{"id":153815,"date":"2024-06-27T17:41:07","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T16:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centmagazine.co.uk\/?p=153815"},"modified":"2024-06-28T17:48:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T16:48:44","slug":"did-you-know-unfilmable-books-become-cult-classic-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.centmagazine.co.uk\/?p=153815","title":{"rendered":"Did you Know? ‘Unfilmable’ Books Become Cult Classic Films"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It may seem obvious but books and films are two very different beasts. What works in the sedentary world of reading, along with your imagination could not be more different to a medium, that delivers short, visuals that dictate the visual to a captive audience. Yet many films start as books, and some of the most extreme of them would never have been expected to make it to celluloid yet they did. Whereas others started to go through the processor being made into a film but never made the full journey. Even some books made it to film yet never got printed to begin with. Find out. more in Did you Know? Unfilmable Books Become Cult Classics<\/em> Films<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books and the idea of reaching and sharing information have been around for thousands of years. Before we had images created for us, books allowed us to utilise our imaginations. Photography films and TV brought a new dimension to fiction or non-fiction storytelling. Images ended up most of the time being far wilder than most of our imaginations could muster. But interestingly it has been fiction and non-fiction writing that has been the source for so many films over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of these books have been so extreme or unusual that you would never imagine they could be made into films. Yet they were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.\u201d <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stanley Kubrick<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly some great books never get turned into films, they start on the journey of being turned into a film and even get taken part the way but end up as unrealized productions. Perhaps some adaptations are not so much \u2018unfilmable\u2019 but defy conventions and so become a challenging starting point for any production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against the Grain, <\/a><\/strong>the French director Luis Bu\u00f1uel and Jean-Claude Carri\u00e8re completed an adaptation of the infamous novel by Huysman but Bu\u00f1uel concluded in the end that the project would be \u201ctoo difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A Confederacy of Dunces<\/strong>, in the 1980s the alternative filmmaker John Waters<\/a>, created an adaptation of the novel by John Kennedy Toole about a corpulent, flatulent, overweight and unemployed thirty-year-old with a degree in Medieval history. The main role was even considered for John Belushi, John Candy, and Chris Farley, all of whom died before anything could be realized. Waters wanted the part for Divine before his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are the books that filmmakers are willing to take risks making the films their own. Books that on the surface can’t be seen as easily adaptable from one genre into another, need brave directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of say A Clockwork Orange<\/a><\/strong> Stanley Kubrick\u2019s notorious rendition of Anthony Burgess\u2019 1962 novel, where the spoken words in the book named Nadsat, didn’t even exist as a language in UK, let alone a futuristic society. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A malevolent and morally ambiguous central character, Alex and his Droogs (friends) are impulsive sociopaths. The film follows their diabolical viscous antisocial behaviour. Yet the filmmaker, at the time never shielded away or skirted around anything deemed at that point in polite society as \u2018problematic\u2019. The book? A hard read, and harder film to watch but worth it. It is interesting and shocking to know the film was commercially successful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you Know? Unfilmable bookscan can become cult classic films, there are the lesser-known little secrets within the film world. Some books that made it to the world of cinema never were actually published. Take the British black comedy cult classic Withnail and I from 1987. A little irony about this is the words from the film are often quoted yet the book the film was based on never made it to commercial print and was almost lost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n