9 JG Ballard Stories That Must Be Filmed

Celebrating the life of Britain's late, great author

Apr 20th 2009 By Sam Ashurst

The Voices Of Time (1960)

The Star: Harrison Ford

The Director: David Lynch

The Pitch: This classic Ballard short story isn’t so much a narrative as a deconstruction of the very fabric of the universe. So it doesn’t exactly have a plot, per se – just a collection of riffs on science, mathematics and evolutionary psychology.

But the basic structure of the film would follow Powers, a neuroscientist who is slowly slipping into a coma whilst being stalked by another scientist called Kaldren, a man who has had an operation to stop him sleeping.

When Powers confronts Kaldren at his home, Kaldren reveals the secrets of the universe...

We’re tempted to fund this one ourselves, just so we could see what Lynch would do with a conclusion that would require every single one of his inspired instincts, and probably more than a couple of meditation sessions.

Comments

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- alowe
  
  Apr 20th 2009, 13:12
  
  Cocaine Nights, too, please. First shot: tennis machine pumping out balls. Pull back slowly to reveal a player in tennis whites, lying dead on the floor in a growing pool of tennis balls.
  
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- MadMatt
  
  Apr 20th 2009, 18:28
  
  Natali has been struggling to get High-Rise made for years - probably because he wants to make it as bleak and darkly brilliant as you suggest. He's a perfect fit and seriously underrated, so I hope that one at least makes it to the screen.
  
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- chris999
  
  Apr 25th 2009, 0:00
  
  By the way, it's Heavenly Creatures - not Heavenly Girls.
  
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- chris999
  
  Apr 25th 2009, 0:00
  
  By the way, it's Heavenly Creatures - not Heavenly Girls.
  
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- jargonking
  
  Apr 26th 2009, 18:38
  
  You're forgetting Hello America, possibly the most cinematic of all his novels featuring a European expedition to explore an America abandoned by it's population more than a century earlier. The opening scene of the ship arriving in an empty New York is phenomenal.
  
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