While browsing through the forums I was delighted to find the beginnings of a discussion about something that had crossed my mind as I read: would it be possible to make a movie out of Infinite Jest that wasn’t a tragic flop?
User “Good Old Neon” jumped right to the question of who would dare to direct such a thing, and his suggestions tickled me pink: either Wes or Paul Thomas Anderson. I can hear laptops banging shut from coast to coast at the mere suggestion that Wes Anderson be allowed within ten feet of the book, but it’s not a bad idea. Who better to create a reality just a few degrees off from our own, as we see in IJ? I have nothing but love for P.T. Anderson and I’d let him at the script in a heartbeat, but I’d also be afraid that I’d die a lonely old woman before he finished it.
Before we starting casting the Incandenza brothers,31 or discussing the very real film adaptation of another DFW book that is scheduled to be released four days after we all finish reading this one, let’s look at a few non-fatal attempts in the history of cinema to adapt a beloved and word-tastic classic novel to a ruthlessly visual medium.
Ulysses (1967) starring Milo O’Shea; directed by Joseph Strick (who somewhat ironically was fresh from being fired from the set of Justine, an adaptation of a Lawrence Durrell novel; Strick also produced an adaptation of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer – the guy wouldn’t give up on literary sources, god bless him); screenplay adapted by Fred Haines (who was also responsible for an adaptation of Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf). Critical concensus: The screenplay got nominated for an Oscar and the film was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, which honors mean both something and nothing. Imdb users seem to agree that what makes the film work is brilliant casting and use of location; it’s when whole swaths of literature are forced out of actors’ mouths that you begin to remember, uncomfortably, that you’re watching a book.
Catch-22 (1970) starring Alan Arkin, directed by Mike Nichols, screenplay adapted from the Joseph Heller novel by Buck Henry. Critical concensus: Nichols et al. did a brilliant job of capturing the essence of the book, and you’re a ninny if you expect a movie to be exactly like the book it’s based on.
Clockwork Orange (1971) starring Malcolm McDowell, directed and screenplay adapted by Stanley Kubrick. That worked out pretty well, if memory serves, though to be fair this and Catch-22 are somewhat thinner and plot-heavier than IJ.
Conclusion: Michael Cera and a locker room filled with gawky teen heartthrobs discussing their exhaustion. Meryl Streep as Madame Psychosis. Soundtrack by Rufus Wainwright? Get Michel Gondry on the phone, right now.
I can see Michael Cera playing Evan Ingersol.
I’ll talk to Kevin and Avery, see if we can’t work Michael Cera into every post this week.
This might be a little too “Good Will Hunting” (especially considering the Boston settings) but Infinite Jest (so far) evokes similar feelings in me as Elliott Smith’s music. Also, Jon Brion does great music for films.
Yes, definitely Eliott Smith in the soundtrack.
Rumors have been flying for awhile: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/09/infinite_jest_the_movie.html
Could it be a puppet show a la Mario’s ONANtiad?
David Fincher. Perfect blend of technological acumen and emotional maturity. Great at using digital effects for realistic situations, already handled 12step in Fight Club, and as shown with Seven/Zodiac, is able to revisit genres to new effect. Only mainstream director with the balls to handle such a story and demand the budget to do it right.
I’m sure someone has already mentioned this — somewhere. But here goes: the argument has been made that Wes Anderson has already adapted IJ when he made The Royal Tenenbaums. Here’s a link that does an excellent job with a quick compare/contrast:
http://www.kottke.org/09/04/the-royal-tenenbaums-and-infinite-jest
Thanks for that link! I was thinking this week about how certain aspects of IJ reminded me of Anderson’s work (Tenenbaums in particular), which also brings me around to linking in Salinger’s Glass family stories.
“The Royal Tenenbaums” is exactly how I described the first 100 pages to a friend. I’m off now to read the compare/contrast link. Thanks, alicat.
That’s *almost* enough to make me want to stop reading. Oh holy hell, no.
no one, under any circumstances, should try to film this thing. unless they want to actually make it, like, 12 hours long, or 15 hours long, or however long would be needed to get every bit in there. books like this (Barthes would call them “writerly”) don’t do well onscreen. too much of the author’s voice is lost.
also, there is a third Wilson brother: Andrew. He played Bob’s brother, aka “Future Man,” in Bottle Rocket, among other bit parts in Anderson films.
I can actually see it (well, sort of) as a mini-series. A 105 minute movie would be laughable. The trailer would be 105 minutes. But with a miniseries, You could stick a bit of each subplot in each episode. There’s more action (flashbacks and all) in IJ that people commonly think, I think.
Meryl Steep is way too old for MP/JvD, need somebody much younger… Scarlett Johansson has the chops, she’s 25, and somewhere between beautiful and, uh, something else.
Brooke Shields for Avril, she’s got the height though she is only 44, but maybe…What’s make up for? Besides she was married to Andre Agassi and that has to count for something, right?
Christopher Walken for JOI? He’s a little old (66 and starting to look cadaverous) and maybe a little short, but the upside!! Think of Walken (in disguise) doing the ‘professional conversationalist’ bit!
You actually need (almost) teenage actors for the tennis kids–reassign the male cast from Gossip Girl? Chase Crawford as Pemulis? Penn Badgely as Hal? The mind reels…
The reading hasn’t gotten much into Don Gately yet, but who is that big? Some NFL player, with a big head, during the offseason? Brian Urlacher? I mean (spoiler alert) Show Spoiler▼
.
Now if we could all get together for a beer, the ideas will all get much better as the night wears on.
I’ve read the book several times before, so not spoiled, but I don’t think a quick parenthetical (spoiler alert) before giving new info is at all in the spirit of the no spoilers policy IS has been trying to stick to.
You can even use spoiler tags (<spoiler>), a fact I ought to announce one of these days.
You are right. I blew it. Sorry.
Ah jeez, now I’m gonna see MP as Scarlett Johansson for the rest of the novel.
If ScarJo comes within a country mile of anything DFW ever wrote, I will not only refuse to see the film, I will plug my ears and go “lalalalalalala” really, really loudly if anyone ever brings it up.
The only way I can see this working is as a series of films, or maybe a cable TV series, with each episode tracing the novel through one character’s storyline. Each part will have its own arc, but only by watching all of the installments will the inter-relatedness of all of the stories become complete. Or, to keep more with IJ’s style, each episode contains ten minutes of each story, and not necessarily in chronological order.
How about David Lynch? I’d vote Taylor Kitsch as Orin. Jeremy Sumpter as Hal? Anyone? Maybe Tilda Swinton as Madame Psychosis.
Am I the only one picturing Madame Psychosis as much, much, MUCH younger than Tilda Swinton, not to mention Meryl Streep? I mean, at least up to this week’s spoiler line (and I’m just a smidge ahead), Orin’s not too long out of college, and she was there with him. So… mid 20′s at the most? Am I crazy? I may totally need to revamp my internal movie if I’ve missed something here.
And that doesn’t mean I have a suggestion, because I’m not all pop-culture-hip like that. But these just seem horribly wrong.
No, it’s cool, she’s definitely late 20s-ish.
PTA would be a good choice! I’ve been thinking of Magnolia while reading IJ for the first time – so many similar themes (sins of the father, escaping the past, redemption, etc).
There was a more recent Ulysses adaptation called “Bloom” which I thought worked pretty well (though I saw it immediately before I read the book).
I go with the Jonas Brothers playing the Incandenza Brothers.
it was only a matter of time.
David Lynch! David Lynch! especially if we can make sure that Mark Frost is collaborating. A Twin Peaks-esque Infinite Jest would. totally. rule.
Yes, Lynch/Frost doing it as a fixed season show for HBO or Showtime could indeed rule the universe.
The book to movie translation is, even at its best, still almost always a little bit of a letdown to me if I’ve already read the book because even the shortest novel has to be ruthlessly cut and transfigured to fit the much, much shorter length of most movies.
You can only really do a novella without the ruthless transfiguration (which is why Huston’s Maltese Falcon is one of my fav adaptations [or maybe adaptation, but that doesn't really count {nor was the Orchid Thief in the category of Jest, 22, or Ulysses, but I would put Hammett there any day}]). Huston came about as close as you could to getting a longer book all in a film with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but so often the subtleties of a good book get ironed flat by the conventional movie’s narrative structure.
Really a limited run television series, a reconfigured mini-series, would be the only way not to have to cut Jest down to the bone. A six or seven season thing for like Showtime. Done right it would be wicked awesome.
Straying somewhat OT here, but … the best book to movie adaptation I’ve seen is LA Confidential. I saw the film and loved it. Then when I read the book I saw that they had stripped out a whole part of the book, but had done it in a way that still let the film make sense. That’s not to say that that element of the book was superfluous; it wasn’t. It gave the book extra depth (and extra darkness, too – that angel wings thing still spooks me, years later), but they cut cleanly around it to make the film.
I don’t see how you could make a film of IJ without severely compromising the book.
Had a discussion w my friends last night about the best book-to-movie adaptations (trying to convince myself that it can work, because usually I am adamantly against it), and we agreed upon To Kill a Mockingbird.
To Kill a Mockingbird is always the one I go to when I want to think of a good book adaptation. Also, The Shawshank Redemption is one of the very few movies that is actually in many ways better than the novella.
I think someone should make the film “Tennis and the Feral Prodigy” (pg. 172).
The Baldwin brothers may be too old to play the Incandenza children, but Alec would be well old enough to play Himself.
Sorry, that shouldn’t have been nested.
I’ve been picturing Madame P. as played by a young Karen Black.
Actually, Infinite Jest will work best as a pair of 3-hour plays.
The theatre is much better at layering many pieces simultaneously.
Furthermore, the theatre allows for far more “writerly” digression and dialogue than film.
I pray no one ever attempts a film.
That’s a great idea.
from their physical descriptions in the book, it’s not at all clear to me that real brothers would be the best choice to portray the Incandenzas.
No, I totally agree — physical resemblance has never been a prerequisite for casting film families, so why start now.
While the idea is fun to toy with…
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
I have to put in another vote for David Lynch.
But I might be the only person in the world who liked the movie Dune.
Clearly, the descriptions of the Entertainments must be put into film and interspersed throughout the story and who could do them better than Lynch. They are already incredibly Lynchian.
But then I was thinking that the guy who directed 21 grams should do the main plot and David Lynch should direct the Entertainments. I actually think David Lynch would make a great Himself.
You’d have to get that Juno girl to be Madame Psychosis. I can’t think of anyone else for that role but then I can’t think of any actresses who can act well. How many are there?
The idea of Michael Cera as Hal–for sure, the movie would be funnier with Michael Cera as Hal. Maybe get the whole cast of Arrested Development and be done with it.
Ha. Will Arnett as Orin, talking about strategies for “subjects” is hilarious. David Cross as Tobias as CT is even hilariouser.
I actually really liked Lynch’s Dune and I read the book.
Am I the only one against the idea of Michael Cera as Hal? I felt alone in thinking that he was the weakest link by far in Arrested Development…
I think comedian Demetri Martin (probably minus five or ten years, but since we’re being hypothetical, what the heck) would be excellent as Hal. And no one else thinks Michael Clark Duncan would be PERFECT as Don Gately?
Also, no director should touch the movie except for PT Anderson.
Definitely not alone. I LOVE him in Arrested Development but could not picture him in something of this magnitude. Though to be fair, I wouldn’t want to see this adapted, even though I think PT Anderson would be the best for the job if it had to happen.
I like Cera, but agree that he’s no Hal. Hal has dark (“ethnic”) skin and I think black, or at least dark brown, hair.
WILL ARNETT AS ORIN. Oh, my God. That would so work. But the young dad could not be Himself. I could see the Bluth, Sr. (sorry I don’t know his name) as a great Himself maybe. Except Himself is kind of sad, not sleazy. I think the guy who plays old dad could do drunk really well.
Also, Tobias Funke would be amazing as CT.
Portia Di Rossi as Avril? The older mom could not be Avril but she’d be great as the Ennett House supervisor.
While there is no way any film could capture the wonderful, humane and funny masterwork of the prose, I would second the vote for Wes Anderson.
If we could send Luke Wilson back in time, while keeping Owen Wilson as is, while also sticking with the Wes Anderson theme, I’d love to see Luke play Hal, and Owen, Orin.
Mario, as described, well, I think he might have to be CG.
As for Himself, I like the suggestion of Christopher Walken, though I’ve always sort of envisioned him looking more like David Lynch. For The Moms, well, the moms I’m thinking (have thought) Mary McDonnell, or, a very repressed Julianne Moore.
Gately, Gately is a mystery. I’m extremely fond if his character, love him actually – and, as someone who, at a clumsy 6’2, has always been a bit of a bull in a china shop, while also at one time being heavily involved in the wonderful world of illicit narcotics, I’m going to nominate myself. I keed, I keed. I’m at a loss…
Turturro as Himself (or as Himself’s father in that one monologue, or perhaps as both).
There was a theatrical adaptation of IJ for somebody’s thesis a couple of years ago, as pictured here
I totally and enthusiastically support Turturro for Himself.
Listen, if we -have- to consider the idea, at least make it a summer spectacle, with Michael Bay directing a legless Keanu Reeves as Rémy and Miley Cyrus taking down her innocence as Joelle. The entire film would be based around the Big Fight. And then we’d get the deep satisfaction of seeing things like The Nonstop Edge-of-Your-Seat Adventure of Infinite Jest.
According to some article I stumbled upon a few weeks ago (it’s on one of the DFW/IJ information outlet-type sites linked from here) Gus Van Sant was working on a treatment back when. Anyway, overall this is probably kind of a bad idea as it might be even harder to combat charges of postmodern self-indulgence as a movie than it was with the book in the first place (not to mention DFW’s no longer with us).
IJ is unfilmable. That’s the point. But if we’re talking about unicorns and other impossible things, then both the director and the cast would need to be unknowns for it not to completely fail because of positive/negative preassociations and egomongering.
non-fatal attempts in the history of cinema to adapt a beloved and word-tastic classic novel
While I wouldn’t complain if anyone says the book is no classic, John Irving’s The World According to Garp certainly fits the other criteria. I thought the movie did an excellent job of capturing the spirit of Irving’s novel.
So interesting that so many other people are thinking about this book as a film! The experience of reading this book for my has been very synesthetic: putting it down is like waking from a bizarre dream. This week, my IJ bookclub partner and I watched The Royal Tenenbaums, just to check in with Wes Anderson’s story of unhappy families, feral prodigy and tennis disappointments. Anderson does create the color-satuarated, sensitively quirky world I imagine when I read about dental hygiene instruction during ETA buddy meetings, the grad. student listening to Madame Psychosis in the brain of the roof, dinner at the Incandenza household.
Actually, I’d like to see the film Infinite Jest, not a film adaptation of the book Infinite Jest. Yes, I want to see the debilitating, addicting, mind-numbing film.
I’m wondering if I missed some punchline about the Meryl Streep thing.
No, I don’t think there was a punchline! I was just tossing inappropriate casting ideas into the mix.
Huh, I never noticed before this discussion how “Himself” is kind of like a film credit for JOI. As if his whole life was just performance, but only as the one character. (Kind of like Michael Cera?)