9 JG Ballard Stories That Must Be Filmed

Celebrating the life of Britain's late, great author

Apr 20th 2009 By Sam Ashurst

Venus Smiles (1971)

The Star: Cate Blanchett

The Director: Peter Jackson

The Pitch: If Heavenly Girls and the forthcoming Lovely Bones show glimpses of Jackson’s gift for the surreal, Venus Smiles could be his chance to fully unleash it.

When a musical statue is unveiled in the centre of Ballard’s fictional town Vermillion Sands, the denizens are furious – not only is the statue ugly to the eye, but the music it emits is deeply unpleasant to the ear.

One of the statue's commissioners, Hamilton, decides to take it home so it won’t be destroyed. Strangely, the statue starts to look more attractive in its new surroundings and it even starts to create more appealing sounds.

But Hamilton eventually notices that the statue is also changing form – it’s growing by the minute.

How Hamilton deals with the metallic statue’s growth, which is increasingly encroaching onto his home, would form the basis of a stunning film.

And the story’s final line would rival Planet Of The Apes’ “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to Hell!” for iconic status.

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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