One Famously “Unfilmable” Novel Could Be A Great Western Movie

Cormac McCarthy was an American writer who became famous for gritty Western stories. During his career, McCarthy wrote 12 novels. He also worked on several plays and screenplays for films. A few of his most famous books include No Country for Old Men, published in 2005, and The Road, which came out in 2006. No Country for Old Men was originally written as a screenplay before it became a book. In 2007, Ethan and Joel Coen directed a film based on the novel. Two years later, John Hillcoat directed a movie adaptation of The Road.

These two films are only a few examples of McCarthy’s work on the big and small screen, but not every story he wrote made it to TV, film, or the stage. In April 1985, Cormac McCarthy published the novel Blood Meridian. Critics and fans of McCarthy’s work often cite Blood Meridian (also known as The Evening Redness in the West) as one of his best stories. Unfortunately, for many years, the industry considered Blood Meridian unfilmable, so an adaptation never made it to the silver screen. A Blood Meridian movie has gone into production several times over the years, but ultimately, the project always falls apart. Regardless, this story still has the potential to be one of the best Western films ever made.

Blood Meridian’s Plot & Legacy, Explained

Related

10 Best Western Movies Since 2010, Ranked

The Western genre has been beloved for decades and the modern era of cinema has contributed some great movies to Western cinema.

Blood Meridian is Cormac McCarthy’s fifth novel, and it is an epic historical novel that takes place on the American frontier (the Old West or the Wild West). The story includes real historical context, like the Glanton Gang, but McCarthy’s main character is a fictional teenager named “the Kid”. The novel is a Western, though some critics and experts consider it to be more of an anti-Western novel. Anti-Western (also known as revisionist Western) refers to a Western subgenre that focuses on tearing down the romanticism, tropes, and stereotypes of the classic Western genre. Anti-Western stories focus on realistic characters and plots to help depict a truer look at life in the Wild West.

Blood Meridian tells the story of “the Kid”, a teenage boy who runs away from his home in Tennessee. The reader never learns the Kid’s real name, but they do learn that he was born in 1833 during the Leonid meteor shower. The Kid eventually makes his way to Nacogdoches, Texas, where he first runs into Judge Holden. The Kid gets mixed up in a violent fight, and he finds himself among John Joel Glanton’s gang. Judge Holden is also a member of the Glanton Gang. From 1849 to 1850, the Glanton Gang was a real, violent group of scalp-hunters who attacked and murdered Native Americans, Mexicans, and Mexican soldiers. Originally, the Glanton Gang was supposed to protect people from Apaches, but after a run-in with Holden in the desert, things took a drastic change for the worse. Most of the novel is dedicated to exploring the Kid’s time with the Glanton Gang and all the horrific atrocities the gang commits. It also explores how the Gang falls apart and what happens to the Kid after the destruction of the Glanton Gang.

2:19

Related

This Mads Mikkelsen Movie Is One of the Best Modern Westerns

Mads Mikkelsen is known for movies like Doctor Strange and Casino Royale, but his underrated Western movies is one of the genres best modern offerings

When Blood Meridian first hit shelves, readers and critics mostly overlooked it, but today, it’s considered one of Cormac McCarthy’s best novels. Some call it his magnum opus, or his greatest literary masterpiece. Most of the novel is shown through the Kid’s eyes, but the reader learns little about what the Kid is thinking or feeling. Many people have argued over what the point of the novel is. On the surface, it’s violence for the sake of violence, but the novel runs much deeper than that. It seeks to explore the true horrors that humanity is capable of for the sake of personal gain. Since Blood Meridian takes place on the American Frontier, it directly criticizes and peels back the curtain of the American dream of Manifest Destiny.

Many scholars and critics have spoken about McCarthy’s masterpiece, but American philosopher and cultural critic, Steven Shaviro, might have said it best. In “The Very Life of the Darkness”: A Reading of Blood Meridian, Shaviro compares Blood Meridian to Moby-Dick and discusses how both novels explore the true savagery of Manifest Destiny. Shaviro also breaks Blood Meridian down by explaining the allure of Westerns and how McCarthy’s book turns it on its head:

“Western culture has dreamed for centuries of some act of heroic transgression and self-transformation: whether this take the Enlightenment form of rational mastery, or the romantic and mystical one of apocalyptic transfiguration. [Cormac] McCarthy, like Nietzsche, exposes not just the futility of the dream, but far more troublingly its inherent piety, its ironic dependence upon the very (supposed) mysteries that it claims to violate. What is most disturbing about the orgies of violence that punctuate Blood Meridian is that they fail to constitute a pattern, to unveil a mystery or to serve any comprehensible purpose.”

Many Believe Blood Meridian’s Violent Nature Is Too Much For Moviegoers

Related

The Best Villains in Western Movies, Ranked

The Western genre is a core component of Hollywood and it has helped to create some iconic and memorable villains.

McCarthy’s Blood Meridian novel is, as expected, full of endless, often mindless violence. The Glanton Gang are notorious for their sadistic massacres. Overall, the gang seems to get off on murdering just about anything they can get their hands on. While the Glanton Gang does inevitably fall apart, Judge Holden, the novel’s true antagonist, survives, and he is the worst of the lot. One of Kid’s companions in the gang describes how every member met Holden and had some dealings with him before joining the gang. Holden is described as extremely intelligent and educated. Unlike the rest of the gang, he carries himself with dignity, and he is a respectable member of society. Holden is also huge, pale, and hairless. Sometimes, the text suggests that he might not be human at all.

All of Holden’s refined characteristics don’t remove him from his bloodlust, though. While most of the Glanton Gang is shown doing horrendous things to innocent people, Holden’s enjoyment of slaughtering men, women, children, and even animals extends to a whole new level. Holden’s view of the world is violence. Even with all of his education, he believes that the concept of god is equivalent to that of war and that life is an endless cycle of conquest. Violence is written into humanity’s DNA. This line of thinking keeps Holden from feeling any amount of empathy or remorse for the victims of his crimes. He openly enjoys it to a problematic degree, often deriving sexual pleasure from his slaughter.

At the end of the book, years after the Glanton Gang’s demise, the Kid (now known as the Man), has one last run-in with Holden, and it doesn’t end well for the protagonist. McCarthy leaves the Man’s fate up to interpretation, but it’s insinuated that he meets a horrible and bloody end. Holden is also seen dancing, drinking, and exclaiming that he will live forever. Since Holden is often described as a supernatural being, it makes readers wonder if he means this literally, or if he means his heinous crimes will be remembered by humanity forever.

Why Blood Meridian Would Make A Great Western Film

Related

10 Best Western Movies that Combine Other Genres, Ranked

The revival of the Western is in part due to a rise in genre-bending entries to the genre – here are ten of the best in recent years.

As mentioned, a few stabs at making a Blood Meridian film have already happened. Every film project ultimately died before it got off the ground, though, likely due to its graphically violent nature. Considering the novel came out in the 1980s, it does make sense that a film adaptation might have been too much for audiences of the time to digest. This excuse falls apart for a modern audience, though. Violence has become a common on-screen occurrence, especially in R-rated films. Horror movies are intense and bloody, especially with the popularity of franchises like Saw that draw in audiences with mindless over-the-top violence.

Furthermore, modern audiences are mesmerized by raw material that explores the darkest parts of humanity. True crime has become one of the most popular genres of today because people are fascinated by understanding what drives a person to do horrible things. Blood Meridian is, at its core, a story about people doing horrible things because they want to and because they enjoy it. It doesn’t sugarcoat its savage nature, but that’s the point of the story. Yes, a film adaptation of this story would be graphic, bloody, and not for the faint of heart, but there is an audience for it. Blood Meridian has the potential to be such a monumental Western that it could appeal to viewers who aren’t even a fan of the genre. Its brutal honesty and realism would help modernize the Western genre in a way it desperately needs.

Related

The Best New Western Movies & TV Shows Have This in Common

The Western genre of films has been a mainstay in Hollywood for decades, but all modern Western tv and movies seem to have one thing in common.

Most critics, readers, and scholars agree that Blood Meridian is about undermining the concept of racial domination that fueled the American desire to conquer the Wild West. This is an accurate and detailed depiction of what McCarthy wanted to say in his novel and these concepts still hit home even today. Blood Meridian might be about the American frontier, but issues of racism still plague America. Violent hate crimes happen every day, to the point that even officers who are supposed to uphold the law are found guilty of killing innocent people of color. The Glanton Gang was much the same. They were supposed to protect people and, instead, they used their position of power to massacre whoever they wanted. The parallels between the savage Old West and the ongoing issues of today can’t be overlooked. The weight of this story spreads across centuries, and it will give its audience a lot to think about.

Blood Meridian does have an underlying layer of mystery to it, though, specifically hanging around Judge Holden’s character. Since he’s described as something almost mythological in nature and claims he’ll live forever, it makes readers wonder if they’re reading a book about more than just the American frontier. Author and former professor, David Vann, called Blood Meridian “the Inferno of our time” in a 2009 The Guardian article. Vann compares the setting of McCarthy’s novel to Hell. Whether McCarthy meant to write a story about Hell is irrelevant, because the reality is that the book could be interpreted that way. Judge Holden could fill the role of a demon or even the devil himself. This otherworldly element gives Blood Meridian a unique and promising edge that most other Westerns don’t have.

McCarthy Has Enjoyed Plenty Of Silver Screen Success

Cormac McCarthy’s work has led to more than half a dozen films, including No Country for Old Men (2007) and The Road (2009). More recent films include The Sunset Limited (2011), directed by Tommy Lee Jones, Child of God (2013), directed by James Franco, and The Counselor (2013), directed by the legendary Ridley Scott. McCarthy’s stories have already proven to hold an audience’s attention, so it just makes sense for his greatest novel of all time to get the same treatment.

Currently, New Regency has a Blood Meridian adaptation in the works. In April 2023, New Regency confirmed that John Hillcoat would tackle directing this monumental film. Unfortunately, Cormac McCarthy passed away on June 13, 2023, so he won’t get to see his legendary novel adapted for the silver screen. Currently, the project has no release date or confirmed cast, but there is an IMDb page for the ongoing project.

No Country for Old Men

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.

Director

Ethan Coen , Joel Coen

Release Date

November 9, 2007

Studio

Miramax Films

Writers

Joel Coen , Ethan Coen , Cormac McCarthy

Runtime

122 minutes