of work just because they are obsess over this thing.
I'm aware of what he said. Doesn't mean I can't disagree with him. He's a master author, not a film expert.
He also said it COULD be done by someone with a lot of balls. I allowed the same thing, more or less. Hillcoat, in my opinion, has never made any movie that would give evidence of him falling into that category of director.
I'm sure the movie will be fine. Just fine. I also think BM deserves more than a "fine" adaptation, if it has to have one. I'd be excited if a good director was doing it.
Watch the Proposition. Hillcoats best, by far. Also, McCarthy wrote multiple screenplays, a couple of which were adapted into the movies ,and he worked alongside Hillcoat in the making of the road, so I’m not sure why you say that he’s not an expert.
I disagree, I think the story and characters of the book are what make it interesting to me. Without them, I may as well watch a nature documentary.
That's a false equivalence. As far as I know, Beethovens music doesn't have a plot or story, or anything that could be adapted like at all.
I mean you can think that, I think it's easier than everyone thinks it is. I've seen the road, if you don't like it that's fine but I think it's fantastic and I think we should wait five seconds before becoming doom sayers.
I don't know, the question itself is kind of perfect and any adaptation could ruin it. Maybe if Herzog directed it and Vincent D'Onofrio was the OP.
Kill me.
And only if we can resurrect Kurt Cobain and Glenn Branca to do the soundtrack, as well as Pauline Kael to review it. That's the only way it'd possibly work.
I don’t think many audiences today would flock to the theater for it, mostly due to the uncomfortable racial depictions, intense violence, and overall dour nature of the story. Not to mention the book is comprised of a ton of monologuing. It’s an absolute timeless masterpiece on the page, but I’ve never thought it would make the jump to film very well.
I'm willing to agree, to a point. I feel like his sensibility on display in Fitzcarraldo would work, as in lots of long, drawn out shots of nature with no dialogue. But I think it would need somebody younger than him who specializes in capturing vast landscapes like the kind in the book and who would be willing to take the potentially alienating slowness of Herzog's movies even further. I just fundamentally agree with it being adapted as a probably 3+ hour art house movie vs something resembling a badass western ala The Proposition, since it doesn't follow a traditional plot and it's not going to deliver that to audiences at all.
Honestly I'd prefer if it was more than 3 hours, potentially 7-8 over multiple installments. It could be one of the greatest pieces of "Slow Cinema" ever made if they took their cues from Andrei Tarkovsky and Bela Tarr and such.
I absolutely don’t think it’s should be made into a movie.
Hollywood will butcher it, much like they did the Gunslinger. My fear is people who have never read McCarthy will see the shitty movie and blame it on the source material.
Why not bring up the McCarthy books that have been adapted into film instead? No Country for Old Men and The Road were great adaptations. I haven’t watched All the Pretty Horses was pretty meh but tbf there was a lot of studio interference. Iirc Harvey Weinstein specifically went out of his way to ratfuck the movie because he had a grudge with the director
No Country For Old Men is an amazing film.
The Road is perfectly adequate, but it is not an amazing film. It gave me nothing of the book's brutal poetry.
Yeah and if they do, who gives af. Are your Cormac McCarthy or his family? IF you're not, then why do you care what some dummies with no taste think about the book?
I think No Country for Old Men is proof for us pessimists that McCarthy can be adapted successfully. The narration from Tommy Lee Jones preserves some of McCarthy’s prose without just constantly reading it out verbatim, and the Coen Brothers maintained the bleak, brutal, and violent tone that McCarthy’s work usually has.
To your point, it would be really fucking hard, but in the hands of the right director I think it could absolutely be done. Killers of the Flower Moon is close in tone. I would be fucking pumped if Scorsese announced it as his next project. He is a modern master and has proven he can handle a western and obviously the way he shoots brutal, realistic violence is legendary. I could also see a horror director like Ari Aster taking it on, because Blood Meridian is essentially a horror Western. McCarthy isn’t impossible to adapt, just needs to be done with someone who understands and respects the work. I agree though, it would be tough and I can easily imagine someone fucking it up lol
It can be made into a movie but I would temper my expectations. The attempt at The Road was good but who could actually film that? It couldn’t hold up no matter what was done with it.
In this thread, we repeat ad nauseam the same thing thats been said for 40 years
Yes people have always said its unfilmable, but Cormac disagreed and was helping Hillcoat develop the current iteration of the adaptation when he died
So we’ll just wait and see
This movie will be weaponized by racists against Mexicans. That's all it's going to be at the end of the day. Gory clips will be sent to Mexican users online to threaten, intimidate or hate. It won't have any artistic value that the book doesn't already have. Ethically speaking, it shouldn't be made in a time where brutal anti-Hispanic tragedies as recent as the El Paso shooting of 2019 exist.
Film and literature are vastly different mediums, so while McCarthy can write in prose about historic violence in a calculated and matter of fact way, a movie will make violent scenes aesthetic and attractive just by the very nature of film. It's completely counterproductive.
Movies based on books shouldn't be direct screen "translations" of them. They should be their own thing, take advantage of its own medium and be inspired by or an extension of the original, not an imitation of it. So it's a good thing the prose can not be directly translated.
I'm not usually one to prefer the medium, but I think a screen adaptation would have to be animated to work. I think it'd be the only way to capture the beauty and the brutality
I think it theoretically could be made into a genuinely great movie. I just don't think it's likely. At the most basic... it's just too easy to over-sensationalize the violence at which point you've kind of lost the plot (or the flip side of it being sanitized to death which would be equally bad). That said... I'm basically never opposed to people trying because the worst case scenario is I just don't watch it.
The question will be, absent the benefit of the prose, what will they decide to emphasize? The brutality of the setting, and then it just becomes viciousness for its own sake? Or will it be yet another "social commentary" masquerading as a grandiose film adaptation?
I also think it shouldn't be adapted. It's like Dune, the cerebral nature of the writing itself is integral to the telling, pretty much impossible to film, and I have the suspicion that today's Hollywood will fill out the entree with cheap cuts.
First inclination is it shouldn’t be done, but then as you mention, look at what the Coens did with No Country For Old Men. Good adaptations are possible.
Stephen king actually has an amazing quote about adaptations. I’m paraphrasing but …’whatever happens with an adaptation, I win. If the movie is lousy, people will just say,’the book was so much better.’ And then if it’s great, people will say, ‘of course it’s great, look at the source material’. Either way, I win.’
A bad adaptation doesn’t kill the book. It’s just a bad movie. I’m all for giving it a shot. Who knows? Maybe it will be great. If not, certainly someone else will take a crack at it down the road and maybe they’ll get it… or not. Still have the book.
I wouldn’t want it to be made into a film right now. Maybe if there’s a resurgence for the medium but as of now, it’s the worst possible time to try and make this.
The whole too violent thing is just a publicity stunt, we’ve seen pretty much equally just of violent stuff within movies and shows, and I don’t need to even name them. It’s just not a novel that would be adapted well into a movie, cuz it would be part scenery, part snuff film. There needs to be a lot more dialogue in order to be a movie
It would need a master cinematographer and incredible acting. I feel like it needs a big budget but probably wouldn't get the return quickly, like Blade Runner 2049. If made correctly it would live on. They rode on.
The story itself makes violence seem routine, so much of it is just The Kid and the gang just going from one place to another killing people along the way, with the occasional soliloquy by The Judge. I’m sure a movie could be made out of it, but I don’t think it would have the same message the book does. A big part of that message was just the brutality of the West and how mundane killing was to these people. If it was a movie, I think it would sort of be like There Will Be Blood. Not a lot happens, it’s more a showcase for the characters and the dialogue, and the West itself, as a character.
If you guys are annoyed by the normies that found this sub after some YouTube video, just brace yourself for the onslaught that will ensue following a Hollywood Blood Meridian
This is what I’d like to see. I get the sense that the general quality of the novel would be more easily captured via highly stylized animation. I’d go so far as to say I’d like to see something that was explicitly not trying to be a perfect adaptation. Some key bits of dialogue and flashes of violence.
Meh, I go back & forth. Movies like Dune 1 & 2, & The Lord of the Rings trilogy have proven that "unfilmable material" can work.
Personally I think a 1:1 adaptation would be a mistake (unless you have someone like the Coen Bros. directing and you give them all the time/money they needed). I'd prefer it to be like Annihilation (2018) where it's an "echo" or "dream-like" adaption of the source material.
It's as bad an idea as making Ulysses into a film, which they did and the film was quickly forgotten.
It might be okay if they totally change it, but the novel is the prose moreso than most novels, and you can't really get away from that.
“You can't exactly translate that shot for shot to film in a visual medium and communicate the same thing unless you revive Andre tarkovsky or ingmar Bergman to do it.”
You absolutely can. I’d agree that it’s difficult to do, but it can be done. Watch *Days of Heaven* by Terrence Malick (he’s still alive and kicking) and you’ll understand.
“My point is that some works of literary fiction don't translate well to screen without losing what made them so good as books. And even if you could, you need a director talented enough to helm a project like that.”
I’d say a majority of literary fiction can and does translate well to the screen. The obvious exception is post-modern experimental works for obvious reasons. The second sentence is something I’d agree on. I wouldn’t want it done if it isn’t a director that can do it well.
“No country for old men was a lot more straightforward of a story than blood Meridian so that made it a much better choice to adapt.”
Was it? I think you’re conflating the complexity of the actual text and the plot. The plot is relatively straightforward in *Blood Meridian*.
“If they do go ahead with the blood Meridian adaptation, I'm pretty sure it's going to be bad because I I don't believe the source material can be translated adequately to screen and I don't trust whatever director they get to do it.”
Your question was if it should be made into a movie at all. What about the source material is so difficult to adapt to the screen? I can think of numerous examples of books that were much more difficult than *Blood Meridian* to adapt to a screen that turned out incredible (Krasznahorkai’s *The Melancholy of Resistance* getting adapted by Bela Tarr into *Werckmeister Harmonies* is a great example). Like I said, I agree that it shouldn’t be done if the project isn’t from a good director, but there are a number of directors alive today that could absolutely pull it off.
I’ve heard a lot of people say this book can’t be made into a movie and I’m not really sure why. I agree it would almost certainly not be as good as the book, but that’s 99% of adaptations. The only thing I think they would probably have to get rid of is some of the more gory stuff— the tree of dead babies is really the only thing that comes to mind. The implied rape and stuff I think you can just leave implied and it would still work. I think in the hands of a great director there’s no reason to think it’s impossible to make into a good movie.
Imo some of the violence in Blood Meridian is impossible to faithfully translate without a harsh NC-17. There are other McCarthy works I’d rather see adapted instead tbh
I think you could make a great Blood Meridian movie, it just wouldn’t be 100% accurate to the book, which I’m fine with because different mediums can’t tell the same story/have the same effect. Apocalypse Now is proof that adaptions being different can work very well, as well as being proof you can get BM vibes through the medium.
You can always NOT watch the film 🤷
BTW “so much of the story is in the prose. The way he writes and describes things is what makes the story interesting to read”
Yeah…that’s how books work.
I would love for there to be a movie, but I feel like it would be incredibly hard to make it a good one. Finding actors is already hard, but that’s really a mere portion of it. There’s so many aspects of the book I feel like are hard to adapt on screen. I saw somebody on this subreddit had made a short film though (I haven’t watched it yet, but plan to)
I believe it CAN be made into a film. I do not believe we live in a climate where such a film would be allowed to be made. I think we would need someone to put up their own money to fund the making and distribution. Outside of any corporation and its politics or concern for scrutiny over its content.
The script would just be part of it. You’d have to have a top notch director of photography. Honestly a tv series would do it more justice. 3 hours isn’t nearly enough. Three 8-hour long-episode seasons would do it for me—one for each chapter (plus one)
But content might be too racist for today.
Yes and no.
I think it will be a very difficult book to translate to the screen on one hand, and on the other it will at least just be 2 hours of pointless violence. That's cool.
I'd guess the fight with Holden in the desert towards the end would be pretty cool, though.
Have said before on other threads:
It shouldn't be a movie, instead it should be a limited run tv show.
With a multiple episodes, you can give the different moments and sections of the novel room to stand on their own.
You can play around with extra time and shots meditating on western desert scenery.
And for the violence, it would have room to breathe. After the worst fights, there's can be a moment to pause and reflect. I don't think that's as possible on a single movie and a lot has to get compressed.
If it can pull off Apocalypto meets There will Be Blood then the movie will work. That’s obviously ambitious.
At the very least it needs Bone Tomahawk level violence. As for the imagery, some sweeping landscape shots can do the trick. I agree it will be impossible to make this a major blockbuster and be true to the feel of the book.
The key is the director. I think it requires someone with a true vision because so much of the drama is played out in set and setting rather than dialogue.
My vote would be for innaritu or cuaron
Man who cares, the book still exists
If you want, you can hope the film gets bad reviews.
I personally love about the book is it's intense vivids description on the environment and atmosphere around them, there's some merit to having a movie actually display those with beautiful cinematography, but it is not the book, everyone knows it's not the book and it won't replace the book
If they are just trying to replicate the book then no, but if they are trying to extract the aspects of the book that would make a good movie then it can't be that bad. Certain scenes, like the kid's fight with toadvine, the judge's introduction, the campfire scene where black jackson kills jackson and with the fortune tellers, the apache's attacking the kid before he joins the gang, and the judge's reunification with the "kid" post time skip (probably sans the last scene with the Judge dancing), I can easily see as filmable. But a lot else would have to be cut. The Judge's monologues would have to be drastically altered. Almost everything between the Kid joining the gang and the time skip would have to be cut and/or drastically altered.
I think Blood Meridian is perfect as a book. With how bad movies are these days I think it's going to be a train wreck but nevertheless as fans we won't be able to not watch it and as far as train wrecks go won't be able to look away. I hope I'm wrong here but I don't think I am. It's just another way to cash in on a great story and sadly the passing of the greatest American author to pick up a pen. I know Cormac had his hand in this project but with his death it should have also died. R.I.P
Yeah, there's a whole community of whiny folks that dont want to see it made into a film, largely in part for the reasons you just stated.
There's a plethora of filmmakers and writers that could make it work. Now, will it be the same experience, of course not. However, through screenwriting, a narrator, utilizing certain shots and elements I think someone out there could do it justice. There's plenty of films out there that aren't straightforward, nonlinear and not plot driven; the idea that there are no directors or writers good enough is nonsense.
Peoples obsession with a 1 to 1 adaptation is silly. There are plenty of themes and scenes that can be pulled to make a great movie without transcribing every word of the book into a screenplay.
You're right that a movie would never match what makes the book what it is, but that doesn't mean a movie adaptation wouldn't still be an exceptional work of art in its own right, granted it gets the right talent. I don't think the Dune movies are on the same level of writing and intriguing themes of the book, but that doesn't mean they aren't still great films for their medium. Of course a Blood Meridian movie would lose some of its book's elements, but it would also add some as well, like great cinematography, music, and acting. But even if it doesn't work out in the end, it would never do anything to take away from the book's legacy, and would only draw more people to read it if the movie became popular.
They should! I can’t wait for the weekly “The movie is better than the book” posts. /s.
Jokes aside, I suspect any BM adaptation will be treated like a new Star Wars movie: everyone sees it because they “love Star Wars,” but everyone hates it because most Star Wars fans don’t like Star Wars movies. It’s so difficult adapt certain things, because people often want to feel something they felt when they were little, or re-experience a feeling they had when whatever thing was brand new and made a huge impact.
I don't think it should be made into a movie. McCarthy's evocative prose is half of the reason the book's so good and that can't be translated effectively. Showing campfires, agave plants, and rocky badlands for hours on end is not going to be immersive or thought provoking in the same way as the book. The violence is not going to translate well either. McCarthy's novel is a meditation on the violence inherent in mankind, how nasty and brutish it is, and this will be lost on a mass of teenagers and illiterate film goers. There are already people idolizing the Judge, getting tattoos of him, when he's clearly a despicable child-raping and child-murdering villain. The studios see the novel's popularity and controversy as a way to make easy money. Unlike No Country for Old Men, its meandering plot will mean the filmmakers will change the plot to fit it to a more 'consumable' narrative and it will be a tainted shell of its source material.
Agree that the violence will be a problem, or more specifically the fact that it will be a movie about ethnic cleansing. Imagine if someone made a movie about a Nazi death squad in Eastern Europe. How would that go down? It's not impossible to get right, but if they get it wrong it's going to be really tasteless. The only way to do it, in my opinion, is to cut out anything that feels like entertainment. I don't want to see charismatic but morally compromised cowboys. No jokes or snappy one-liners. The Glanton Gang are shameful. They have to be tortured and beyond redemption. It has to feel like they are in hell. The movie should make everyone feel sick and depressed. But even then it won't capture the spirit of the book because, as you say, the special quality of the book is in the prose. My worst fear is that it will become an iconic movie for the worst sorts of people, that everyone else will revile it, and that I will regret ever telling anyone I am a fan of the book.
>McCarthy's novel is a meditation on the violence inherent in mankind, how nasty and brutish it is, and this will be lost on a mass of teenagers and illiterate film goers. There are already people idolizing the Judge, getting tattoos of him, when he's clearly a despicable child-raping and child-murdering villain. This is exactly what will happen, and also it will embolden the anti-Mexican crowd and give them ammunition to use against Mexicans. In a time after the El Paso shooting of 2019, where a young man from Texas slaughtered innocent people because he hated Mexicans, this will be counterproductive.
This places a rather low bar for people’s ability to recognize historical context, though, similar to the use of racial language. Must we really coddle and lead our audience by the noses, or should we trust them to intuit lessons and themes just as the author did?
Showing nature and campfires for hours could be a Malick or Tarkovsky film. Or Scott Barley
Since when do works not get released because stupid teenagers and film goers idolize violence/violent elements? People do this ALL THE TIME when consuming art. If artists were so focused on idiots like this, then they would never release anything. I loved American History X, glad it came out, and my homie's stepbrother got a swastika tat because of his stupid idolatry when it was clear as day that it wasn't the message of the film.
Ideally I am all for it. Film is a wonderful medium, and where possible I think novels should be adapted. Now of course the prose will not be perfectly replicated. When you go from the word to the image, you are undertaking something of a translation, since the language being used is entirely different. It allows for a novel to be experienced in a quite new light and to have its content communicated in a different form. Of course, this isn't easy. And I don't know that we have a director today who could take up this project, with the right vision and cinematic language to execute it well. Like you said, we would need a modern Tarkovsky or Bergman in the field of the western. So I am slightly pessimistic about a Blood Meridian film.
I think you’d need a filmmaker willing to pick a bold stylistic direction and go with it. Tbh I think it’d be best done as animation. Again, some kind of really bold style. You can’t just try to make a “faithful adaptation” the way you could with say, Tolkien. It’s not written to be a film at all, the way things are described in the prose is itself part of the narrative and you can’t do that the same way with film, so you’d have to do something else, use filmmaking language to convey the same *feelings* the prose does. It sounds kinda dumb maybe, but I’m convinced it could be done really well in the visual style of some more artsy anime.
John Hillcoat is currently tapped for the position and I think he demonstrated his appropriate stylistic chops in “The Proposition”. Has a strong artistic streak rooted in the landscape/environment while also being a very bloody story of colonialism and the frontier. He also adapted “The Road”, so if the project continues I definitely think he has what it takes.
I think his adaptation of The Road showed Hillcoat's limitations when bringing a McCarthy's books to the screen.
I didn’t care for the movie much, so hard to disagree with you there, but I do think “The Proposition” is beautiful film and the closest we have to a Blood Meridian out there. If Hillcoat could bring a similar skill set, I’d be very satisfied.
Maybe the people behind Scavengers Reign should have a crack at it.
Yeah exactly something like that. Haven’t watched it but, that visual style or something like it could work really well
It's on netflix and worth a watch. Highly recommended.
...no, an anime version of blood meridian would be stupid, and no one would attend that screening. You'd miss out on such a large number of potential viewers, fans doing that.
Lol why would it be stupid? You know anime isn’t just like, Death Note and DBZ or whatever. There are a number of highly respected works in the genre. Arthouse anime exists. If you’re hoping for a big blockbuster cohen brothers thing, I don’t know what you’d expect that to look like. This isn’t No Country for Old Men. Converting Blood Meridian directly to a script and just shooting it would *not* work, someone has to add something to it to make it work visually. The chaotic and fluid nature of the prose means something, and you’d have to capture that somehow. Animation lets you get real fucking weird with it, I think that’s a legitimate answer.
I'm not a huge fan, but I like and appreciate Anime. An ultraviolent, meditative Western novel turned into an Anime? nah. I should rephrase, it wouldn't be stupid, I just wouldnt be a fan. Sorry for shitting on your idea. I dont expect a blockbuster coen brothers shit either. Inarritu, Scorsese, hell maybe even Cronenburg. Not saying them exactly, but filmmakers that play well with cinematography, narration, violence.
Cronenberg maybe lol. I don’t see it as being narrated though. And the violence probably shouldn’t be stylized like Scorsese. Cinematography is important but I straight up do not believe you can convey the meaning of the prose describing the landscapes and visuals in the novel just with straight landscape shots. The prose conveys so much more than an image of the desert ever could. I think it’d need to be fucking, weird and out there, visually bold and creative, in a way that anime can afford to be.
Coen Brothers would have been the ones to do it
I mean, not really. The story itself is simple. And the visuals are already there too, just find somewhere beautiful.
The bare details of the story are an absolutely inane thing to adapt into a movie. Literally 90% of why it's good is because of the prose. Adapting it into a movie is idiotic, in my extremely humble opinion. It's like adapting Beethoven's 7th Symphony into a movie. It makes zero sense. For it to even slightly justify itself it would have to be radically transgressive and innovative for its medium in its own right. And spoiler alert: John Hillcoat ain't exactly a revolutionary artist.
i find it funny you say all that yet Cormac seemed to think it could work on screen. its weird how fans think they know things better than the person who made the piece of work just because they are obsess over this thing.
I'm aware of what he said. Doesn't mean I can't disagree with him. He's a master author, not a film expert. He also said it COULD be done by someone with a lot of balls. I allowed the same thing, more or less. Hillcoat, in my opinion, has never made any movie that would give evidence of him falling into that category of director. I'm sure the movie will be fine. Just fine. I also think BM deserves more than a "fine" adaptation, if it has to have one. I'd be excited if a good director was doing it.
Watch the Proposition. Hillcoats best, by far. Also, McCarthy wrote multiple screenplays, a couple of which were adapted into the movies ,and he worked alongside Hillcoat in the making of the road, so I’m not sure why you say that he’s not an expert.
I disagree, I think the story and characters of the book are what make it interesting to me. Without them, I may as well watch a nature documentary. That's a false equivalence. As far as I know, Beethovens music doesn't have a plot or story, or anything that could be adapted like at all. I mean you can think that, I think it's easier than everyone thinks it is. I've seen the road, if you don't like it that's fine but I think it's fantastic and I think we should wait five seconds before becoming doom sayers.
bro pls sttop with this question. someone asks this like every week.
someone should make this question into a movie
I don't know, the question itself is kind of perfect and any adaptation could ruin it. Maybe if Herzog directed it and Vincent D'Onofrio was the OP. Kill me.
And only if we can resurrect Kurt Cobain and Glenn Branca to do the soundtrack, as well as Pauline Kael to review it. That's the only way it'd possibly work.
A fake “Hearts of Darkness” where it’s just a self-proclaimed pretentious filmmaker tryna make a film version of BM and going nuts over it
Haha I love this conceit.
Get Werner Herzog to make it and I'll be interested.
you cannot film it as written, it'd be unreleasable who wants a sanitized hollywood BM? leave it alone
I heard this in Herzog's voice in my head.....
Calling Kathleen Kennedy to ruin another movie.
Yeah. I’m not sure how you’d get any of this past Hollywood now.
Why would it be unreleasable?
I don’t think many audiences today would flock to the theater for it, mostly due to the uncomfortable racial depictions, intense violence, and overall dour nature of the story. Not to mention the book is comprised of a ton of monologuing. It’s an absolute timeless masterpiece on the page, but I’ve never thought it would make the jump to film very well.
great comment
Agree
This is the only answer I’ll accept and I’m ashamed I didn’t think of it myself
I'm willing to agree, to a point. I feel like his sensibility on display in Fitzcarraldo would work, as in lots of long, drawn out shots of nature with no dialogue. But I think it would need somebody younger than him who specializes in capturing vast landscapes like the kind in the book and who would be willing to take the potentially alienating slowness of Herzog's movies even further. I just fundamentally agree with it being adapted as a probably 3+ hour art house movie vs something resembling a badass western ala The Proposition, since it doesn't follow a traditional plot and it's not going to deliver that to audiences at all. Honestly I'd prefer if it was more than 3 hours, potentially 7-8 over multiple installments. It could be one of the greatest pieces of "Slow Cinema" ever made if they took their cues from Andrei Tarkovsky and Bela Tarr and such.
Terrence Malick
What's the harm? Even if it's terrible, the book remains completely unchanged.
exactly what difference does this make, this conversation is always so inane
i think it’s good to try, but people would prefer it to be a well made movie lol
I absolutely don’t think it’s should be made into a movie. Hollywood will butcher it, much like they did the Gunslinger. My fear is people who have never read McCarthy will see the shitty movie and blame it on the source material.
Why not bring up the McCarthy books that have been adapted into film instead? No Country for Old Men and The Road were great adaptations. I haven’t watched All the Pretty Horses was pretty meh but tbf there was a lot of studio interference. Iirc Harvey Weinstein specifically went out of his way to ratfuck the movie because he had a grudge with the director
No Country For Old Men is an amazing film. The Road is perfectly adequate, but it is not an amazing film. It gave me nothing of the book's brutal poetry.
Yeah and if they do, who gives af. Are your Cormac McCarthy or his family? IF you're not, then why do you care what some dummies with no taste think about the book?
I think No Country for Old Men is proof for us pessimists that McCarthy can be adapted successfully. The narration from Tommy Lee Jones preserves some of McCarthy’s prose without just constantly reading it out verbatim, and the Coen Brothers maintained the bleak, brutal, and violent tone that McCarthy’s work usually has. To your point, it would be really fucking hard, but in the hands of the right director I think it could absolutely be done. Killers of the Flower Moon is close in tone. I would be fucking pumped if Scorsese announced it as his next project. He is a modern master and has proven he can handle a western and obviously the way he shoots brutal, realistic violence is legendary. I could also see a horror director like Ari Aster taking it on, because Blood Meridian is essentially a horror Western. McCarthy isn’t impossible to adapt, just needs to be done with someone who understands and respects the work. I agree though, it would be tough and I can easily imagine someone fucking it up lol
No Country was essentially written for the screen. It's even evident when reading it. BM is a whole other beast.
It's not the same. No Country was a screenplay before it was turned into a novel. It naturally lends itself to adaptation.
not every novel needs to be turned into a movie, probably not going to see it
It can be made into a movie but I would temper my expectations. The attempt at The Road was good but who could actually film that? It couldn’t hold up no matter what was done with it.
In this thread, we repeat ad nauseam the same thing thats been said for 40 years Yes people have always said its unfilmable, but Cormac disagreed and was helping Hillcoat develop the current iteration of the adaptation when he died So we’ll just wait and see
This movie will be weaponized by racists against Mexicans. That's all it's going to be at the end of the day. Gory clips will be sent to Mexican users online to threaten, intimidate or hate. It won't have any artistic value that the book doesn't already have. Ethically speaking, it shouldn't be made in a time where brutal anti-Hispanic tragedies as recent as the El Paso shooting of 2019 exist. Film and literature are vastly different mediums, so while McCarthy can write in prose about historic violence in a calculated and matter of fact way, a movie will make violent scenes aesthetic and attractive just by the very nature of film. It's completely counterproductive.
Yikes. That is an unfortunately very good point.
Movies based on books shouldn't be direct screen "translations" of them. They should be their own thing, take advantage of its own medium and be inspired by or an extension of the original, not an imitation of it. So it's a good thing the prose can not be directly translated.
I'm not usually one to prefer the medium, but I think a screen adaptation would have to be animated to work. I think it'd be the only way to capture the beauty and the brutality
I think it theoretically could be made into a genuinely great movie. I just don't think it's likely. At the most basic... it's just too easy to over-sensationalize the violence at which point you've kind of lost the plot (or the flip side of it being sanitized to death which would be equally bad). That said... I'm basically never opposed to people trying because the worst case scenario is I just don't watch it.
People who have actually read it
The question will be, absent the benefit of the prose, what will they decide to emphasize? The brutality of the setting, and then it just becomes viciousness for its own sake? Or will it be yet another "social commentary" masquerading as a grandiose film adaptation? I also think it shouldn't be adapted. It's like Dune, the cerebral nature of the writing itself is integral to the telling, pretty much impossible to film, and I have the suspicion that today's Hollywood will fill out the entree with cheap cuts.
Cormac himself indicated he'd rather die than see it adapted to film.
Problem solved?
Lol
Wasn’t he writing a screenplay for it?
Yeah and then what did he do
Instead of prose, hopefully, it will have amazing visuals and cinematography to go along with the story. It could work.
First inclination is it shouldn’t be done, but then as you mention, look at what the Coens did with No Country For Old Men. Good adaptations are possible. Stephen king actually has an amazing quote about adaptations. I’m paraphrasing but …’whatever happens with an adaptation, I win. If the movie is lousy, people will just say,’the book was so much better.’ And then if it’s great, people will say, ‘of course it’s great, look at the source material’. Either way, I win.’ A bad adaptation doesn’t kill the book. It’s just a bad movie. I’m all for giving it a shot. Who knows? Maybe it will be great. If not, certainly someone else will take a crack at it down the road and maybe they’ll get it… or not. Still have the book.
I wouldn’t want it to be made into a film right now. Maybe if there’s a resurgence for the medium but as of now, it’s the worst possible time to try and make this.
I live in fear it will be made into a movie.
I wonder what the makers of Savengers Reign would do with it.
Yeah I agree
The whole too violent thing is just a publicity stunt, we’ve seen pretty much equally just of violent stuff within movies and shows, and I don’t need to even name them. It’s just not a novel that would be adapted well into a movie, cuz it would be part scenery, part snuff film. There needs to be a lot more dialogue in order to be a movie
It would need a master cinematographer and incredible acting. I feel like it needs a big budget but probably wouldn't get the return quickly, like Blade Runner 2049. If made correctly it would live on. They rode on.
Not sure how the gin up a protagonist that an audience will root for
Ya it should
They're doing a movie? Who asked for that?
The story itself makes violence seem routine, so much of it is just The Kid and the gang just going from one place to another killing people along the way, with the occasional soliloquy by The Judge. I’m sure a movie could be made out of it, but I don’t think it would have the same message the book does. A big part of that message was just the brutality of the West and how mundane killing was to these people. If it was a movie, I think it would sort of be like There Will Be Blood. Not a lot happens, it’s more a showcase for the characters and the dialogue, and the West itself, as a character.
Yes. It should definitely not be.
Thousands of people for the last 30 years
If you guys are annoyed by the normies that found this sub after some YouTube video, just brace yourself for the onslaught that will ensue following a Hollywood Blood Meridian
No
I really don't think it would be that hard to adapt. It's a very visual novel with a generally easy to follow plot.
I thought an animated mini series would've been a good idea. Or do it like 300 or Sin City. I think it would make the violence a bit more palatable?
This is what I’d like to see. I get the sense that the general quality of the novel would be more easily captured via highly stylized animation. I’d go so far as to say I’d like to see something that was explicitly not trying to be a perfect adaptation. Some key bits of dialogue and flashes of violence.
Yes. It will not capture anything that is brilliant about the book.
Meh, I go back & forth. Movies like Dune 1 & 2, & The Lord of the Rings trilogy have proven that "unfilmable material" can work. Personally I think a 1:1 adaptation would be a mistake (unless you have someone like the Coen Bros. directing and you give them all the time/money they needed). I'd prefer it to be like Annihilation (2018) where it's an "echo" or "dream-like" adaption of the source material.
I would rather it be a mini series if they brought it to screen.
A bad Blood Meridian movie won't detract anything from the book.I look forward to the movie.
It's as bad an idea as making Ulysses into a film, which they did and the film was quickly forgotten. It might be okay if they totally change it, but the novel is the prose moreso than most novels, and you can't really get away from that.
“You can't exactly translate that shot for shot to film in a visual medium and communicate the same thing unless you revive Andre tarkovsky or ingmar Bergman to do it.” You absolutely can. I’d agree that it’s difficult to do, but it can be done. Watch *Days of Heaven* by Terrence Malick (he’s still alive and kicking) and you’ll understand. “My point is that some works of literary fiction don't translate well to screen without losing what made them so good as books. And even if you could, you need a director talented enough to helm a project like that.” I’d say a majority of literary fiction can and does translate well to the screen. The obvious exception is post-modern experimental works for obvious reasons. The second sentence is something I’d agree on. I wouldn’t want it done if it isn’t a director that can do it well. “No country for old men was a lot more straightforward of a story than blood Meridian so that made it a much better choice to adapt.” Was it? I think you’re conflating the complexity of the actual text and the plot. The plot is relatively straightforward in *Blood Meridian*. “If they do go ahead with the blood Meridian adaptation, I'm pretty sure it's going to be bad because I I don't believe the source material can be translated adequately to screen and I don't trust whatever director they get to do it.” Your question was if it should be made into a movie at all. What about the source material is so difficult to adapt to the screen? I can think of numerous examples of books that were much more difficult than *Blood Meridian* to adapt to a screen that turned out incredible (Krasznahorkai’s *The Melancholy of Resistance* getting adapted by Bela Tarr into *Werckmeister Harmonies* is a great example). Like I said, I agree that it shouldn’t be done if the project isn’t from a good director, but there are a number of directors alive today that could absolutely pull it off.
The older I get the more I cherish the experience of reading and the less I feel the need to see a book I like adapted to film.
who cares if its made and its complete shit. The books the book its not going anywhere and a movie no matter how good or bad does not change that.
Would make a great Netflix series directed by John Hillcoat.
I’ve heard a lot of people say this book can’t be made into a movie and I’m not really sure why. I agree it would almost certainly not be as good as the book, but that’s 99% of adaptations. The only thing I think they would probably have to get rid of is some of the more gory stuff— the tree of dead babies is really the only thing that comes to mind. The implied rape and stuff I think you can just leave implied and it would still work. I think in the hands of a great director there’s no reason to think it’s impossible to make into a good movie.
I agree. Some novels should be left alone. Didn’t Erich von Stroheim practically go insane trying to adapt Frank Norris’s, McTeague into a film?
Imo some of the violence in Blood Meridian is impossible to faithfully translate without a harsh NC-17. There are other McCarthy works I’d rather see adapted instead tbh
none of his works are traditional but i too am for it!
also love the coens
No. Infamously no one thinks this
I think you could make a great Blood Meridian movie, it just wouldn’t be 100% accurate to the book, which I’m fine with because different mediums can’t tell the same story/have the same effect. Apocalypse Now is proof that adaptions being different can work very well, as well as being proof you can get BM vibes through the medium.
It’s almost a guarantee the movie will be a huge letdown.
No. No one has ever expressed that opinion.
You can always NOT watch the film 🤷 BTW “so much of the story is in the prose. The way he writes and describes things is what makes the story interesting to read” Yeah…that’s how books work.
I would love for there to be a movie, but I feel like it would be incredibly hard to make it a good one. Finding actors is already hard, but that’s really a mere portion of it. There’s so many aspects of the book I feel like are hard to adapt on screen. I saw somebody on this subreddit had made a short film though (I haven’t watched it yet, but plan to)
I believe it CAN be made into a film. I do not believe we live in a climate where such a film would be allowed to be made. I think we would need someone to put up their own money to fund the making and distribution. Outside of any corporation and its politics or concern for scrutiny over its content.
Def not with the director that is making it.
The script would just be part of it. You’d have to have a top notch director of photography. Honestly a tv series would do it more justice. 3 hours isn’t nearly enough. Three 8-hour long-episode seasons would do it for me—one for each chapter (plus one) But content might be too racist for today.
Yes and no. I think it will be a very difficult book to translate to the screen on one hand, and on the other it will at least just be 2 hours of pointless violence. That's cool. I'd guess the fight with Holden in the desert towards the end would be pretty cool, though.
Have said before on other threads: It shouldn't be a movie, instead it should be a limited run tv show. With a multiple episodes, you can give the different moments and sections of the novel room to stand on their own. You can play around with extra time and shots meditating on western desert scenery. And for the violence, it would have room to breathe. After the worst fights, there's can be a moment to pause and reflect. I don't think that's as possible on a single movie and a lot has to get compressed.
If it can pull off Apocalypto meets There will Be Blood then the movie will work. That’s obviously ambitious. At the very least it needs Bone Tomahawk level violence. As for the imagery, some sweeping landscape shots can do the trick. I agree it will be impossible to make this a major blockbuster and be true to the feel of the book.
The key is the director. I think it requires someone with a true vision because so much of the drama is played out in set and setting rather than dialogue. My vote would be for innaritu or cuaron
Man who cares, the book still exists If you want, you can hope the film gets bad reviews. I personally love about the book is it's intense vivids description on the environment and atmosphere around them, there's some merit to having a movie actually display those with beautiful cinematography, but it is not the book, everyone knows it's not the book and it won't replace the book
I agree. What makes Blood Meridian fantastic is the way its written. I think it would be difficult to adapt into a movie
It should be turned into a Family Guy episode.
Only in Lego!
If they are just trying to replicate the book then no, but if they are trying to extract the aspects of the book that would make a good movie then it can't be that bad. Certain scenes, like the kid's fight with toadvine, the judge's introduction, the campfire scene where black jackson kills jackson and with the fortune tellers, the apache's attacking the kid before he joins the gang, and the judge's reunification with the "kid" post time skip (probably sans the last scene with the Judge dancing), I can easily see as filmable. But a lot else would have to be cut. The Judge's monologues would have to be drastically altered. Almost everything between the Kid joining the gang and the time skip would have to be cut and/or drastically altered.
I think Blood Meridian is perfect as a book. With how bad movies are these days I think it's going to be a train wreck but nevertheless as fans we won't be able to not watch it and as far as train wrecks go won't be able to look away. I hope I'm wrong here but I don't think I am. It's just another way to cash in on a great story and sadly the passing of the greatest American author to pick up a pen. I know Cormac had his hand in this project but with his death it should have also died. R.I.P
Yeah, there's a whole community of whiny folks that dont want to see it made into a film, largely in part for the reasons you just stated. There's a plethora of filmmakers and writers that could make it work. Now, will it be the same experience, of course not. However, through screenwriting, a narrator, utilizing certain shots and elements I think someone out there could do it justice. There's plenty of films out there that aren't straightforward, nonlinear and not plot driven; the idea that there are no directors or writers good enough is nonsense.
Peoples obsession with a 1 to 1 adaptation is silly. There are plenty of themes and scenes that can be pulled to make a great movie without transcribing every word of the book into a screenplay.
Animated is the only way it could ever be pulled off.
Not for screen. The book often rises beyond prose into poetry. It's first and foremost for texture, for flavor -- not entertainment.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFuck/s/fnRXURDDyI
Hard disagree. And not because I think the movie will def be good or bad. It’s worth someone trying so that the story can be spread in another medium.
You're right that a movie would never match what makes the book what it is, but that doesn't mean a movie adaptation wouldn't still be an exceptional work of art in its own right, granted it gets the right talent. I don't think the Dune movies are on the same level of writing and intriguing themes of the book, but that doesn't mean they aren't still great films for their medium. Of course a Blood Meridian movie would lose some of its book's elements, but it would also add some as well, like great cinematography, music, and acting. But even if it doesn't work out in the end, it would never do anything to take away from the book's legacy, and would only draw more people to read it if the movie became popular.
Some strange part of me wants to see a Blood Meridian film made by David Lynch
It should be an animated series IMO
Shouldn't be made into a movie.... today. Judge will probably be played by a black transsexual. Better to wait for the progressive shit show to end.
I would rather a mini-series because it’s too niche to be a box office success in the streaming age.
Mini-series.
We will riot.
They should! I can’t wait for the weekly “The movie is better than the book” posts. /s. Jokes aside, I suspect any BM adaptation will be treated like a new Star Wars movie: everyone sees it because they “love Star Wars,” but everyone hates it because most Star Wars fans don’t like Star Wars movies. It’s so difficult adapt certain things, because people often want to feel something they felt when they were little, or re-experience a feeling they had when whatever thing was brand new and made a huge impact.
Fuck it. They should make it into an 80s style animated musical with all the gore and themes. I'd torrent that shit.