Cinematical

Well, it's going to be a film, so in all likelihood it'll be jazzed up. But McCarthy's greatness is in his prose. That won't be captured on the screen, it's just not possible. His books move slowly, so it'll have to be pushed a bit. But it's hard to see anyone being as painful and tragic as McCarthy's books always are, especially since there's a child involved.

In terms of the father, they guy should be in his 40s. I'm not a fan of his, but Brad Pitt is a big McCarthy fan, you could see him making a play for it. For real credibility, though, give it to Daniel Day-Lewis. And if he's too expensive, give it to Paddy Consadine. That guy's so good (great little supporting role in Hot Fuzz) it's crazy.

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I see you learning the difference between "allude" and "elude."

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This is agreat book but, as another poster noted, the book's greatness is in the way it is written. It is very minimal, which helps to further the desolation of the world this man finds himself and his son in. To play the father, I think you need someone who can speak loudly without saying a word. Think Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. Brad Pitt might work, but i don't think so. Mark Wahlberg would be good, so might Denzel Washington, although I don't care for him, I think he could carry this role.

If you have not read this book, you should. It is an easy read with the pace moving along well throughout.

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I've read THE ROAD, then went back and re-read huge swathes of it in subsequent weeks and months...it's about as horrifying, dark and profoundly disturbing as anything I've ever read, even from McCarthy, who can be pretty bleak sometimes.

But, even with the terrible things he shows, he's got that Dickey-esque ability to bend prose into music, and that's what makes his stories move and linger...I wonder how much of that is translatable, if at all? The long pace of that fabled first cut of ALL THE PRETTY HORSES wasn't to the taste of the studio execs. I can't imagine they'd do this justice...expecially after the terrible short shrift given the marketing of CHILDREN OF MEN in this country.

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This is a tough question and I'm not feeling any of the previous suggestions. All those actors are big names(Pitt, Wahlberg, Washington), I think they could be distracting choices. I read the book knowing it was going to be a movie. I think it needs to be someone who looks sad, constantly worried to death but smarter then average.
Get him to loss some weight for the role (as all characters in the book are straving) and I think Matthew Fox could pull it off.

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Do you think Cormac McCarthy is a good author?

Of course.

Why?

Because he's so superior to the rest of the literary world, he isn't constrained by conventional trappings of English grammar, like quotation marks. He's above the little people.

And we all fawn in unquestioning adoration.

Yes.

Can we jazz up the movie with ray gun wielding terminators or something?

Sure.

Ok.

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As I read this book, the presence of horror and bleakness were all too real. No vegitation, no animals, no sea fish. Cannables. How would man survive, if only for the scraps that the old world left behind? Yet there was always fleeting glimpses of hope from the earth itself (the slight shadow of sunlight, the dim light of the moon). Through the tragedy and hopelessness, there was for me the hope of something better. That man will survive.

I think this is an important point to show in the film. It leaves a sort of suspence that is always there, but never comes, save for the end where we find out that humanity itself will endure to the end and those who still carry the fire will not extinguish it as long as it survives.

As inspiring as this may be, it only adds to the bleakness and hopelessness of the world in which the book takes place. Man is dead, but humanity survives. I believe this theme would help to transfer the feel of the book to film.

As for the Man, I think Jude Law did a great job as a trajic figure in Cold Mountain, and would fit this part well. The child would have to be an unknown. Definately not a Hollywood pretty boy, but a tragic yet strong character all the same.

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McCarthy's one of our finest writers, and The Road is an extraordinary book, perhaps his finest. This film project seems doomed to me: an Australian director whose best work displays a singular- but profoundly "small" vision- and an English screenwriter whose strength is in wisecracking, literal issue-based stuff. The Road is elegant, metaphorical and subtle. This is the wrong team. And they'll spend a lot of money over the next couple of years to figure that out. When will producers ever learn that hiring personnel who are not really suited to the task at hand isn't an exciting way to make creative sparks fly- it's a recipe for disaster.

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McCarthy is a 73 year old man. In real life, he's got a young son, maybe less than 10. I believe he modeled the characters in The Road on himself and his son. You get the definite feeling the father in the story is older. He's sick throughout. He's coughing constantly and spitting up blood. It kills him in the end. This ain't no Brad Pitt. It's a grizzled thinner Jack Nicholson. It's Gene Hackman. Maybe even Michael Douglas. There's got to be something fierce in the eyes of this character. An old lion protecting his motherless cub. Two aspects need to be translated from book to screen for the movie to be successful. The story is absolutely harrowing, even when nothing is happening. The moviemakers can not minimize the psycological horror that should lurk in every frame of the film. Just imagining oneself walking that dark road with that child in that universe is the stuff of dreadful nightmare. Number two, the love between the father and son has to be palpable, literal. There is nothing this man will not do for this child to keep him alive. This child is the hope and redemption of the human race. The Chalice. If they fuck that up, if they trivialize or sentimentalize the relationship between father and son, all will be lost. My last comment is that this book has absolutely nothing to do with War of the Worlds or Dawn of the Dead, thank God. This is a real man and a real boy in a lost and destroyed world. If the filmmakers do it right, you will not be thinking of those other two movies.

Almer

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Having both read the book, my wife and I just did a casting-jam. We landed on Chris Cooper. Gravitas, maturity, ability to carry every scene -- without a word. The film should be about visuals ... if there's a voice-over we'll commit dual suicide.

Daniel Day Lewis could certainly pull it off, and maybe Jason Patric, but the part has to go to a lower-tier serious actor who can just shut up and act.

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Your bias against Oprah's book club is ignorant and unfounded. If you had ever actually paid attention you would know that there have been many male authors. And no one, to my knowledge, has ever deemed her the God of literature. She is instead an intelligent, influential person that has a record of superb taste in book and has done wonders for reading in America.

The Road is a beautiful novel and although a cinematic adaptation would be delicate and difficult undertaking, if done correctly it would be powerful and relevant.

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The one person who came to mind for me as "the man" was Peter Coyote -- he was "keys" in E.T. and I think he is or could play the right age, the right body type and the voice, his is the voice I hear when I re-read the lines in The Road.

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I've read the book twice now, and I can't think of anyone better to play the father than Clive Owen. Just study his role in Children of Men, especially towards the end where he warms up to Kee and will do nearly anything to protect her, and it's in an apocalyptic time...sound familiar???

As for the child, can't really think of anyone. No one in Hollywood now comes to mind, so it would probably be someone new. I also struggle with the "supposed" age of the child. Many people think him to be 10 - 12 which I think is crazy. How many 12 year olds do you see getting rides on their father's shoulders? I tend to view him being somewhere around 6 or 7.

Thoughts?

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