4. Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
How can you tell Cormac McCarthys Blood Meridian is unfilmable? Because theyve already made films out of all his other books. No Country For Old Men, All the Pretty Horses, even the unfilmable The Road have all been made to critical success. So whats so hard with Blood Meridian? Blood Meridian is an ultra-violent Western set during the mid-1800s. It follows the Kid, the murderous though enigmatic protagonist of the story, who glides from one gang of scalp-hunters to the next. These Apache-slayers are paid per scalp but eventually turn their violence on natives and settlers alike in something akin to an anarchic genocide. The Kid shows no remorse for his actions, and McCarthy offers no insights into his motivations beyond the financial. Whats all so unfilmable about this? Well, movie theory stipulates that the protagonist need not be likeable but that they should be understandable; empathy if not sympathy runs the movie mantra. This is so the audience can connect to the story on some level. But that option isnt really on the cards here if the film is to be a true adaptation of the book. And if certain changes are made to The Kids character,that would detract heavily from the novels successful presentation of The Kid as this unknowable, yet engrossing, force of nature. Still, anything with based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy is likely to do well at the Box Office. And The Road film adaptation was also a huge surprise. However, its fair to say the film version of The Road lacked most of the atmosphere the book contained, and no camera angles of post-apocalyptic desolation can match McCarthys sinister, stripped-down style of prose. Another issue with Blood Meridian is that Hollywood tends not to go for kids being excessively violent in its films. The Kids age may have to be tinkered with but it is the very youthfulness of The Kid which makes Blood Meridian such a brutal story. McCarthy, at least, offers almost no interior monologue for The Kid and we only learn of what he is thinking through his actions, which is a real bonus for the film adaptation in its visual need to show and not tell the conflict via action. Also, James Franco has expressed an interest in a film adaptation. But with Blood Meridian a kind of Lost in La Mancha-meets- Mad Max, this is one McCarthy novel unlikely to hit the screens soon.