>>213922438
>What makes Blood Meridian unfilmable?

There are no John Fords to make the landscape photography a character itself. It has to be Apocalypse Now inna desert mountains with blackpowder 'gun play', requiring a Marlon Brando Col. Kurtz performance carrying the entire length of the film. The kinds of actors required to cast it right (Mel Gibson, Glanton) are too expensive or aging out (like Vincent D'Onofrio for Judge Holden). The political climate will ensure it's received in bad faith critically as an (agit)prop to declaim variations on the Kill Whitey champagne slacktivist theme. The stunt choreography has to be the opening Indian raid of The Revenant the entire time. And there has to be the subtly to leave it open to interpretation. And the Directors working all only have one element required (Eggers' period pieces, McDonaugh's political allegory and nature shots in Banshees of Inishirin, Von Trier understanding the mission with the America Trilogy, but refuses to fly and is an alcoholic wreck.)

The time for it to have been done would have been late 70s to late 80s, early 90s at the Blockbuster latest. It's an immense liability, and invariably only inadequate director talent will take it on out of naivete. An indirect adaptation in Japan or Eastern Europe in some 30 Years War setting would have to break the ground for a proper Anglophone one.