/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.579001]

Hey /lit/,
a thread about House of Leaves from a couple of days ago made me think about "unfilmable" books. I remember thinking that Toni Morrison's story "Recitatif" was impossible to be adapted on screen, at least not in a straightforward manner, because the whole point of the story is that we don't know which character is black and which one is white. Any thoughts, /lit/? What books would you consider unfilmable, if any? Finnegans Wake? House of Leaves? Catcher in the Rye (dohohoho)?

[Anonymous No.579075]

[Anonymous No.579113]

Naked Lunch in it's original "story"

[Anonymous No.579114]

I'm not even very far into it, but so far Gravity's Rainbow seems to be pretty close to unfilmable.

[Anonymous No.579120]

the list of infilmable books is sooo huge I don't see the point typing them out here.

[Anonymous No.579136]

>>579120
Well, what makes them unfilmable then?

[Anonymous No.579141]

Scroll.... lock?

[Anonymous No.579149]

i dont have an f14

[Anonymous No.579166]

>>579136
the fact that many books do not only live from the plot (which is something that is filmable) but from certain descriptions and thoughts that will be lost in an film adaptation.
in order to make a movie out of a book, the basics need to be able to be packed in 3 hours tops. whenever a integral part of a book is the contrasting of certain styles, when it is heavily intertextual or conveys hardly an interesting story at all but is interesting because of its psychology, then you will not be able to make a "true" adaptation.

[Anonymous No.579280]

>>579166
No adaptation is ever "true," that's obvious. Film and literature are two different modes of art, neither of which boils down to the simple story. You seem to imply that a film is little more than its plot and cannot convey the psychology of an individual.

[Anonymous No.579284]

>>579280
did not say that, but books are certainly more able to do that.
because they have more space available and they can actually give thoughts, film has to hint at them by showing them symbolically, which is harder because this might turn out unintelligible or overly obvious.

there are some good adaptations out there, even some that are very "true" indeed, but I think it is pointless to make lists of unfilmable books, because there are just so many of them.

[Anonymous No.579298]

>>579284
I used to think Elfriede Jelinek's prose was unfilmable because, after all, its language is probably the most interesting part of it. And yet, the film adaptation of The Piano Teacher has managed to capture the atmosphere of the book fairly well using the modes of expression available to films, like image and music. I think that either all books are unfilmable or none is.

[Anonymous No.579337]

wat about me?