The Secret Thread: Literature & Spiritual Life: TST's Imaginary Film Festival

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

TST's Imaginary Film Festival

Speaking of Ron Hansen (see previous post), I’m in the middle of reading his second novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which some of you may recognize as the name of a movie that’s about to be released starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck (respectively) in the title roles. Needless to say I am eagerly anticipating the release of the film, and am looking forward to see what the impressive combination of Ron Hansen’s writing (he co-wrote the screenplay), Pitt and Affleck’s acting and Andrew Dominik’s (Chopper) directing will yield.

This got me thinking (fantasizing, really) of what other literary adaptations I would like to see on film… and I thought that might make a fun topic for a blog post here. So here, without further ado, is The Secret Thread’s inaugural Imaginary Film Festival: featuring novels and/or stories I would love to see made into films, along with intriguing director/cast recommendations.

The Violent Bear it Away
Adapted from: the novel by Flannery O’Connor
Director: the Coen Brothers
Cast: Nick Nolte as Mason Tarwater; Edward Norton as Rayber; Barry Pepper as Francis Marion Tarwater

The Clearing
Adapted from: the novel by Tim Gautreaux
Director: Gary Sinise
Cast: Gary Sinise as Randolph Aldrige; Chris Cooper as Byron Aldridge

Independent People
Adapted from: the novel by Halldor Laxness
Director: Tom Tykwer
Cast: Max von Sydow as Bjartus

On the Road
Adapted from: the novel by Jack Kerouac
Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: Brendan Fraser as Sal Paradise; Woody Harrelson as Dean Moriarty

Blood Meridian
Adapted from: the novel by Cormac McCarthy
Director: Terrence Malick
Cast: David Morse as The Judge

Seven Mountains
Adapted from: the biography of Thomas Merton by Michael Mott
Director: Jim Sheridan
Cast: Tim Roth as Thomas Merton

The Canterbury Tales
Adapted from: the novel by Geoffrey Chaucer
Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: everyone he ever used in the LOTR films and King Kong!

Benito Cereno
Adapted from: the short story by Herman Melville
Director: Ang Lee
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor; Djimon Hounsou; Roy Winstone

McTeague
Adapted from: the novel by Frank Norris
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman as McTeague

Weaveworld
Adapted from: the novel by Clive Barker
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: ???

Going Native
Adapted from: the novel by Stephen Wright
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Michael Keaton as Wylie

What would your choices be?? One could go on and on with this... I'll be interested to hear any responses readers may have!

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
-Mark Twain

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Duke Altum's Recommended Films

Monsters (2010) – As many have already said, calling Monsters a movie about an alien occupation of Earth seems to do this fascinating, original film a disservice. Certainly the fact that huge, bioluminescent squid-like extraterrestrials are running amok through the jungles of Central America is an important (and entertaining) element of the plot, but anyone coming into this one looking for non-stop, Aliens-style action or special effects eye candy a la the concurrent alien invasion flick Skyline is going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, what you have with Monsters is an intriguing and meditative hybrid of road movie, post-apocalyptic thriller and surprisingly believable human drama. Director Gareth Edwards wrote, edited and created special effects for the film on his own, which gave him the freedom to make exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make - that is, a love story that just happens to feature alien life forms ominously howling and lurking in the background (this approach, by the way, gives the film its pervasive suspense and intensity, as you are as in the dark as the characters are about when the next encounter with a pissed-off, tentacled alien might occur). The many scenes of unscripted, natural banter between the lead actors as they trek across the "infected zone" and get to know one another help you, crucially, to identify with them enough to care by the final act - which provides an unexpected, subtle twist that gives the entire story added poignancy and irony. I am sure that a great many viewers of this unusual film will come out feeling somewhere between perplexed and downright cheated, and Edwards does provide so little backstory about the aliens and what they might be up to that one may well wonder why they were in the movie at all (and, justifiably, why the film was ever called "Monsters"). But I found that their mysterious, vaguely menacing presence gave the entire story a kind of haunted and other-wordly atmosphere that reminded me a bit of the best bits of James Cameron's The Abyss. I guess you could say that early encounters with new life forms - like those with potential lovers - can be both exhilarating and weirdly disconcerting at the same time.