Unfilmability is a type of

medium specificity Medium specificity is a consideration in aesthetics and art criticism. It is most closely associated with modernism, but it predates it. Overview According to Clement Greenberg, who helped popularize the term, medium specificity holds that "the u ...

which prevents a work of literature from undergoing successful

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

. A wide variety of considerations can lead to a work being seen as unfilmable. These include aesthetic conventions, audience expectations, technological limitations and ethical or political considerations. In his ''Theory of the Film'',

Béla Balázs Béla Balázs (; 4 August 1884 in Szeged – 17 May 1949 in Budapest), born Herbert Béla Bauer, was a Hungarian film criticism, film critic, aesthetics, aesthetician, writer and poet of History of the Jews in Hungary, Jewish heritage. He was a ...

discussed (but ultimately rejected) a theoretical argument against adaptation, based on the idea that if there is "an organic connection between form and content in every art" then it must be concluded that "one may perhaps make a good film out of a bad novel, but never out of a good one". With the rise of prestigious and well-funded TV series in what is considered a

Golden Age of Television The first Golden Age of Television is an era of television in the Television in the United States, United States marked by its large number of live productions. The period is generally recognized as beginning in 1947 with the first episode of th ...

in the 21st century, some works previously considered unfilmable have undergone visual adaptations. Among the supposedly unfilmable works that have ultimately been successfully filmed are ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

'', ''

Watchmen ''Watchmen'' is an American comic book Limited series (comics), maxiseries by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins (comics), John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 a ...

'' and ''

Gerald's Game ''Gerald's Game'' is a 1992 suspense novel by American writer Stephen King. The story is about a woman whose husband dies of a heart attack while she is handcuffed to a bed, and, following the subsequent realization that she is trapped with lit ...

''.

References

{{film-term-stub Film theory Films by source

See also

References