In a story like "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" I think that it would be a good idea to be accurate and faithful to the details in the scenes described in the text. Here in "At the Mountains of Madness" it sounds like there is much more room for artistic techniques that might guide the audience if they can be effective in telling the story.
To some degree, I can agree with you on this. While I think some liberties could be taken with "Innsmouth", at least the main incidents it the tale (the decrepit state of the town; the historical divergence behind its decline and the "shadow" which hovers over it; the gradual development of the protagonist's relationship with the seaport; etc.) should be left fairly intact. Stuart Gordon did, I think, make a good compromise on this one with Dagon, updating things for a modern audience to a degree, but remaining surprisingly faithful to Lovecraft on many levels, and putting a great deal of thought into how to walk that line.
On the other hand, At the Mountains of Madness is structured in such a way that the central story, if presented as it is on the written page, would simply bring the movie to a halt; so it must be approached in some other way. I can think of a few, but in order to pull any of them off and still maintain the level of tension necessary will require enormous skill. And I agree with Curt on the alteration in the design of the Old Ones. It may be that Del Toro feels that creatures such as HPL describes would look too comical in motion, and if so he
may be right... but I also think that all depends on how it is shot, edited, and the lighting involved, as well as the length of time they are seen. But Lovecraft spent a great deal of time designing his creations, and his sketches of the Old Ones here, with the appended notes, make it plain he did not just throw together something he found "creepy", but something which had a great deal more to it than that.
You know, I really hate movies these days. There is far too much credit being given to human beings success. One of the nice things about H.P. is that he was able to walk someone into a story and strike them with solid pagan blows without the reader noticing it in particular because they were walked through it with their hands held. I don't like Lovecrafts horror, it is weak, but I like his paganism, and his witchcraft. I don't like paganism and I don't like witchcraft except by Lovecraft. I'm actually a Christian, but it is a nice ride to take on an occasional Lovecraft story, but his horror is like water, not blood. His monsters are weak except for this pantheon. That is what Lovecraft is strong in. No film can achieve that, so you must go with Cuaron if there is any chance what so ever, even the slightest.
Here I really can't agree with you on much, save perhaps the first bit, and to some degree the second. I have no problem, really, with most films being so pro-anthropocentric or humanistic; that is to be expected and is only fitting given it is a popular medium; but when it comes to an approach to the cosmic, it would be good to have a bit more humbleness on our part, I think. His paganism, on the other hand, is of a peculiar kind, heavily mixed with mechanistic materialism and scientific scepticism, yet with a poet's eye to the beauties and richness of nature and "old, forgotten things", and this gives his work a great deal more depth than 90% of the "horror" out there.
As for his horror being weak... I really can't agree with that at all in the main (though there are exceptions). Granted, it isn't (generally) violent, in-your-face horror, but more a quiet spiritual terror not infrequently intermingled with a certain physical repulsion which also (paradoxically) works on various symbolic levels. It is the sort of eeriness and "horror" which creeps up on you, and often hits you sometime later when you realize the full implications of what he is saying. Then it is often very powerful indeed. When it comes to "monsters" being weak, again I disagree there, though I think there are times when such is arguably the case (especially with "The Horror at Red Hook" or his revisions). However, I find his creations in general quite impressive, growing more impressed with them over time; and I think perhaps his crowning achievement in that department has nothing to do with the "pantheon" (a dubious concept in the tales by Lovecraft proper, by the way), but is rather in a tale which, though set in his imaginary New England locale around Arkham, is in no other way connected to the evolving pseudo-mythology so often cited; that being the "chromatic entity" (as he called it) in "The Colour Out of Space" -- certainly one of the most alien entities, I think, which has ever been put into a work of fiction, as we can have no real idea of its motivations, drives, functions, thoughts, or even its very nature. Even the question whether this thing is inimical to or even aware of the humans or other lifeforms it affects is impossible to determine, leaving the reader with no ground to stand on whatsoever, as there is nothing comparable to it in our experience either in real or imaginary life.
I am also not at all convinced that no film can "achieve" an approximation of that aspect of Lovecraft's work, nor that Cuaron is the best choice out there. He may be, of course, but I have my doubts, even from what little I have seen. I think Del Toro can capture that, but whether he will or not remains to be seen. Others can, as well, I think; but it may be a while before we see a serious attempt at such. And, of course, there are always new directors coming along which are full of surprises, too....
Yeah, I'm not sure how to be like H.P. Lovecraft. I'm not sure where he learned about paganism but it appears that he did a fine job, and he wrote seriously in a good number of his stories that I read. Now is there anyone around anymore like him? Is there any pagan, because that mind is not like anything that I've seen around in my school or on tv. There is nothing like him.
For one thing, as said before, I don't think it is either necessary or even desirable to be "like" HPL. He was an unique individual, and should not be copied; in fact, he would be the first to object to others attempting to be like him, as he argued tirelessly for people to use their own modes of expression and their own ideas. Where did he learn about paganism? This we've gone into before: his early reading; first, via Hawthorne's Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales, followed by Bulfinch's Age of Fable, and then reading classical Graeco-Roman literature in the originals and in eighteenth-century translations (as well as some later, modern translations from his own time). He had a rather good library of this sort of literature, especially for a layman, as can be seen in Joshi's listing both in his biography and
Lovecraft's Library: A Catalogue. Yes, he did write seriously... that is, in the sense of taking his art seriously. As he remarked time and again, above all else, this was what mattered to him. As to whether there is anyone like him... well, there are those who certainly exhibit some of his traits and views, but I don't think anyone is his double, so to speak. The times are too different, and Lovecraft was, in some ways, out of place even in his own time.
He would probably hang you people.
Not quite sure what you mean by this one... but you should remember that HPL had a strong tendency to get along with just about any kind of people, once he got to know them; and also tended to like a wide variety of people as well. As many another who has studied him, not to mention those who knew him, have remarked, he also had an enormous ability to be make himself liked, to attract people (which always puzzled him, really); so that, even decades after his death, they still wrote of him in glowing terms. (One of the few exceptions to this was his friend Samuel Loveman, who was terribly upset about the anti-Semitism he found in Lovecraft's published letters. Being Jewish himself, he had no idea how strongly this ran through HPL's personality until these were published, as Lovecraft was tactful about this subject in their correspondence and personal intercourse. As a result, he wrote a rather bitter piece toward the end of his life, "Of Gold and Sawdust", attacking HPL for his "hypocrisy". Yet even there, he was torn between the image he was getting from the letters as published and the person he knew for nearly twenty years; a conflict which comes across strongly throughout the piece.)
Well seriously, I think that it would be difficult to get to his level, but maybe not impossible, but fairly close to impossible. It is just hard to say what those types would think about us or contemporary art/movies/books.
Getting to his level... yes, that would be very difficult these days. In that way, he is similar to J. R. R. Tolkien, who spent decades developing his mythology of Middle-earth before setting pen to paper to attempt publication of it... or even the writing of "a new
Hobbit" (as Lord of the Rings was originally called). He, too, was meticulous and painstaking to a degree which simply would not work in a "professional" fictioneer, as they'd starve to death before ever getting enough published to get attention. However, there are writers out there who are not far behind him as far as native talent and ability; they just don't have the peculiar background either of these writers (or Clark Ashton Smith, for that matter) had, nor the luxury of not having to work for a living via their writing... and that makes a tremendous difference. As for what he would think of contemporary works... Well, he never cared much for "horror" films even of his own day, though he did recognize genuine merit when it came along; he was somewhat more amenable to film as a genuine field of artistic endeavor, and highly praised several things, even to the end of his life. He also continued to grow in his appreciation of different types of art up to his death, just as he did with keeping up with the sciences. So he may have made a very keen, perceptive, and appreciative critic of the best in each of these fields; we will never know for certain....
It might be better to fight against H.P. Lovecraft as we are clearly doing now? Than something might happen, but to take him along with us, is going to look, hmmm, we will see.
I'm afraid I don't follow what you mean here at all. "Fight against"
what, exactly? It doesn't seem as if we are in any way against HPL these days (save for some of his more pungent views), given that he is more popular at this point than ever before; read, studied, filmed, and recorded to an astounding degree. So it looks as if, in those ways at least, we
will be "taking him along with us", don't you think....?
