In 2007, Rupert Sanders, award-winning director of advertising shorts and currently working on Snow White And The Huntsman, created a short film based on Charles Burns’ graphic novel, Black Hole. The film recently got quite some attention after Slashfilm featured it, and Youtube subsequently removed it because of excessive nudity.
Read on for more, but this might be nsfw.
On Sanders’ own site, you can still see the film in all its gory glory, as it very articulately captures the mood of the book. I was particularly impressed in how the stark black and white contrasts of the book were translated in moody and muted browns and beiges, which at the same time situate the story in time much more directly than Burns does.
Also quite amazing is the way Sanders manages to literally insert some of the more hallucinatory imagery from the book into his film. If this ever gets expanded into a feature, it might easily be one of the creepiest graphic novel adaptations ever. A great, great achievement.
(all images from the short film Black Hole, © 2007, Rupert Sanders. used for journalistic purposes)
