Comments on: Spinning ‘Cloud Atlas’: 5 Unfilmable Novels That Became Movies & 5 More On The Way

By: JD

JD — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

Love Cloud Atlas.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

I really loved Cloud Atlas. It is a shame that that film was not very well received and took such a financial beating. I thought it was beautiful, albeit a little longer (almost 3 hours) than I generally like a movie to be. They could have done some more editting without harming the multiple story lines. Even so, I am very fond of that movie and purchased the DVD for our video library.

By: DG

DG — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

I like James Franco but his As I Lay Dying will not be a good movie

By: DG

DG — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

Also my nominee for an unfilmable is Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson. You could film it but not in a recognizable way

By: DG

DG — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

Kubrick's Lolita has some things going for it but the reason it ultimately fails is because of the script, and how much of the book is left out (Humbert's murder attempt fantasy on Mrs. Haze for starters) and how much is changed (the weird scene between Humberto and Quilty at the Motel doesn't happen anything like that in the book, a change I think took place to give Peter Sellers a chance to do some energetic rambling). The craziest part of this of course is that Nabokov wrote the script! I just can't help but wonder how much of the changes were his idea and how much was studio input. I know that he wrote and burned several drafts of the book before his wife ultimately rescued what we have today, I wonder if maybe the script felt like a chance to take another crack at the story so he just reinterpreted it yet again?

By: tgbhy

tgbhy — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

Ender's Game is unfilmable? The thing literally reads like a screenplay. Schematic, generic, with easy characterizations and token characters — what about this doesn't scream adaptable? There's nothing about it that's particularly literary. Just a story. I'm surprised it wasn't made sooner

By: Wang

Wang — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

James Franco finished filming âAs I Lay Dyingâ earlier this monthâI canât imagine how theyâve managed to turn THAT into a movie. âMy mother is a fishâ indeed.

Just read something about the â50s version of The Sound and the Fury that made it sound like an awful, awful movie, more fake Tennessee Williams than Faulkner: http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2012/oct/18/essay-faulkner-film/

By: El Hanso

El Hanso — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

No book is unfilmable. People just need to get rid of the idea that a film could ever be the same experience like a book. Or the other way around. There are even films based on "Ulysses" or Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" (at least some chapters) and those books are even more impossible than any of the five films/books listed here. And as an adaptation they basically fail, probably had to fail, but if stripped from their connection with the source material the films might at least have some interesting ideas.

By: bapi

bapi — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay?

By: blauriche

blauriche — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

Having read NEVERENDING STORY in the original German, I actually feel like the film was relatively faithful to the book. I mean it's basically the first half of the book minus a few episodes. For me, the book read a lot like THE WIZARD OF OZ in that it's the story of a journey with all these little episodes that tickle the imagination. It's weird to learn that Ende sued over the film because my experience reading the book was mostly one of being surprised at how similar it was to the movie.

By: Drew

Drew — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:18:03 +0000

I'd add to the "unfilmable books that were made into movies" — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "Slaughterhouse Five," which everybody reads in college at one point or another. I thought George Roy Hill did a super job getting that tough one to the screen — wish it was re-released.