Which of these two books would you like to see made into a film?

Please not another AIDS tearjerker..

Borrowed Time has to be the most wretched piece of treacle I've ever read, and I've never even heard of the other one so I'm going to go with neither.

Dancer is great

I am still holding out for A Confederacy of Dunces, a hopeless wish now that the book has passed into mostly memory.

While far from being a great book, I'd like to see a limited series production of Larry Kramer's 1978 novel "Faggots" if, for nothing else, being the time capsule that it is.

Dancer is a great period read, but it would absolutely not make a workable film today. Nor would Faggots. They are too dated, and too sexy to work as period pieces.

Wasn’t there some talk about Dancer being in production?

Faggots would make a great movie. Some people would be very upset about it. Which is the point.

Thimothay IS Malone!

[quote] Faggots would make a great movie. Some people would be very upset about it. Which is the point.

Wouldn't the point be for it to make money? I doubt that would happen.

Dancer from the Dance is not filmable which is obvious to anyone who has read it.

I don’t know why eldergays can’t just let the book live in their heads.

[quote] I don’t know why eldergays can’t just let the book live in their heads.

Because it was so important to them at a formative time, and it's hard for them to let it sink in that that the novel is not timeless. But I agree with you 100%--it is unfilmable.

Oddly enough, another extremely formative novel from the 1970s gay Baby Boomers have clamored to have filmed, especially here on Datalounge--The Front Runner--actually would make a good movie now, although it could only work as a period piece. But it would probably not make much money as a result.

Limited Series on streaming would work for any of these. Didn't "Fellow Travelers" do well? The fourth installment of "Tales of the City"? The remake of "Boys in the Band"? The recent British import "It's a Sin"? Not everything has to be a Marvel Universe scale blockbuster moneymaker.

OP, are you ill?

R13 those are narrative melodramas

Have you read Dance from the Dance? It is an impressionistic novel. It is about painting a vivid picture in your head, like magic realism. Its beauty comes from what it suggests, not what it shows you. Much of pre-AIDS gay fiction is like this (Jean Genet, etc.) You cannot film it.

A long form narrative film requires melodrama. This happens, then this, then this, then this. That’s why the wafer thin Tales of the City was able to be adapted into a 6 episode series. Because a lot of things happen.

Even an impressionistic film like In the Mood For Love is only able to succeed because its sympathetic protagonists drive the audience’s motivation to watch the story in lieu of melodrama. Dancer from the Dance cannot do that because the novel does not like its protagonists. It is a cynical novel which correctly captured the nihilistic hedonism that would lead to the AIDS epidemic. But it cannot be filmed, because nobody would like its characters.

Dancer of the Dance would make a great movie if:

A) Malone is otherworldly beautiful without being to shallow and boring.

B) Sutherland is Uber-flamboyant and drug addled.

Both requires great actors.

C) The production values are high and pre-AIDS hedonistic, New York portrayed adequately.

D) The central song “Make me believe in you” and Patty Jo are featured prominently.

E) the Everhard Saunadämmerung is filmed well.

I agree with the others picking neither. Monette's book, whatever you think of it, would be speaking to the choir at this point, and there have been more than enough AIDS-related films and TV series by now, IMO.

Speaking of unfilmmable, I finally watched Fassbinder's mess of a film of Genet's QUERELLE. Some sexy scenes but a botch nonetheless.

[QUOTE] Thimothay IS Malone!

Please, no. Joe Alwyn would be good.

Billy Porter IS Sutherland!!

Dancer is eminently filmable.

Young closeted lawyer Antony Malone comes to NYC, starts dating a possessive Latino man, is unfaithful to him. Latino tries to kill him, Malone is rescued by uber camp Sutherland who (over years) turns him into the most desirable man on the gay disco scene and tries to broker a 'marriage' between Malone and a young gay millionaire.

In the final scenes they all gather for a party on Fire Island. Malone, completely disenchanted with life, swims away into the Atlantic. Sutherland takes an accidental overdose and dies. Other characters die in a fire at the Everard Baths.

The book is beautifully written but it's not just 'impressionistic'. It has solid characters, it has a plot, it has two highly photogenic and evocative settings. Far more nebulous novels have been adapted into successful screenplays.

[quote] It has solid characters, it has a plot, it has two highly photogenic and evocative settings.

So does Paradise Lost. But it is not filmable.

Malone should be portrayed by somebody like Ambrose Olsen. Too beautiful and depressed for this world.

I can’t remember the name, but there was a book by a former Washington, D.C. intern who figured out he was positive in the early eighties. He came out of the closet, got very ill in the nineties, survived, and later went on to form a magazine or something, like POZ. I can’t remember his name, but a movie based on him would start before the AIDS crisis, and encompass the worst, and end on a more hopeful note.

[QUOTE] So does Paradise Lost. But it is not filmable.

Book IV and IX are filmable, but not the endless descriptions of the wars in heaven and the heathen gods in the other books.

Someone bought the film righs for The Dreyfus Affair and then suppressed it. Homophobia is still huge in Hollywood.

[quote] Dancer is great

But was he the greatest dancer?

Dancer

The Dreyfus Affair could be done now, but it's not a good book. The last third of it is just ridiculous, like a bad sitcom.

"On Borrowed Time" is like if the NY Times Literary Supplement wrote an AIDS memoir, but with extra navel gazing!

It's not particularly literary, R29, you're just stupid.

Dancer from the Dance is homophobic- Holleran has serious self loathing. All his study is about his take on the “misery” of being gay- at any age.

Both get too far into scat, urine, and other unsavory aspects of gay subculture, and some of the subtle cues, nuances and cuntiness would be utterly lost in translation or offend a modern audience.

Dancer from the Dance and Faggots are self-critical, but not necessarily self-loathing, at least more-so than other novels of the era

Many people at the time simply had a premonition that the decadent culture of the moment was not sustainable

And they were right

This. Rated NC-17.

While both were ground breaking, I could see more of a musical for Dancer. It would be more of a Spankalot. Vacuous spoken word, meaningful power ballads, and young sweaty backup dancers that can lift 162.5 pounds of wueen and place it in a sling.

I’m not proud to say I read “Dancer From The Dance” as a young gayling from Boston and pretty much lived it on NYC dance clubs, saunas and bars all through the 90’s as a club kid.. I’ve always thought a young Ashton Kutcher would’ve made a great Malone, I once saw him at NY Fashion Week by himself crossing the street and it was being trapped in a laser tractor beam of attraction, he was so beautiful it was difficult looking directly at him, like looking at the sun.

Thank God I got out when I did, I buried so many friends chasing that dream.

[QUOTE] Both get too far into scat, urine, and other unsavory aspects of gay subculture

You're insane. There's no sex at all in Borrowed Time and nothing explicit in Dancer.