DMCJR1992 t1_ixz52tr wrote
Anything’s possible, but the problem with HoD being developed into a film production stems for Joseph Conrad’s storytelling techniques. He wrote HoD on a first-person account in memoir style that is plagued with ego and prejudices –dynamics not only hard to capture & produce via cinematography but also a perspective that is simply unattractive. This is where I applaud Coppola’s version in turning the protagonist to a sympathetic war hero who could give us a proper scope on the actual tragedies of war. I, personally, would love to (and have tried) to develop a HoD screenplay but it’s been this far too difficult to reinterpret into something that isn’t clearly racist or societally harmful.
TangentiallyTango t1_ixz5tg0 wrote
It's also really funny which I think people tend to miss. Tons of sarcasm and irony and dark humor.
That makes it a really tough tone to get right.
HortonHearsTheWho t1_ixz8cnx wrote
It’s been a while since I read it but seems like you could go some way in “updating” Marlowe to make him a somewhat more palatable narrator, same as Captain Willard. Don’t give him blatantly modern attitudes because that would be stupid and cringey, but give him enough of a conscience for the modern viewer.
Not that too many people would want to see this anyway.
Original_Common8759 t1_iy060s3 wrote
The modern viewer requires a narrator with a conscience? Wow, I must not be living in the same world as you are. In any case, to change the novel in the ways you suggest would destroy its meaning.
fifticon OP t1_iy2qjas wrote
One idea I had - which I admit I haven't thought fully through.
What about film noir, and dashell hammett detective stories?
As I naively see it, Marlowe is a lot like a film noir detective, trying to solve a mission in circumstances that throw him around and often times out of his control, with lack of clarity and truth.
One of the reasons I mention Blade Runner, is that one of the versions has voice-over to explain Deckards internal thoughts (I'm aware a lot of people hate that.
The reason I think of usual suspects, is that it also has an enigmatic storyteller, who was personally involved in the story he reveals to us.
Personally I don't find Marlowe unlikable. He's sort of neutral - neither good nor bad, a bit like Eastwood's blue-eyes. He's swimming and surviving in a racist ocean, and for that, I don't see him as particularly racist, especially as he notices and highlights the pointless racism he is witness to. He doesn't condone the senseless beating of the random slave during the fire, and he also has contempt for the greedy morons brainlessly shooting their guns at the river bank foliage.
To me, he is more like a visitor to dante's inferno, and it appears to me he is repusled, but probably desentivized to the suffering and cruelty he witnesses.
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