Un-filmable Books?
A cinema programme was sent to me by a friend, announcing a weekend of three films made on ‘unfilmable books’. The three that were offered were:
- Lolita, by Stanley Kubrick in 1962 on Vladimir Nabokov’s book
- American Psycho, by Mary Harron in 2000, based on the 1990’s cult novel of Bret Easton Ellis
- Where the Wild Things Are, by Spike Jonze, made in 2009 and based on the 1963 children book by Maurice Sendak
I have been working on a list of so-called unfilmable books before, trying to find good examples of how film and literature can inspire and illuminate one another as two different art forms. Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was certainly one of them I listed. I was not acquainted with Sendak’s book, so I never thought about the connection with the book.
I would add:
- Cloud Atlas, book by David Mitchell, filmed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis (of Matrix) – (2012)
- Life of Pi, book by Yann Martel, filmed by Ang Lee (2012)
- Naked Lunch, book by William S. Burroughs, Filmed by David Cronenberg (1991)
- Slaughterhouse Five, book by Kurt Vonnegut, filmed by George Roy Hill (1972)
- Dune, book by Frank Herbert, filmed by David Lynch (1984)
- Catch 22, book by Joseph Heller, filmed by Mike Nichols (1970)
- Wise Blood, book by Flannery O’Connor, filmed by John Huston (1979)
Furthermore, the film adaptations of books by the most famous “stream of consciousness” writers deserve a place on the list. They pose the question of how do you film a story inside a character’s head. The ones that have urged me to either read the book or see the film are:
- Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, filmed by Marleen Gorris (1997)
- Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, made into a movie by Sally Potter (1992)
- As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, filmed by James Franco (2013)
- The Dead, short story from Dubliners by James Joyce, filmed by John Huston (1987)
There is certainly more creative work to be done with this theme and I invite our readers to comment and add to this list. Or to share a favorite book title that they consider as unfilmable.
Rinus, July 2021
*image posted for non commercial purposes under ‘fair use’ of copyright material in recommendation of the film
6 Comments
Submit a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Recent Posts
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
The Korean writer Hwang Bo-Reum has previously written several essay collections. This is her first novel. The book’s protagonist Yeongju did everything she was supposed to do: Go to university, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. Burned out, she abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career and starts to follow her dream. She opens a bookshop.
The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
The Music of Bees, debut novel by Eileen Garvin, is a thoughtful, life-affirming story that invites the reader to consider the healing power of community. It is present day rural Oregon; a region dotted with fruit farms as well as other agricultural endeavors.
Films with a Common Theme: Difficulty in Close Relationships
The past week I happened to see three 2025 films that had in common the theme of pains and deficits in close relationships…
What is it, do you think, that makes a book ‘unfilmable’? the limitations of special effects? the sensitivity of the subject matter? the inability to do justice to what can be imagined within the mind of a reader? …
Interesting questions! Books of world literature that have been difficult to make film of are Dylan Thomas’ The White Hotel, Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Hundred Years of Solitude and James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Those are at least a few I can think of. One or two have made into a TV series, but none of them with great success. The reason can be that the book contains so many people and so much intrigue that it is difficult to make it into an integrated story for film (Hundred Years of Solitude?). Another reason is, as you mention, that the book mostly describes what is happening in the mind (partly subconscious) of the protagonist, which is difficult to make an engaging film of! (Finnegan’s Wake?).
It has also been said that the books of Ernest Hemingway are difficult to turn into film. Hemingway’s prose is so dependent on what was not said and again, that is difficult to make film of! The short stories of Hemingway have been better film material than his novels. (f.ex. Stanley Kubrick’s The Killers). Maybe in general does the structure of a short story fit better for a film than a novel?
‘Life of Pi’ was a book I delighted in whilst reading, and I did think ‘how on earth can they translate this into a film’. Having seen the film I think they did a good job of this ‘impossible’ task.
Are there any films that you think don’t do justice to the original book and should have remained ‘unfilmed’?
There must be many films we can come up with that have disappointed us seeing it after having read the book. If that means that they should never have been made into film is another question. Maybe they haven’t found yet the director they deserve and who can find the right tone and story?
For me one notable success story was the Lord of the Rings trilogy. As with Hemingway, forming a script from the writings of Tolkien was, I’m sure, a big challenge, given how stylized and particular his language is. The films contain many direct quotations from the books, and adhere pretty closely to the literary plot, but somehow Peter Jackson and his team was able to translate, for me, the feel of things on a page onto a screen very effectively. The tone, the character, even with all the new dialogue, resonated as authentic visual representations of the story. I knew the books well, and loved them. I also loved the films, though they weren’t as perfect, for me, as the books.
I run into the same issue when trying to translate ideas, feelings from other art forms into music. The transposition can’t be direct – the media are too different. The basic organizing principles are the same in terms of repetition and contrast, dramatic tension and release, but the elements are different. Films and books share words, but visual elements have their own meaning beyond language. Somehow the words and images must be unified in their feel.
As I said above, as a musician I try to capture the feeling of the source material while understanding the differences between the contexts. It takes a big imaginative investment to find ways of translating that work.