Hollywood is pretty good at not being like most people in that instance. And she could always be made kinkier and still be realistic.
A silly example: she could be a furry!
Inner dialogue is perfectly filmable. Show the protagonist’s face for expression, show what they’re looking at, show flashbacks and imagined sequences for what they’re thinking about. Voiceover all of the above as necessary.
The Call of Cthulhu has been turned into (very good, IMHO) 1920s-style silent film.
Sophie’s World, I think, because of the twist.
Re: Infinite Jest.
I can’t stop watching that video (which is slightly ironic, considering the subject), and it has given me an interesting idea. Film the whole movie that way and turn it into an alternative rock opera. The book is rather episodic to begin with. Divide it up into ~30 vignettes, get different musician to submit songs (breaking from traditional opera practice, but gives a better chance for more kickass tunes), pick the best ones and start filming.
I doubt this idea would ever get off the ground. I don’t know who would dream of putting up the money to fund such a project. But if it did happen, I would go see it.
Sophie’s World actually has already been adapted as a movie, and twice for television. Here’s a trailer for the movie on YouTube.
How about Snow Crash?
Also most, if not all, of Robert Rankin and Chuck Palahniuk’s novels are pretty unfilmable. They did make Fight Club but the rest are too bizarre and surrealistic and/or have weird plot elements or unconventional storytelling that I doubt you’d see in anything with a non-tiny budget.
Hah. Good one.
You could film The Silmarillion. It would be about 32 hours long, but you could film it.
Filming the Silmarillion would be like trying to make a movie of the Bible… the whole Bible, since it is essentially the Bible of Middle-Earth.
That being said, there are some fantastic stories inside it. It could possibly work for a HBO-series sort of treatment.
Paranormal Activity 1 through 4 proves it wouldn’t work.
The same folks also did a 1940s-style version of the Whisperer in Darkness
After my disappointment with the filmed version of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, I concluded that all of Tom Robbins’s novels are unfilmable.
It has? I should watch it. Wonder how they managed it.
It was made into a play. Actually, a cycle of plays.
Note that the OP uses the word “unfilmable.” Others have noted that works not suited for feature films might make film series–or TV miniseries. Or maxiseries… Didn’t GRRM, who had written for TV, write Game of Thrones with a ridiculous budget in mind?
Of course, other factors can make books challenging to film. (Do they still use “film” nowadays?) From a story I referenced in anther recent thread:
Indeed… A Cock and Bull Story with Steve Coogan.
I quite like it as a film, but as noted it’s not really a film *of *the book, more a film about the book.
Anything that has a story, a narrative, is filmable. Full stop.
Whether it captures what many readers consider the essential element of the book is up for debate, but not whether it is filmable. That is why “Dune” is filmable, that is simply not up for debate. What is up for debate is whether it is good enough to satisfy fans of the novel.
The same with Watchmen, of course it was bloody filmable. It was just a superhero story. What the film missed is many of the interesting touches, playing with panels etc. But the essential story was still there.
Concur on all points.
Or, perhaps, Exit to Eden? I totally could have done without the Dan Akroyd/Rosie O’Donnell diamond-smuggling subplot. That was invented totally as a device to avoid telling the real story of the plot, which is the relationship between Elliot and Mistress Lisa.