blood meridian: james franco's 30 minute test film

That book is also top 10 for me all time. Great in every single way.

 

This is a book that is largely un-filmable as a movie IMO, probably more so than any other. I figured the success of No Country would lead someone to try it though.

An HBO series on the other hand, that could work.

 

I'm currently reading the book for the first time. (don't know how it slipped past me all these years) I usually speed through books but this one is like a fine cigar. I just find myself lingering on pages and rereading passages. it's like western poetry. Magnificent.

 

It is probably my favorite book as well. I read it aloud sometimes, even just by myself, because the words are so beautiful. Kudos to Franco for the idea of putting a test together, but I think a movie would have to be wholly different.

First, you'd have to opt for something much more surreal and dream-like. as in the book, keep it in the kid's point of view as much as possible.

Second, the judge is absolutely critical. He cannot be an obviously so young an age, and he cannot have a southwestern accent. He needs to sound European or South American, etc.

Maybe the movie would benefit from a voice over narration, which I usually kind of despise, but Blood Meridian may need it, just for all the wonderful written language.

 

i think the more length you could have would help the book. so either about 5 hours worth of movie or i guess an hbo mini series.

might as well get as much of the book as possible in there.

 

That's exactly what I hope for, if they ever do it.

 

It would be really cool to see a well done movie/mini-series of this book. I don't know how it could be done, but I kept picturing it when I read the book.

I applaud any sincere attempt to make it, though I know it can never be as great as the book is.

I also agree that the Judge seemed to be younger than I pictured him. I imagined him as 70's era Marlon Brando not unlike his Kurtz character from Apocalypse Now.

I think it would take those kinds of acting chops to pull off the role in all its glory and I don't know who could do it now.

 

And with... Harvey Keitel as... the Judge.

j/k

Having trouble figuring out who could do it. Heisenberg? William hurt with a shaved head?

 

Maybe Gregory Peck

 

I think maybe Daniel Day Lewis could pull off the Judge if he put on some weight. He's pretty good in almost everything he does, and is fully committed to the characters he plays.

I haven't seen Johnny Depp play a judge type character but he has done well in a variety of roles. I guess he might be my second choice. Christian Bale might be an option as well.

 

Oh yeah, I could see Brynner doing that part. That would have been fun to see.

Yes, I read the border trilogy. I wasn't so fond of the movie. I didn't hate it. I just thought that while a lot of the parts were there, they didn't add up to the greatness of the book. It was a case of the whole being way more than the sum of the parts that were in the book.

I loved the border trilogy as well. Fantastic books.

Possible slight spoiler about my feelings on one of the books.

Spoiler

After reading the Crossing, I had to pause because I was so damned distraught and down.

 

Good god no!!!!!! Has anyone seen his butchering of Faulkner's 'As i Lay Dying'?

Typical Palo Alto cat, not as smart, worldly or talented as they think they are.

 

I really think it would be better for all of us if James Franco just didn't do this. Thanks in advance.

 

unless it's some way out psychedelic fantasy stuff i'd assume not unfilmable

 

Yeah, that's pretty natural, as a reaction. The book is about the absolute end of an era, the crushing march of time and would-be progress.

I was just reading the end of that book the other day, just to find some of the writing about change.

"... the past was little more than a dream and its force in the world greatly exaggerated. For the world was made new each day and it was only men's clinging to its vanished husks that could make of that world one husk more."