23 Comments

1. January 4th, 2011 / 1:58 am Hank—

   I want “Blood Meridian” to either be animated in the style of Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly” and “Waking Life” (but not directed by Linklater) or directed by David Lynch (who should also adapt either “The Crying of Lot 49” or “Inherent Vice”). I know that none of this will ever happen.

2. January 4th, 2011 / 3:01 am c2k—

   This from an interview in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), a couple of years ago:

   WSJ: People have said “Blood Meridian” is unfilmable because of the sheer darkness and violence of the story.

   CMcC: That’s all crap. The fact that’s it’s a bleak and bloody story has nothing to do with whether or not you can put it on the screen. That’s not the issue. The issue is it would be very difficult to do and would require someone with a bountiful imagination and a lot of balls*. But the payoff could be extraordinary.

   *James Franco?

3. January 4th, 2011 / 4:04 am Trey—

   I want to not be negative about this but I also want james franco to not shit all over faulkner. franco is really starting to epitomize that saying, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” seems like he’s got some taste but also seems bent on destroying everything in his path. dang.

4. January 4th, 2011 / 4:04 am Trey—

   I want to not be negative about this but I also want james franco to not shit all over faulkner. franco is really starting to epitomize that saying, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” seems like he’s got some taste but also seems bent on destroying everything in his path. dang.

5. January 4th, 2011 / 4:56 am Tim Horvath—

   Here’s my screenplay for Blood Meridian: the words of the novel Blood Meridian scroll slowly up the screen at a pace where I can read them. I want to see all the action–the kerning, the granules of the letters, the serifs riding into town, the “somnolent pueblo getting forthwith dragooned into a weltering shambles.” The Best Supporting Actor might be the drop cap “W” for Chapter V. That’s it….all 337 pages, unabating. I promise you I will sit there eating a large popcorn and enjoying the cinematography.

6. January 4th, 2011 / 5:58 am Justin—

   That was a great interview and I totally agree with the sentiment. James Franco is no director, at least not yet. I don’t have a rosy view on his prowess in terms of art goes (acting, writing, etc.), but I won’t say, “he can’t do anything at all.” However, until he proves that he can actually direct and has the ability to pull this off, I’m going to be fearful that “Blood Meridian” will get mishandled.

7. January 4th, 2011 / 6:19 am Sara—

   Dear Hollywood:

   Not every piece of literature needs to be a movie.

   Dear James Franco:

   Exactly what are you trying to prove here?

8. January 4th, 2011 / 6:21 am andrewworthington—

   i dont really care for james franco. i like some of his movies, but think his whole “getting ten different MFA degree” thing is kind of ridiculous. i would not look forward to any such adaptations but would probably still see them, at least on my computer. also, the link is taking a while to load on my comp so im not sure if this is a joke as i am typing this, although i would be very ok if it was a joke….

9. January 4th, 2011 / 12:31 pm Tomk—

   As i lay dying….i’m kinda suprised anyone would think it filmable, let alone a long standing ‘hollywood commodity’. You exteriorise that narrative into visible symbol…it’s not workable, the narrative ‘events’ of it are pretty plain and average. That book is rooted in the internal, shifting perspectives of it’s multiple narrators…excise that and you’ve got next to nothing of real interest.

   James Franco seems alright to me and even if those films do get made and suck, it aint going to ruin the books none. If he does something interesting with em… i dunno even why im commenting.

10. January 4th, 2011 / 3:15 pm Kyle Minor—

    I think it’s awesome that James Franco wants to use his newly acquired power to do things that matter, instead of just leveraging it for money. Hooray for James Franco, I’d say.

11. January 4th, 2011 / 3:34 pm c2k—

    I agree – in that I’d like to see him use his power, if that’s what it is, to produce (create) a lasting, artful film. That would be a novelty in itself in recent US cinematics.

    Personally, I don’t have a yearning to see either of these books filmed, nor any other specific novel for that matter. But if he can do it with one or both of these works, then (pun alert) all the power.

12. January 4th, 2011 / 3:43 pm Jack M—

    Great idea to do both novels as films, but the chance of pissing off those readers devoted to both books is quite high.

13. January 4th, 2011 / 4:39 pm Charles Dodd White—

    I would like to see Terence Malick do AS I LAY DYING and Werner Herzog do BLOOD MERIDIAN.

14. January 4th, 2011 / 5:20 pm letters journal—

    I want to see Michael Bay do everything but really really big and less plot.

15. January 4th, 2011 / 5:48 pm Eric—

    I’m curious to see how he handled “The Broken Tower.”

    Also, Gaspar Noé to direct Blood Meridian.

16. January 4th, 2011 / 5:50 pm Luke—

    How dare you doubt Franco’s directing ability. Perhaps you’ve never seen this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I1b61DVgog

17. January 4th, 2011 / 7:13 pm Jack M—

    Maybe the Coen Brothers for As I Lay Dying?

18. January 5th, 2011 / 1:05 am jh—

    Tommy Lee Jones to direct Blood Meridian, for sure.

19. January 5th, 2011 / 3:42 am phmadore—

    James Franco is a good person. Hopefully the movies are good.

20. January 5th, 2011 / 4:23 am MFBomb—

    Does anyone honestly think that Franco has the ability to direct an adaptation of “As I Lay Dying”?

    This is the same novel that has a one sentence chapter that reads, “My mother is a fish.”

    There is no way in hell that Franco will do anything interesting or compelling here. Have you all read his fiction? No vision, no ambition, nothing. He’s a dilettante, not someone who is taking advantage of his standing or power in meaningful ways.

21. January 5th, 2011 / 6:48 pm Lincoln Michel—

    I think he is getting like 10 different degrees in different fields. Like a PhD in English at Yale, studied film at NYU, writing at Columbia (and Brooklyn?), etc.

    Not that that isn’t still crazy. But whatever, I’d rather my celebrities be going nuts promoting writing and art instead of whatever shit they normally do to get in the news.

22. January 5th, 2011 / 6:51 pm Lincoln Michel—

    Not to defend Franco or not, but I bet it is possible to be a great director and a poor fiction writer. Not that Franco is a great director, I dunno, I guess we’d have to see the Hart Crane film he did to get an idea.

23. January 6th, 2011 / 1:51 am deadgod—

    Now driving in a wild frieze of headlong horses with eyes walled and teeth cropped and naked riders with clusters of arrows clenched in their jaws and their shields winking in the dust and up the far side of the ruined ranks in a piping of boneflutes and dropping down off the sides of their mounts with one heel hung in the withers strap and their short bows flexing beneath the outstretched necks of the ponies until they had circled the company and cut their ranks in two and then rising up again like funhouse figures, some with nightmare faces painted on their breasts, riding down the unhorsed Saxons and spearing and clubbing them and leaping from their mounts with knives and running about on the ground with a peculiar bandylegged trot like creatures driven to alien forms of locomotion and stripping the clothes from the dead and seizing them up by the hair and passing their blades about the skulls of the living and the dead alike and snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies, ripping off limbs, heads, gutting the strange white torsos and holding up great handfuls of viscera, genitals, some of the savages so slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs and some who fell upon the dying and sodomized them with loud cries to their fellows.

    [. . . okay: lights! camera! … and –]