CHUCK KLOSTERMAN’S FARGO ROCK CITY HEADED TO THE BIG SCREEN
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 11:00am by Axl Rosenberg
Well, this makes me nervous.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Tom Ruprecht, a longtime writer on CBS’ ‘Late Show With David Letterman,’ and Craig Finn, frontman of the popular rock band the Hold Steady, are teaming to write and produce” an adaptation of Chuck Klosterman’s 2001 Fargo Rock City.
The book, a personal favorite of my Vince’s and myself, is basically, like everything Klosterman has ever written, a rambling dissection of pop culture (in this case, 80s hair metal) interspersed with personal stories (in this case, about growing up in North Dakota).
So here’s the part that makes me nervous. The film version is described in the following manner:
“The 1980s-set screenplay will revolve around a group of high school seniors facing graduation as they try to find success with women and generally break out of their geeky cocoons.”
And:
“The pic will concentrate on particular portions of the book, including a chapter in which a faulty ATM dispenses excessive amounts of money to Klosterman, which both Finn and Ruprecht say they see as metaphors of the gilded age and easy credit of both the 1980’s and the past few years.”
And:
“While music is an important theme in the memoir, it won’t be featured quite as prominently as it is in Klosterman’s writing.”
So how is this going to be different from the two hundred other crappy coming of age movies that are released every year? Klosterman’s personal recollections are often amusing – the aforementioned ATM incident is particularly droll – but the real reason to read this book (or anything Klosterman has written) is his approach to pop-culture.
While there are some definite lapses in Klosterman’s metal education (at one point he describes Slayer as “death metal” and admits to having no understanding whatsoever as to what makes that band so popular), he takes hair metal very, very seriously, and his analysis of the bands and albums that made the genre so popular in the 80s isn’t just amazingly detailed and insightful, but it’s often laugh out loud hilarious. I have no idea how the hell you would adapt those musing into a feature film – maybe it would work best as a documentary, with Klosterman narrating? – but I know that I have zero interest in seeing either a) yet another Kevin Smithish movie where people are just sitting around talking about pop culture or b) yet another story about geeky high schoolers trying to deal with growing hair on the schmeckels. I just don’t give a shit.
Meanwhile, I’m not really a big Letterman fan so I don’t know anything about this Ruprecht guy, and while I don’t think The Hold Steady are a terrible band, their music really isn’t for me, and you’ll excuse me if I’m cynical about a lead singer declaring himself a screenwriter.
Sigh. Hopefully one of two things will happen:
- I’ll be proven completely wrong, the movie will be awesome and really capture the spirit of Klosterman’s writing, and I’ll hafta eat crow.
- The movie will get stuck in development hell alongside the ill-advised adaptation of Motley Crue’s The Dirt.
I guess we’ll see.
A film version of Killing Yourself to Live, Klosterman’s considerably more self-indulgent and less-interesting book about dead rock stars and ex-girlfriends, is also in the works. If anyone wants to try and turn MetalSucks into a terrible movie, you know how to reach us.
-AR
I really dig Klosterman’s work but this sounds like a shit sandwich. The ATM story isnt a metaphor for anything. Its the story of a kid who gets a bunch of “free” money and blows it on sneakers and hair metal albums. Maybe Hollywood will really knock one out of the park and make this a Megan Fox vehicle or something.
This is the only Klosterman book I haven’t read yet. I even have a copy I got from a CMJ party many moons ago.
craig finn = lame
agreed. is this dude writing another superbad movie?
I will need to see some good cameos for this one.
Funny how Hollywood is always a second-rate knock-off of everything else in the world. They’ll fuck it up. They always do.
It’s a good book. I grew up in rural (it’s all pretty much rural) North Dakota as well and music, particularly metal, was a great way to try and be “different” (in the stereotypical teenage way). Klosterman gets some things wrong but only because there really is/was no scene at all in North Dakota. Listening to bands like Guns N Roses and Poison back then was about as extreme of music as you could run into before the internet came around. The only place to buy music was at the mall in one of the larger (heh) towns. Nobody knew who Slayer was when I was growing up there. Metallica was about as far out as you could get.
Another MS user from ND?
I’ll be DAMNED!
It’s a good place to be “from.” As in, no longer living there.. :)
and oh how times have (somewhat) changed here, just saw The Black Dahlia Murder at the Nasty Nestor in Fargo a couple weeks ago.
But most people here still think Modern Country Music, MTV Hits and Nickelback are the be-all end-all of music.
But my tastes have rubbed off onto quite of few of my friends, so there is a bit of a scene here, nothing really noteworthy, but it will get better.
FUCK I’M JUST STARTING TO READ THIS…SPOILER ALERT.
Anyways, Slayer back in the day *were* Death Metal…before Death Metal was Death Metal. Somewhere along the line, things got “heavier” or “harder”…and Slayer, without really making enormous changes to their sound, became thrash. I think half of the people out there might agree with what I’m saying, and then the other half will decide that I’m fucking crazy for saying such things.
i dafinetly agree. its the same with Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. they were metal when there was no metal but were (rightfully) excluded from the genre in the future
Great book, but this does sound terrible. Why bothering adapting a book where you are going to ignore the main point of it, ie the music! By the way Klosterman wrote a pretty good novel a year or two ago, can’t remember the name of it, but it was a good read.
Yeah this is a great fuckin book, too bad they are going to butcher it on film. Killing Yourself To Live is a great book too. I dont understand how this could possibly be a good movie.
Great book, but this adaptation has massive failure written all over it.
fuckin kill this movie
Dude… they should get Alan Rifkin (Detroit Rock City) to direct it. That’d fuckin’ rule… it’d be somewhat of a DTR sequel.
ugh, klosterman is such a fucking hack.
i think that’s a generous appraisal. totally trades on his metal skeletons in the closet to counteract his hipster douchenessosity.
So stupid. I see absolutely no way anything but Downtown Owl could adapted to the screen. Klosterman is definitely a favorite author, if not the favorite author, but there’s no way these books will see justice.
Never heard of this, but as a metalhead in ND, it seems really interesting… will definitely check out this book.
I’ve read the book. A few parts of it made me laugh out loud, although there were also a few parts where Klosterman kept rambling on and on until I was thinking “Just get to the damn point already.”
With a good director, this could be a pretty funny movie. The premise (a group of early-80s hair metal fans living in rural ND) has potential for some really good comedy.
i do not like this idea. not at all.