oh,and usual suspects too.

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.

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.

Isn't heart of darkness so problematic it shouldn't even be read?

No.

I believe in the saying: 'You can make a good movie out of anything'.

They question is less whether you can make a good movie out of something and more a question of people's personal demand/preference in terms of direct adaptations.

I think very few people would call 'The Shinning' a bad movie. Except the author himself (Steven King) who said Kubric destroyed his works themes. Having read the book I see his point, but that doesn't take away from the fact the movie is a classic.

Similarly, the Godfather as a book and the movie are kind of far from each other l, but I don't think anyone would call the Godfather bad.

Rambo First Blood is an adaptations which is miles away from the themes of its book counter part (not to mention significantly less violent)

American Psycho changed a lot from the book, and is also a great movie.

So it's not a matter of 'could it' but more a question of how faithful do you require the adaptations to be.

Lastly, a great video game adaptation of the work has been made with 'SPEC OPs the line'. So most definitely it can be done..

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.

Ad Astra (2019) is a loose adaptation and a slow burn, but if you enjoy sci-fi, it's worth a watch. Also, Up (2009) has some similar story elements, but probably not what you're looking for as it's geared more for kids (though adults enjoy it as well).

Idk the first google search is a new Yorker article about how it's problematic. Personally I'm not going to risk reading a book like that and I would be very hurt and upset if a movie was made from said book.

[deleted]

oh gee well if the New Yorker says I shouldn’t read it

Agreed

Only if David Lynch does it. Maybe Cronenberg.

I’m being sarcastic.

No. It is a scathing critique of colonialism.

There's a really fascinating version from 1958, performed and broadcast on live television, starring Boris Karloff, Roddy McDowall and Eartha Kitt. The set is deliberately surreal and artificial, like a school play production of Where The Wild Things Are (or an adolescent's anxiety dream, which it is sort of framed as), and there's a heavy emphasis on then-fashionable Freudian psychology and sadomasochistic overtones. Obviously not super-faithful to the source material, but I think it's a really strange, interesting, almost fairy-tale interpretation of the story.

(It's rendered even weirder by the occasional ad breaks. Roddy McDowall writhing half-naked in chains as he succumbs to his repressed desire for colonialist brutality is brought to you tonight by LUXO SOAP [TM]!)

Well the new Yorker does lean right, I should have seen that

no. it is too much. but. someone could make a liver of darkness movie. no. still too much. maybe a gal bladder of darkness. yes. i think that could be made.

by Jove you are right, that is a HoD! And I actually liked it very much.

It's sort of if you focus on Kurtz, and leave out the greedy depravity of the environment (of the original). I guess I can relax now :-), even if they don't do others.

and it still has the 'worried company'.

I agree with you but would take it a step further and apply it to meaning that good adaptations of Heart of Darkness have been done. Apocalypse Now, Ad Astra and Spec Ops The Line are all loose adaptations that capture the spirit and feeling of the book and fascinatingly each use it to explore the theme of the book through a radically different lens. They took the novella and turned it into a movie and a game by changing things to make it fit, its the loosest of adaptations but thats fine, Heart of Darkness was always about the themes and feel rather than the raw plot. If anything having adaptations tackle more recent issues is more in keeping with the novella which was very much a criticism of Imperialism in the Congo.

To me those are good adaptations of Heart of Darkness.

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.

I feel like Heart of Darkness is one of the most remade/spoofed stories in all of modern media. There's even a critically acclaimed video game adaptation of it called Spec Ops: The Line. Personally, my favorite adaptation so far has been the Animaniacs spoof, which is more of a spoof of Apocalypse Now, but still.

…….lol wot

The New Yorker is famous for its Left leaning sympathies.

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.

I'll have to check out that Spec Ops you have all been mentioning, thanks for the tip!

I agree that David Lynch could pull it off. And also think, that it would be his completely own take, i.e. it would 50% be something not at all in Conrad :-)

Well, army of Darkness exists. It suggests Hand of Darkness is not far off.

Only thing to bare in mind is it very much intends to be a criticism of military shooters from the xbox 360 era. Some notable moments lose some of their kick without knowing what they're a deconstruction of. Still worth playing though.