Tuesday, 19 May 2009

• Currently Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (Modern Library) By Cormac McCarthy see related

  Words worth a thousand images

  I just saw the new trailer for "The Road" based on Cormac McCarthy's book.  I never judge a movie based on the trailer, but I do have to say I am a little bewildered by the mere idea to make this book into a movie.  Don't get me wrong -- I am a big fan of McCarthy (and was before "The Road" came out).  I am also a big fan of post-apocalypse movies.  So shouldn't this be right up my alley?  Plot-wise, sure.  But McCarthy's least spectacular talents lie in the area of plot formation.  Sure, he's decent in moving the story forward.  But his real genius lies in word-crafting -- particularly descriptions and inner monologues.  These are things that do not translate to the screen well.

  
  The basic plot of the story (parent & child survive disaster, parent loses hope but hangs on long enough to provide a safe future for his child) has been done a million times, both with and without a worldwide apocalyptic twist.  It is not a bad story.  Like the monomyth, its the kind of tale that can be told over and over and still resonate with our souls.  But the plot in itself is simple, and the problem is plot is really the only thing that movies do right.

  
  I'm not knocking cinema.  I love films and feel in some ways they are a lot more relevent to modern society than any recently published book.  But movies hang on sudden plot twists and unexpected reveals.  These are things that work better in movies than in even the best W.W. Jacobs stories.  When it comes to expressing a state of mind, a view of the world, a sense of the future -- movies are very clunky about these things and usually have to resort to visual allegories to get the point across, cliche symbols that would be dismissed as obvious and overused if they were in written form.  Without the author subtly guiding the description to leave clues about a deeper significance, a barren wasteland is just a barren wasteland -- capable of evoking little more than a general sense of despair.  In such instance, a word can be worth a thousand images.

  
  People often say not to worry about movie versions, because the original book still stands beside it.  For authors like Tolkien, whose genius lies in bold, verbose dialogue and stunning plotlines, I agree.  He is too strong a voice to be wiped out by any alternative version.  But I worry for authors like McCormac, whose genius lies in a much more subtle language of mental starkness.  The film will undoubtablyh have no problem precisely recreating the book's simple plot, but in being able to so accurately capture the external and less important aspects of the narrative, it may completely overwrite the story in the minds of the audience, replacing a small heart-wrenching fable with a grand sci-fi extravaganza.

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