Sunday, May 20, 2007
THOSE ASPECTS OF A GOOD TRANSLATION NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE ORIGINAL
posted 8:20 PM
Cory goes on to make a point I had originally intended to make myself: "Books, by and large, don't make very good movies (how many great film adaptations of novels can you think of that were true to the original that were worth seeing? How many total, utter disappointments can you recall?)"
Exactly. My idea of a really great novel-into-film adaptation would be Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic into Tarkovsky's Stalker. Loose. Very. Genius. And Roadside Picnic is a *very* short novel. I suspect that, to the very dubious extent that good films are ever really "made from" prose fiction, the likeliest candidates in sf are short stories.
Standard length for a Hollywood screenplay: 120 pages. Lots of white space on those pages.
I'VE FORGOTTEN MORE NEUROMANCER FILM DEALS THAN YOU'VE EVER HEARD OF
posted 3:45 PM
Word from the Croisette has some of our posters gnashing their teeth at the possibility that someone who's made Britney vids might attempt a feature film of Neuromancer.
Discussing said possibility, earlier today, with Cory Doctorow, he said:
"I've noticed that everything in Hollywood always appears to be in a liminal state of nearly there, with enormous, gallumphing enthusiasm all around, then long periods of indifference. I get almost weekly calls about the amazing things that are just about to happen for me. I go to studio meetings with people who tell me about the amazing things we'll do together. Somehow, nothing much comes of it... It reminds me a little of bubble-era tech entrepreneurs, especially the business development people who always seemed about to close a GIANT DEAL."
If you're a novelist, or hope one day to be, and haven't yet had a film option, I suggest you remember that. It's as concise and accurate a description of this very liminal business as you're ever likely to run across.
Myself, I'll be willing to entertain the idea that Neuromancer is really "headed for the big screen" when I'm watching it being shot
As the old saying goes, I'll believe it when I see it.
I *do* believe, though, that Peter Weir will not be going forward with Pattern Recognition. That is one utterly solid little factoid of film news, alas.
I no longer get very wrought up over the liminals, myself, except to be annoyed by people who seem to assume that feature films are the ultimate stage of novelistic creation, thereby relegating the book to the status of dull gray chrysalis.
