With the sad demise of Norman Mailer, one of America’s most important writers, comes the news that one of his novels will be coming to us via the silver screen….. again. Dark Horizons reported this week that the author’s son, John, has released the rights to adapt The Naked and the Dead. The 1948 novel was a landmark in writing, being one of the first honest accounts of life in the Second World War. The novel was adapted into a 1958 film version, and was generally considered to be a forgettable, sanitised version of the powerful story.

The novel deals with a reconnaissance platoon of US soldiers based in the South Pacific. It depicts the difficult lives of the soldiers and officers involved, and manages to create rich characters, often telling the history of a character through a key flashback- a device you will recognise from Lost.

The only problem with making a film of The Naked and the Dead, is that while it can be commended for being the first, and one of the most effective war novels, war movies have raided its insight for quite a while. Now, the war movie has been done to death, ranging from the frivolous (Pearl Harbour) to the profound (Apocalypse Now). A film adaption of the great novel simply can’t be great, due to the genre having been exhausted since.

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