Rabban When The Baron Asks Wtf He's Doing On Arrakis

Sidekicks.

catholics in 1793 be like

And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in double-time and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he’ll never die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backward and throws back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

(added the music, myself 😊)

🎻 Artwork: The Judge - Aleksey Efremov 🎻 Music: Devil's Trill Sonata - Giuseppe Tartini

Varieté (E.A Dupont, 1925) 

Drew this Glanton, idk, this is how I imagine him (I never use this app I just need to share this)

i love the supernatural side of the sopranos sm

Nikoletta Király (Hungarian, b. 1978, Debrecen, Hungary, based Budapest, Hungary) - A Zöld Tapétás Szoba (The Room with Green Wallpaper), 2024, Paintings: Oil on Wood

John Brosio (American, b. 1968, Pasadena, CA, USA) - Dinosaurs Eating CEO, 2013, Paintings: Oil on Canvas

an address

What I say: a book-accurate adaption of Blood Meridian into film is very much possible. Due to BM's age, published in 1985, it has accumulated nearly 4 decades' worth of interpretation, discussed and analysed in academia and in the wider public sphere. One need only, for example, search for the novel on Spotify, and they’ll be met with a wealth of playlists and albums showcasing the vastly different lenses BM's readers have applied to the novel (a personal favourite of mine is Hellenica's sythensizer-spaghetti soundtrack). This goldmine of art, writing and music, not to mention McCarthy's own prose and dialogue, should make it ridiculously easy for any director to produce a halfway acceptable film that, by and large, ought to largely appease its long-awaiting fanbase.

Most detractors for a BM film cite the novel's extreme violence, but this, imo, is the easiest part to render for the silver screen. Full Metal Jacket and Apocolypse Now prove compelling showcases of the disorganised-organised chaos of war and the violence it wroughts in the hearts of its participants, with no short supply of dark humour, and even The Passion of the Christ portrays human cruelty and suffering with unflinching affect (see Acolytes of Horror's YT video). However, as is the curse of all adaptations of grand novels into grand films *gestures to Villeneuve’s Dune series*, it will never wholly meet the expectations of its hardcore readership, because novels (but especially in BM’s case) rely so heavily—by design—on the imagination of its audience. This is a work where the sun rises "out of nothing like the head of a great red phallus", and where "little devils with their pitchforks" are thought to skitter along the mouths of volcanoes, not to mention the immortal, 7ft tall, 150kg hairless albino who traipses the pulsing red horizon in search of souls to recruit for his plight of perpetual war. How, then, can a film best capture the mythopoetic haze that stains the sands of BM? It's doable, sure (see certain shots from Ken Russell's Altered States or Tarsem Singh's The Fall for the general vibe I'm trying to get at), but like with any calamitous attempt at adapting Homer's Odyssey (not including the 1968 mini series <3), how do you make a myth concrete without clipping its wings?

Like I mentioned earlier, I think the recent Dune films (another book series that, in the wake of Lynch's 1984 adaption, was likewise once considered too dense and rich for film) have opened people up more to the idea of a BM movie, or even a whole franchise (there's certainly enough material to go around, personally I'd enjoy a duology), some may make the mistake in wanting a literal, line for line, act for act, page to screen adaptation. And, yes, thanks to McCarthy's command of plot and prose, he certainly provides material, and with a few edits here and there made for time (*cough cough* James Robert Bell/the imbecile *cough cough*), it can surely be shaped into a 20-hour masterpiece—which I would definitely enjoy—but, nevertheless, a literal adaptation still runs the assured risk of losing that blood-red shroud of mysticsm which makes the world of Blood Meridian so intoxicating. A literal adaptation would reduce it to solely a Western, but, to me, it is placed better as a Thriller (my mind always goes to Harry Powell as Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter whenever I imagine the judge's speeches) or an Epic (see Aguirre, the Wrath of God) or, even better, a Horror (like Come and See). In a way, though, Blood Meridian is so vast, so fantastical, that filming it in the desert, with an endless budget to spend on fake blood and stunt horses might, strangely, prompt other failings. It's partly why I personally would rather see it not expanded but condensed, confined and made abstract, forced into sets like the kind Eiko Ishioka designed for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters or Joel Coen's stark and foggy sets on Macbeth. Music is another tricky thing. The only person I feel could do proper justice with BM's score would be Ennio Morricone (RIP), but Johnny Greenwood is a close second, then again I'm also tempted to suggest no score at all, like with No Country for Old Men. Tarrantino's playing of 'Apple Blossom' by The White Stripes during The Hateful Eight is an interesting way of evoking theme while not adhering to a film's time period, but it's only used best in small doses.

Considering half of BM's dialogue is in Spanish, though it would be marketing suicide, it would be cool if they didn't provide subtitles during the Spanish conversations in the film, keeping in line with how non-Spanish speakers likely felt when reading the book.

Of course, we haven't even touched on the subject of the kid. A big part of the novel is how McCarthy never lets us properly gauge the extent of the kid's participation in the Glanton Gang's slaughter and debauchery. He's no angel, certainly, but his heinousness is only determined by us, the reader. A film may feel compelled to flesh the kid out in ways that undo the intentions of the novel, marketing him as sympathetic or relatable in ways that threaten BM's basis of having no likeable (or even knowable) characters. He is a blank slate that shuffles from bar to brawl, apathetic but not passive and borderline suicidal. He has few defining traits other than his dark humour and his proclivity for mindless violence which he's harboured since birth. The kid is not Paul Atreides or Luke Skywalker, nor is he Holden Caulfield or Arthur Morgan, and if he ever met any of them, he'd either tell them to fuck off or shoot them, or both. He's hardly blockbuster material.

Of course, I'd still love to see the kid portrayed on film. Casting and marketing is another area worth considering for Blood Meridian, as I am of the opinion there should be few, if any known actors cast to play the Glanton Gang. The kid, especially, should be played by a Tennessean random, to keep in line with his anonymity as a character. Glenn Fleshler would absolutely kill it as Judge Holden, going off his performance in season 1 of True Detective. I don't know why, but I always envisioned Tobin as Andy Serkis, but he's probably still far too young for the role. Whoever they'd cast, I don't want to see a single set of veneers or drop of botox. Role them in dirt if you have to, I don't care. I don't want a single member of the Glanton Gang to look like they know what Ozempic is, and cast as many Native American actors and Mexican actors as possible.

Given BM's violence and characters, I worry for the kind of audience it'll attract, media literacy being what it is these days (*gestures at the hundreds of Judge Holden edits all wildly missing the point of his "Before man was, war waited for him" speech*). With the marketing, I take issue with casts of serious films and shows doing dumb promotional content, like those Buzzfeed puppy interviews. Considering the tough subject matter of Blood Meridian, I don't see why they'd need to do anything more involved than simple, respectful interviews and panels.

In the end, Blood Meridian can obviously be made into a film and it looks like we're finally getting one, whether we like it or not. But just because you can doesn't mean you always should, and though I can't say I won't be the first in line to watch, I also can't promise it won't be without obscenely high expectations. Every director is different, and though John Hillcoat's track record with McCarthy adaptations hasn't proved all that inspiring, I am nevertheless pleased to be seeing another person's interpretation of a novel that has captured by every waking moment ever since I read it over a year ago.

What I want to say: Blood Meridian should be a ballet/dance with little to no plot à la Ravel's Boléro or Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (and mayyybe Akram Khan’s Giselle)