Hello all, I have recently been completely enamored with Blood Meridian as a work of art, and have attempted to synthesize a movie trailer for it. I was particularly inspired after seeing Franco's adaptation of the gunpowder scene (I was appalled at how poorly it conveyed the atmosphere of the book).
I took 6 different movies and went through each one 3 seconds at a time, noted down scenes I thought I could use, and then strung some together to make a more cohesive whole. For music, I chose Swans, because their primal, chantlike, terrifying drones remind me of the vast American sunbaked waste that is so prominent in the book. I also chose to use a slightly (10%) toneshifted and trimmed version of the monologue on war that the Judge delivers , courtesy of the audiobook. I hope someone here likes it and can give some opinions on how close/far this hits the mark!
its a masterpeice of the highest order. thanks for sharing.
Hunter Diaz
The music is WAY too loud (seriously way too fucking loud) and the monologue could be edited down to be more "trailer-y" but great job
William Myers
>For music, I chose Swans Fucking incredible. I want source on all of that, user! Amazing shit! Im gonna turn off my adblocker just for you
Colton Brown
honestly, not bad. i truly love that book, it's one of my favorites.
what were your sources? i spotted apocalypse now the proposition bone tomahawk bury my heart at wounded knee(?)
well put together, though. i doubt we'll ever see an epic scale adaptation, but it's nice to dream.
Carter Baker
I imagine that if blood meridian really gets a proper film adaptation then swans' lunacy should be the trailer's theme
Mason Hall
Pretty well done, OP. I like it. Makes me wanna read the book again. Or see Malick tackle it with D'Onofrio as his Judge.
Good job.
Justin Phillips
I liked it. Well done OP.
Jason Smith
>malick
come on
Adam Thompson
i agree. however, i'd let andrew dominick take a crack at it.
maybe hillcoat.
it's not a deep roster of directors who i think could handle it. malick isn't one of them, unfortunately.
Kevin Baker
he hasn't done violence but his sense of natural grandeur and scale is unmatched and what an adaptation would need. yea the violent aspects are memorable but fleeting, most of the novel is nature/place/scope
Daniel Long
Thanks for the feedback y'all, it helps a lot. Yeah I mixed this terribly, no excuse. I'm going to work on mixing down the music when it gets intense. Thanks! I used:
Apocalypse Now The Proposition No Country for Old Men Assassination of Jesse James The Burrowers Bone Tomahawk
I should've used Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I was looking for something exactly like that, baka this exact combo has crossed my mind, and I want it. malick, refn, cuaron, with D'onofrio, plssssss
Swans lends themselves so well to this, it's incredible thanks babe
sources listed in comment above
Jacob Long
Oh yeah, why I said Malick, Refn, and Cuaron; I honestly think that one director, at least from what I've seen, doesn't have enough in each movie to make a whole. Hillcoat and Dominick would be great as well. It might be a case of too many cooks, but I really think that if a lot of these fantastic modern directors got together to brainstorm an epic, it could be amazing.
Nolan Harris
oh and this was an edited monologue, I'm still thinking that I left too much in
Austin Cooper
hillcoat is loosing his talent from what i've seen. he started very strong, then did good job with the road and then reached the "kinda ok" territory
Adrian Stewart
Actually pretty damn good, I felt like the music drowned out the speech at points but that was maybe intentional?
Brayden Sanders
As much as i'd love to see an adaptation for blood meridian I don't think it would ever come close to doing it justice. McCarthy's prose is what makes it great. How could you transpose that quasi-biblical turn of phrase to film?
Logan Peterson
no not intentional, i need to learn my mixing better
I think the story in itself is an epic. McCarthy's prose elevates that prose to biblical status, and so the same thing can similarly be done with cinematography (Deakins working with Malick, etc.)
Of course it's not the same, but it is possible to make something feel "epic" on screen, especially if the sound design/cinematography works with it. A lot of the book is devoted to lavishly describing landscape with said prose, which can be done with a camera/lighting/creativity to some degree.
Andrew Wood
how would you convey McCarthy's prose with film?
David Flores
Long, elegaic shots with loads of saturation, contrast, good lighting. When he describes the gang riding across a pumice field with blue lightning striking above, lighting up fantastic silhouettes, with the sparks grating from the horseshoes, it's all very filmable I think. McCarthy does a wonderful job of being descriptive, it's honestly like a cheat sheet for how to cut. The right kind of ambient music and sounds are also key (can you imagine some jangly banjo music going along with this, goddamn), which is why I chose Swans. It's not perfect, but it's what I'd try at least.
Aiden James
(oh hey OP didn't realise it was you, good job on the trailer!)
The shots you describe are what most people have in mind when they think of Blood Meridian on screen. The gratuitus violence and the unforgiving landscape in which it takes place is mouth watering when we think of transposing it to film. McCarthy spoils us in this sense.
However there is much more at play here.
Firstly is the absence of a protagonist. You could argue that the Kid could fill this role but what about the large parts of the book where he is never mentioned? The Judge is the most important character but that doesn't make him the protagonist nor should he be one in an adaptation for this reason.
Secondly is the pacing. It's all well and good to describe horrible scenes of violence with vivid attention to detail, but to depict it in film? Big risk of it simply turning into gore porn. The book is intoxicating with it's seemingly endless and remorseless violence but it gets away with it because it's a book.
Finally (and the main reason I believe it to be unfilmable) is once again the prose. McCarthy styled his writing on that of original translations of the Bible which itself was translated in a way to mimic ancient Hebrew. This is fundamental when analysing the text and something that simply can't be transposed directly to film.
Anyway this is all subjective of course! Here's a pretty good free lecture on the book with some key bits of info:
I've been meaning to watch that, thanks for linking it!
I wouldn't say what you wrote as subjective, those are objectively difficult things to deal with in making a movie like this!
I think that multiple people fill the role of protagonist to some degree or another, at multiple times. The Kid definitely (is supposed to execute a man, helps him hide, tries to save a woman near the end), Toadvine (pulls a gun on the Judge for scalping a child), Tobin (works with the kid), even Glanton to some extent (sends men after David Brown, will only have dinner with the governor if his men are present). This film is also about how all characters are antagonists as well, which can also be fed in. Essentially I don't think the lack of "main characters" is an issue, seeing as the story/landscape itself is a character, and the progression of events is actually pretty logical and flows well (kid alone -> kid meets up with white's gang -> massacre of white's gang -> kid meets up with Glanton's gang -> Glanton's gang is hired to protect Mexicans -> Glanton gang is shown to be brutal and indiscriminate in violence -> Glanton gang is initially well received by the towns, but as their notoriety spreads people are more and more fearful of them -> Eventually the Glanton gang goes too far and is massacred -> Kid goes it alone -> Time passes -> Scene near the end). The story stands up without a main character to prop it up, so many elements (the judge, the kid, the glanton gang, the landscape, the violence) serve to keep up a cohesive whole.
Pacing is definitely an issue, Blood Meridian seems to wallow in violence, but surprisingly in the book (at least to me) there aren't THAT many intensely gory scenes. The scary part is how the indifference to the violence. It must be made part of the background and landscape not necessarily by showing it in graphic detail, but by having the characters be entirely indifferent while it's happening and to have it as a constant presence.
David Allen
As for the Biblical nature of the prose, I must admit that's something that may be eviscerated upon translation to cinema. The characters, besides the Judge, don't talk in this tone at all, and to have them all speak like that would be pretty silly and hard to do right. I honestly have no idea how to properly represent that.
Thanks for the discussion too, really makes u think
Hunter Brooks
Very good. The part with Kurtz is a little jarring though because it's so iconic.
Chase Harris
I should retract what I said about there being no main character, that's a non issue. You made me think about Malicks Thin Red Line where there are no main characters but rather the situation they are in is used to convey Malicks message - the same could be done with Blood Meridian. I always say that a film has successfully adapted a book if it captures it's essence i.e if you felt the same way after seeing the film when you read the book. Doing that for Blood Meridian would be tricky.
