Lost Books/Unrealised Projects

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
Another one - Kubrick's film about Napoleon, long researched, never attempted (boxes and boxes of archive material were found in Kubrick's house after his death).

David Foster Wallace was a one-novel, powerhouse guy. Even though personally I'm not such a big fan of Infinite Jest.
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
I'm quite interested by the phenomena of authors who only manage to complete and publish one novel in their lifetime, and it turns out to be a total powerhouse.

Invisible Man may be my nearest and dearest novel ever. Harper Lee managed to eke out one novel and then epic writer's block.

David Foster Wallace was a one-novel, powerhouse guy. Even though personally I'm not such a big fan of Infinite Jest.
DFW first novel was Broom of the System----IJ was his second.
 

trouc

trouc
I was going to mention Mount Analogue as well. Way more interesting than Holy Mountain... such a disappointment that it's unfinished.
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
^ agreed. the film lacks the humor of the book.

and this is my favorite thread on this board atm.

i remember reading that basil kirchin traveled the world making all these field recordings but they were lost in the sea as the reels were being unloaded at some port. i can't seem to substantiate this hazy memory of mine...
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
Another one - Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, part 3 - parts of which were filmed, and then later destroyed, but the filming of which was interrupted by the director's death.

Artaud also had a theatrical project, entitled "The Conquest of Mexico" which he never got off the ground. But which I think parts of El Topo (or is the Holy Mountain?) are quite reminiscent of - especially the scenes of the conquest restaged as an invasion of war-frogs.

Orson Welles' studio-mangled "The Magnificent Ambersons" probably deserves a special mention here.

Also, Eisenstein's project for a film of Marx's Capital (now essentially made, by the German director and intellectual Alexander Kluge). Brecht also tried to write an epic poem based on the same source.
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
And then, there are vast numbers of uncompleted projects from the history of architecture, for obvious reasons. Tatlin's Monument to the Third International is amongst the most famous of these.
 

jenks

thread death
Welles - surely Chimes at Midnight is the great lost work of his.

There was a lovely McSweeneys a while back that got writers to write stories that Fitzgerald had outlined in his notebooks - most of them were just a title or a one line idea.
 

nochexxx

harco pronting
this thread has got me thinking about aphex twin's druqks. i remember some hype around the time of its release suggesting that he lost his mp3 player with hundreds of unreleased tracks during a plane journey. this prompted him to release druqks before they hit the web. it does sound like proper aphex bollox though. :)
 

trouc

trouc
Well it's maybe 150 pages and uncompleted, as Daumal had tuberculosis and died in the midst of writing it... but those few pages are great. Fantastic concepts but rather silly at the same time... I imagine it being written rather joyfully unlike HM, which despite it's psychedelic tinge seems to me to've come from a coked out fury
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Well it's maybe 150 pages and uncompleted, as Daumal had tuberculosis and died in the midst of writing it... but those few pages are great. Fantastic concepts but rather silly at the same time... I imagine it being written rather joyfully unlike HM, which despite it's psychedelic tinge seems to me to've come from a coked out fury

Agreed, or maybe even a prolonged state of amphetamine psychosis...like someone who'd been awake for a few too many days...
 

craner

Beast of Burden
The 2nd book of Dead Souls wasn't going too well, though, was it? Certainly not, judging by what was left of it...
 

littlebird

Wild Horses
There was a lovely McSweeneys a while back that got writers to write stories that Fitzgerald had outlined in his notebooks - most of them were just a title or a one line idea.

do you have a link for this?

would love to read some of them, even if they were only titles/one lines.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Another one - Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, part 3 - parts of which were filmed, and then later destroyed, but the filming of which was interrupted by the director's death.
To take it one stage further, in Underworld (DeLillo) there is an imaginary lost Eisenstein film which is found and shown.

"Artaud also had a theatrical project, entitled "The Conquest of Mexico" which he never got off the ground. But which I think parts of El Topo (or is the Holy Mountain?) are quite reminiscent of - especially the scenes of the conquest restaged as an invasion of war-frogs."
That's in The Holy Mountain.

"There's plenty of absurdity, not enough levity."
You don't think it's funny when he goes "You are your own master now - cut off my head"?
Either way I ought to get round to reading the book that's for sure.

Mangled films are another whole kettle of fish. I read somewhere that all the Paradjanov films had loads (literally hours) of extra footage and he had to basically create something out of what he had that would be acceptable to the authorities. I believe that one of his films had an entire gay storyline that was cut out of it.
Interesting to speculate about how different a film could have been with different editing. The classic one for this is Caligula I think. Brass took his name off the film as it was edited so much by the producers (he said he wanted to make a film about the orgy of power but they changed it to being a film about the power of orgy - whatever that means) and then it was further heavily censored differently in various countries so you had several different versions. I got the box set out of the video library the other day and there were about five different versions of the film in there - the one I watched was the longest and had, I think, all the footage that was available to insert - plus a load of extra hardcore porn that was shot later inserted just for good measure. Impossible to work out what the film actually should have been, it's hidden behind all the ones that came out I reckon.
 
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