The Conclave - Adaptations
Revelations is offering a unique opportunity for open discussion between Clive and his fans. Here is your space - a place to discuss topics relating to Clive's works where your thoughts will be posted ahead of our next interview with Clive. Having seen the entries posted here, we'll be encouraging Clive to join the discussion, respond to your observations and and to add his own thoughts..!We hope to foster intelligent and informed debate, so 'play nicely', send us your thoughts by e-mail (with 'The Conclave' in the header) and we'll put your unedited words in front of Clive...
Which of Clive's projects should next be adapted into movies or other formats, and why..? Which past adaptations have worked well (and which haven't)?
Movies past, current and future, TV adaptations, graphic novels, local productions of plays - they're all fair game, there are no limits... hey, now that sounds like a good tag line for a movie...
Revelations: "The Art sequence remains one of our favourite pieces of Clive's written work and so we were poised with proprietorial wariness of Chris Ryall's adaptation for IDW this year. Our 'fears' were thoroughly misplaced. The combined talents of Chris and artist Gabriel Rodriguez have been astonishing in their ability to convey the profound within the space of a few frames.
"The third issue has perhaps been the most difficult for us so far - there is just so much history to impart here - the particular three-way relationship between Tommy, Jo-Beth and their mother and the similarly complex relationship between Tesla and Grillo. All this to impart together with the character of Palomo Grove and the continuing war between Fletcher and the Jaff. To centre on making sure that the reader buys into the nature of Howie and Jo-Beth's attraction is, we think, the right one, but it did make us want to reach for the novel. We certainly didn't feel in any way critical of the comic, we just had a nostalgic desire to go and pull the book off the shelf and immerse ourselves in the detail which only the novel can reveal.
"We remain fascinated by Chris' skills and eagerly await our next issue..."
9 May 2006
"I'm really delighted by this - Chris [Ryall] is just a perfectly great guy and he fought very hard, as did I, to make sure that we could get this in twelve issues, not six, so that we really do have a chance of telling some of the nuances of the story. I've seen the first two issues, both of which look really great and Gabriel [Rodriguez] has achieved some effects in the art which are - the lovely moment towards the beginning when the Jaff comes up and finds his enemy sitting looking at the window, looking out of the window - I don't know if you recall the moment but it's an incredible moment of stillness in the middle of all this drama and magic and stuff and he's just achieved something really lovely. And when the violence comes along, as it does early on in that story, in the Dead Letters Room, it's graphically told and efficiently dealt with and then we move on - it's just damn good storytelling. And I think when it's collected up into a single volume it will sit very nicely beside the regular edition, the literary edition, as a film would sit, as it were, beside its literary source; a different thing entirely brought from the same place and it's a bloody hard thing to do, with a novel that big. And I have not yet seen how things develop when we get to Quiddity, which we only do very briefly in Great and Secret Show, obviously if this goes well we'll speed on to Everville."
Abarat. Abarat. Abarat. Abarat... Abarat!
Interview for Revelations, 13 and 20 March 2006 (note: full text here)Camden Natysin "So far I think Clive's best is Weaveworld. I'm glad a TV movie has not been made of it yet, because I know that it would greatly disappoint all the fans of the book (though I mainly represent myself with that comment.) The way Clive Barker writes is often much to fantastical and literary to be properly represented on film, and a TV movie (while better fitting the length) would do an especially great injustice to one of his masterworks. If anything, a series of films would be best for it, but I know nothing could capture the beauty and imagination of the book.
"The imagination of the reader is one of the things that makes Clive's books so good, and that it perhaps why many films based on his work fall flat. No matter how beautiful a film can be, it will never equal the beauty we imagine from a book. The only way they can really succeed is if they bring something new to the fold, like Bernard Rose did with Candyman (changing the setting, bringing a different look and a new mythos to the character, changing Helen's studies, the recitation in the mirror, etc;) Of course, Bernard also beautifully directed the film, and the music was wonderful, but some things still fell short of the story. Especially disappointing, perhaps, was the portrait of Candyman on the wall, which didn't look particularly good, or scary. "The Forbidden" was also scarier, darker, and a little more intimate. The ending of 'Candyman' was also much less satisfying than the story. I heard of an alternate ending on the commentary, and I can't fathom why Bernard Rose decided to go with such a stupid one instead.
"I must admit I was very disappointed with Lord of Illusions. I really would've preferred something closer to the original story. I think a faithful adaptation of 'The Last Illusion' with lighting similar to Dario Argento's Suspiria is my dream Barker film. I'd really like it if Dario Argento himself were to direct a project like that. I'm just curious as to how Clive would feel about the prospect of someone doing a film version of the story themselves, and if he would option off the story to anyone."
21 July 2006Nikki Pettis "For starters, I would like to say I have been a great fan of Mr. Barkers art. I own numerious first edition hardbounds dating back to some of his earlier works, as well as having many movies and collectables. I even still enjoy 'Undying' after all these years . Having stated that I am a huge fan, I just finished watching 'The Plague' and have to say it was, by far, the BIGGEST steaming pile of sheit I've had the displeasure of wasting 88 minutes on. My god. The film was so lacklustre, that I didnt care about the characters, let alone the nonexistant plot. The only saving grace was the accidental humor of the 'Dawson's Creek' music playing through my head, every time 'Dawson' tried to feign drama!! It makes me sad that such a great storyteller such as Mr. Barker would attach his name to, let alone produce such crap. We expect Stephen King's movies to suck, not Clive Barkers. Guess thats why its straight to video."
27 September 2006Matt "While it is understandable that the immensity of Imajica is something that seems impossible to capture on the screen, and I understand completely Clive's thoughts that it is best left to the page, I have recently seen a movie that has had me thinking about what Imajica could be like on the screen. "Mirror Mask", a cinematic burst of eye candy via Gaimon, was a movie whose otherworldy imagery and style seemd to draw forth from my mind images of another dimension pulled from the pages of Imajica. Who would play the parts? Who would script the soundtrack? On the actors, I have no suggestions, but for a soundtrack my mind ventured into the realm of the artist Carl McCoy - frontman of the Fields of the Nephilim. There are audio tracks he has created that could populate the world of Imajica almost as if he created them whiel visiting. "The 24th Moment" or "Melt" by his band "The Nefilim" are bubbling with the primordial "otherness" that seeps from the pages of Imajica... Give it a listen Clive, or his fans... and you can almost feel Pie listening over your shoulder. If Imajica were ever to be put on the big screen - it should be epic in scope - bigger than "LOTR" and it should induce the same kind of awe as the first use of "Bullet Time" cinema.... Without that kind of "shock and awe", Imajica should, indeed, never leave its pages where it remains a masterpiece."
2 March 2007Michael "I read my first Clive Barker book in 1987, when “The Damnation Game” hit our bookshelves in Hardback form. Although I had seen his short story collections on the shelves, the cartoonish images on the covers had made me hem and haw over whether they were worth buying. I was so completely blown away by “The Damnation Game,” however, that I immediately went back and read everything he had previously written and looked foreword to each and every new book that came out. With “The Thief of Always” in 1992 and again about a year or two later, I traveled to Seattle, WA to meet Clive Barker, listen to him reading from “The Thief of Always” in 1992, and get several of my books autographed by him – In short, I have been a long time fan.
"I am writing this because I had heard for many years that they were going to make a movie version of “The Midnight Meat Train.” When I found it on the video shelf today, I quickly snatched it up – at last!
"My first experience with a Clive Barker film was when my brother brought home a copy of Hellraiser from the video store, although I did not realize it was a Clive Barker work at the time. Wow! Never had I seen anything like this. I was transfixed, and dare I say transformed, by this film. I would never look at the world in the same way again."Well - perhaps it is a case of over-anticipation killing the moment, but I have to say that I was not impressed by “The Midnight Meat Train” film. There was nothing horribly wrong. It was a technically proficient film. But it just did not touch me in any emotional way. It came across as flat on the screen.
3 April 2009
"Two things that bothered me about the film were:
"1. All the male characters looked too much alike. It was difficult to differentiate between them and I actually got them confused at one point in the film.
"2. I wanted to see more of the creatures beneath the city, some interaction with them, and to understand them. What I saw of them was a bit cheesy, and although I knew the story behind them from the short story I did not feel this was explained clearly in the film and I believe that this will leave those unfamiliar with the story confused.
"Clive, I am a great fan of your work – but this adaptation just did not make the cut."
Your thoughts here...
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