Blood Meridian

You've been given the grueling task of adapting Blood Meridian into an HBO miniseries. With no restraint or censorship, you have to determine who to cast, how many episodes to make it, and what to cut/expand upon as well as make stylistic and tonal decisions. What do?

Other urls found in this thread:

litcharts.com/lit/blood-meridian/chapter-23
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Pale_Light_in_the_West
youtube.com/watch?v=9pXp_XVEvKs
youtu.be/ng7gCBy81x4?t=452
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

It's just kids getting raped and killed in a room by a big naked man with no hair painted white, balls swinging, kids crying for 2h.

The Judge looks like the engineers from Prometheus

Excellent book, except for the fact that they would never have been able to make gunpowder like that.

I'd begin the grueling task of learning to read ;_;

I feel like it would be best pulled off animated tbqh

fpbp

the kid/man is now a black woman

>Finally read it last month
>Edge: The book

No wonder it's so loved here.

the Judge is no longer totally bald - he now looks EXACTLY like Donald J Trump - it could even be a CGI clone like Liea in Rogue one.

I'd set it during WWII, and instead of the Glanton Gang it would be a rogue SS unit massacring villages across Eastern Europe at will

Fuck, that's actually a pretty good idea. Hollywood would love it too

>the judge
John Goodman, like ending of Barton Fink Goodman
>glanton
Frank Grillo
>the kid
Some 14 year old
>toadvine
No idea
>the preacher (?)
Edward Norton

Hard to film blood meridian without expanding the dialogue to include constant exposition and motivation. Which ruins the book. You'd have more luck and success filming the border Trilogy.
>t. 19th century gun powder and guano expert

Cast Jake Paul as the kid

>Not understanding that many events in the novel are based on real events

>t.noguns faggot who doesn't even know the difference between black and smokeless powder

I don't care.

>contrarion: the post
Op: "WTF is this trash? There's not a single explosion and the judges superpowers were poorly defined."

WWII is overused. A Viet Cong unit, mercenaries in the Angolan Civil War, or the Kosovo War would be more interesting.

Let me guess, you whined about Doss kicking away the grenade in Hacksaw Ridge?

Pretty great casting choices right here. Personally always picture Glanton as a dark-haired Barry Pepper, but agree with everything else. Maybe throw in Josh Brolin for Toadvine and Tommy Lee Jones as Cpt. White

The beauty of the novel is within the sounds of the words, not the plot.

Nigga do you know who you fuckin' wit?
Ice cube is the lick, Westside is the click
Can't get enough of this gangsta shit

Hacksaw Ridge was a completely terrible movie but at least it didn't pretend to be edgy.

If they expect me to believe that he never fired a weapon while saving all those men though? No chance.

The plot was garbage that's why. The book may be beautifully written but that's meaningless.

This. The novel could have almost been about anything. People like it cause of the raw beauty of the writing.

I like a Tommy Lee Jones cpt. White. I can picture his pickled head in a jar. Ben foster from 30 days of night for toadvine.
pic related

I think it would work because the German perspective is still very rare, especially the SS specifically, in English-speaking media. It's also harder to identify with both the protagonists(?) and their victims if they and their settings are completely removed from the audience, ie southeast Asians or Africans, compared to the more familiar and emotionally charged European conflicts. A large-scale apocalyptic setting would work in a jungle but there are already tons of movies dealing with jungle villages being burned, especially in Vietnam.

Oh yeah, that'd be perfect for toadvine
That's why I feel it would work best as an animated film. Like a series of moving paintings

Both the eastern front and Vietnam are pretty underutilized. Both would require pretty large budgets and be pretty tough shoots, but both would also be fantastic

it would work better as a 6 hour film than a weekly episodic series desu

12 episodes an hour long.

Excellent idea for an adaptation. I think otherwise it would look to much like The Revenant at times.
Great follow up. I second the Angolan civil war. It's not as well known, way less used. And African wars are fucking brutal.

The tone would be similar to blood diamond. The style would be something akin to a Paul Verhoeven film in terms of displaying violence.

Director: Kathryn Bigelow. She doesn't shy away from violence.

Judge: ving raymes. The character is educated abroad and returns to Angola as a mercenary.

Glanton: josh brolin.

Tobin: Gary oldman. Not a priest but a former military Chaplin.

Toadvine: Idris Elba.

The kid: John Boyega. A former child soldier that escaped his captors.

I'm really not tied to any of the cast too much. So long as a few of them are black.

>Episode 1(double sized)
Kid's misadventures through chapters one and two and then his time in the army, ending with the massacre
>Episode 2
Begins with the kid crawling away from the massacre and ends with him joining the gang
>Episode 3
The gang's misadventures in Mexico
>Episode 4
Everything with the Yuma's
>Episode 5
The kid's evasion from the judge and post gang life
>Episode 6
The man

The movie would just be the revenant meets apocalypse now, not saying thats a bad thing but if you basically just ripped off both those movies itd turn out fine visually

>Director: Kathryn Bigelow.
lol stopped reading right there. bigelow is a propaganda promoter and not to mention a fucking woman. women dont understand literature

I thought you were simply giving it the liberal treatment. But, shit son, they'd never let you portray Africans as violently as a blood meridian adaptation would require.

>The book may be beautifully written but that's meaningless.
How the fuck is that meaningless if that's the entire purpose of the work you fag

Call me a pleb but I think after watching taboo Tom Hardy is the only person (at least that I can think of) who could pull off The Judge.

Why does he do it for? And why does it seem nobody cares?

Can someone explain the ending? Does the Kid rape and kill the bear girl? Is that why the Judge embraces him?

It is meaningless. Beauty is completely meaningless. It's the most meaningless thing in the world.

A beautiful letter, poem, painting, book, verse, artwork, woman, man, sculpture, timepiece, trinket, road network, weapon, speech, song, dress, concept, all of it is vanity and vanity is meaningless.

Not big enough 4u

I always thought The Judge rapes and kills them both but maybe I'm wrong.

Several children disappear or die while the kid is present throughout the book. The Judge also tells the kid he's the only one that's dishonest about his depravity. So yes my opinion is that the kid rapes and murders bear girl. The men that find her are shocked because child rape is the only taboo violence not already explored elsewhere in the story.

>all of it is vanity and vanity is meaningless
Both of these are completely baseless and wrong. Art exists and has meaning to everyone on the planet except people with debilitating autism.

It's a reference to Paradise Lost you cunt.

litcharts.com/lit/blood-meridian/chapter-23

You thinking it meaningless is meaningless. What isn't meaningless? That said people happen to enjoy beauty so who gives a fuck.

Nah man. I'm not a SJW but I'm not a Sup Forumstard either. Look if you're gonna make a movie about a war in Africa you need realism. If it was in Kosovo I would ask for serbs or slavs.

I dare anyone to tell me he wouldn't be a P E R F E C T toadvine so that the rest of us can laugh at you.

that makeup is genuinely unsettling

The director is not the screen writer.

Vanity is meaningless. There's nothing to be gained from it at all. No knowledge, no wisdom, no nourishment. It's all just meaningless pursuit of surface attractions. And even then most knowledge is meaningless, and wisdom is often wasted on the undeserving, making it meaningless too.

Fucks are given for many meaningless things. This thread is living proof of that.

No soundtrack whatsoever.

she is an awful director

The Judge is the devil and he couldn't corrupt the man, who dared to defy him. The kid for that matter was an experiment in a sense and it didn't turn out like the Judge wanted, which is partially he killed the kid after he became the man, because the coin had fallen. There was no corrupting the man, he was better than the Judge, and he couldn't stand it. In a sense the kid was a rebel like himself, but he took his freedom and got right with god instead of trying to corrupt the creation through his persuit for more power. Like using your knowledge to make gun powder.

I think it would be cool if these songs were somehow incorporated into the ending credits.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Pale_Light_in_the_West

Idris Elba plays the Judge. He's so sexy.

pls explain. Genuinely curious to hear your rationale.

Wow guy you're really convincing
I guess all of life is a massive sham and good things just don't exist
Santa's not even real whoa

blood meridian is 368 pages. it doesn't need a miniseries.

The only thing I know exactly what I would want to do is use stop motion puppets similar to Laika and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

>the only actor that could have pulled off judgekino is dead

So, who was everyone's favorite character? I liked Glanton and the Judge is generally enthralling.

It's hard to choose a favorite clnsidering they're all pieces of shit. Also whatever happened to Tobin the expriest? He just disappears.

I feel a water color-style animation would be more fitting. Give it the look and mood of a fever dream

He died. The judge tells the Kid in the last chapter that they're the only ones left

Michael Clarke Duncan could have been a perfect black Judge.

The Judge is the most interesting by far.

1. The Judge doesn't seem to be human
2. Why would anyone try to stop him
3. Because he can.

John Carroll Lynch is the only living Judge

Glanton easily was the most interesting in my opinion. As enthralling as the judge was, Glanton was so human yet monsterous at the same time, I could never put the book down when the focus was on him

I disagree totally. Not because of his skin color but because I don't think he could exude that atmosphere of evil.

I know. RIP.

Holy shit he would have been perfect.

I think a soundtrack would be doable if it were more ambient and less structured, but with a tone that fits the setting.
youtube.com/watch?v=9pXp_XVEvKs
youtu.be/ng7gCBy81x4?t=452

...

I agree with this guy. He'd feel like a angry gangsta not mad

He's black and the Judge is a bad guy. So he must be white.

William Friedkin could have pulled off a great Blood Meridian film in the 80s. I dunno about current Friedkin though. Bug and Killer Joe were good, but it's been a while since he pulled off a large scale film.

No one here ever believes I had an hour long discussion with Tommy Lee Jones in which we spoke about this. He said "I told them the screenplay would be the book"

propaganda machine

I liked Toadvine because he was more sympathetic than the others. Specifically when the gang is about to massacre the peaceful Indians, he's the only one who speaks up to Glanton, telling him they're harmless. It's a human element almost everyone else in the story is missing and contrasts heavily.

>they find a child the Judge murdered and ride out of town
>straight up surf rock bullshit starts playing

hahahahaha jesus fucking christ.

Something along the lines of Penderecki might fit with the bleak fire and brimstone mood of BM. It would be pretty tough to find a living composer capable of tackling it

I liked Glanton a lot too but people almost never talk about him. There was a part near the end where he was staring at the fire and it said he would drive the sun away if he had to

It reminded me of Ahab from Moby Dick

What happened, did he have a stroke at taco bell and the ambulance was stuck in traffic?

?
I didn't post the fucking Beach Boys you mongoloid

I'm not that user and I wouldn't consider Bigelow an "awful" director, but she could never do Blood Meridian justice. She traffics in a type of "gritty" action that's still way too sterile for a work like BM. A good adaptation would not be an action movie.

Always saw Sam Rockwell as Toadvine

Agreed. The more I think of that casting the more I like it.

continue....

I just really want to know what happens inside your head that makes you think that second song you posted would be anything other than hilariously immersion breaking in a Blood Meridian adaptation. The first one isn't as much of an absurdly bad choice, but way too generic.

I also gained more respect for him when he didn't abandon the kid in the desert. He had a sense of loyalty that was missing from all others bar The Kid
That segment of him by the fire was one of my favorites, one of the few genuinely human moments in the story

Did he want to direct it?

I mean that does happen a few times, but I remember it being mostly about frontier landscapes.

The Judge is creating and documenting America and America will brook no weakness.

he would've been perfect, but alas

Sam Rockwell fits the bill for Toadvine. I used to think Joseph Gordon Levitt could play a good Toadvine if he could conjure up the side of himself you see in Hesher and Mysterious Skin, but the guy has gotten way too buttoned down and it seems like he could never accurately play that type of role again

Maybe. I feel like you need the sterility though. The action in the book is reported on like news. Just saying what happened. I feel like "dirtying" it would be like the director saying this is bad. The audience should figure that out themselves. But good point still. Any thoughts on a substitute?

Uh, fuck. I just realized America might be Pandemonium in that sense. Would explain the Paradise Lost angle.

In Paradise Lost Lucifer teaches the fallen angels how to make gun powder.

A younger Keith David would have made a good African Judge. Maybe we can pump him full of roids.

Otherwise we can just give him a bit part as Jonas Savimbi

It's a brooding, dark piece with an unsettling drone and an acoustic guitar foreground that would fit in with the setting. Certainly it wouldn't fit in with the story's darkest moments but it wouldn't be out of place tonally at all. Calling it "surf rock" makes no sense.