'The snow in the mountains was melting
and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand
the gravity of this youtube video'. Hey it's Hali and welcome back to
my wonderful little youtube channel. It's the 30th anniversary of
Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I've been thinking a lot about its rise in popularity and why a film
hasn't come along with that. And now why i'm starting to think like it
just shouldn't happen. Here is the 30th anniversary edition by the way, it's very cute.
This is going to be a long one so strap in, get a hot chocolate, tidy your room if you want
to tidy your room. Make sure you send this to your best friend so that you can talk about it.
Let's get into it. Before i start i want you to know that i am a fan of this book so i'm not
going to spend this entire video dragging it, but i will be addressing its problems and its
complexities. Okay let's really get into it. What is The Secret History about? The Secret History
is a 1992 novel by author Donna Tartt. Set in Vermont it tells the story of a group of classic
students who become involved in a situation that leads to the murder of their classmate Bunny. The
book is, loosely of course, based on Donna Tartt's experience at Bennington College, which becomes
Hampdem College in the book. Tartt first started at Bennington College in 1982 alongside rich kids
like Brett Easton Ellis author of American Psycho and Jonathan Lethem author of the Fortress of
Solitude. As you'll know Donna Tartt dedicated The Secret History to Brett Easton Ellis,
which was kind of shade but also wholeheartedly appreciation too. Bennington in this era
had been described as an edgy anti-college but it also had some of the most expensive
tuition fees in the whole of the United States, including the Ivy's. Tartt's characters are
based on many of her friends, acquaintances, and partners from college. There's this super funny
quote from Matt Jacobson who is so obviously Bunny and it says, "I called my mother and said i've
been caricatured in a book and my character gets killed and she said no no no no one would ever
kill you not even in print then she read the book and said that's you all right i wore wire-rimmed
glasses like bunny i had dyslexia that's what they called in the 70s anyway like bunny and like bunny
i was an extremely affected young man one day in the dining hall i was gawking at some girl and
said reminds me of the way diana's painted on the ceiling of my father's club and that line found
its way into donna's book and i'd invite people to lunch and then realize i didn't have any money
something dear old bunny does and i was kind of a horrible bounder though in my case it was never
intentional". Donna herself remains an enigma, both known and not really known by her friends
and peers. I super highly recommend this piece from Esquire it talks a lot about all the crazy
happenings at Bennington College when Donna Tartt and Brett Easton Ellis were there; and the fallout
after they both rose to stardom. It's absolutely insane. Whatever you're expecting expect more
let's focus back on the book itself donna [ __ ] "so doula peep". Donna Tartt was only in her 20s
when The Secret History was sold to publish enough for around half a million dollars the reviews upon
its release were glowing A New York Times review raved that it was a, "ferociously well-paced
entertainment", and Vanity Fair called it, "a huge mesmerizing galloping reed pleasurably
devoured". With a book making waves like this you might be asking - why hasn't this book become
a movie already? This book came out in 1992 and we're in the 2020s now and still nothing. The
journey of the film rights is super interesting so strap in. Shout out to this article from Town
and Country magazine. It shows the timeline super clearly, so if you're interested in this i
highly recommend you read it. But i will give you the shorthand version of that. Okay, bear with
me on this because it's a little complicated. So the book was released in 1992. Very quickly
after a famous director gained the film rights under Warner Brothers. The screenplay was going
to be written by none other than famous writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. I found
this super interesting because Joan and John's daughter Quintana actually went to Bennington
with Donna Tartt and Brett Easton Ellis, and there was absolutely a crossover between these
groups of people. In a shocking turn of events, the director was killed in a car crash in 1998.
Without him to push the project, it just never really got off the ground. In 2001 one of Donna
Tartt's agents was quoted in Variety saying, "If you don't make the right deal for a book early on
it's going to set you back a long time". This was foreshadowing for sure. But in 2002 we're back.
Donna Tartt had just released her second novel The Little Friend, but that wasn't the biggest news in
her sphere. Miramax had just acquired the rights to The Secret History, but you'll never guess
who was developing it. I'm gonna give you two seconds to guess. None other than Gwyneth Paltrow
and her brother Jake Paltrow. An agent of Donna's confirmed that that script was being written as
they spoke. So again, what happened to this film? Unfortunately, another death. Gwyneth and
Jake's father died of pneumonia that year and again the project was shelved. You'd think
okay couldn't anyone else take this on? It just wasn't a priority for Miramax and they let the
film rights lapse after just a year. This meant that the film rights for The Secret History just
went back to Donna Tartt. Fast forward to 2013, whilst teenagers were ruining their frontal lobes
on tumblr, more buzz around this film started to happen and a conversation around film rights
picked up again. Melissa Rosenberg, who literally was the screenwriter for all of the twilight
films by the way. Like, oh can you imagine. And also Brett Easton Ellis. So Melissa Rosenberg
and Brett Easton Ellis decided that they wanted to develop the film and turn it into a mini series.
Did you just get excited? Is something about to happen right now? Unfortunately the answer is no.
It literally just never happened. So those film rights are still with Donna Tartt and rumor has
it she's not interested in making a film anymore. Wasn't that such a weird journey? Like maybe even
a little cursed? Okay let's bring it forward. What happens now? It's the 2020s and this book is
super popular. Why The Secret History should never become a movie. With tThe Secret History
having a major moment because of the rise of TikTok Pinterest and the dark academia aesthetic,
you might be sitting here thinking like, 'what is she talking about this is the perfect time to
make the film'. Let me break down why The Secret History should not become a film. The Secret
History: romanticization or critique? If you're watching this video you're probably, like me, a
fan of this book. But you'd be super surprised as to the millions of ways people have interpreted
it over the past 30 years. Let's take a look at some of the key ones. A reddit thread opens
the floor to key debates around this book. It asks the question: is The Secret History mocking
all the egotistical pretentious characters? Now you're often going to come across these
takes. Example one. "We all have our own opinions, but i highly doubt she's mocking them it's my
favorite book and i've done intensive research on Donna Tartt's life and even applied to Bennington
College because of her. Her college experience and Richard's were extremely alike. I really don't
think she was mocking them considering she was pretty much one of them. Okay and example two goes
like this: "I don't get why people romanticize these characters when they're literally satire". I
find both of these takes really interesting and it kind of feeds into why i don't think the secret
history should become a film. I want to look at a couple more takes from the internet that apply
a level of nuance that i do agree with. "I think it's complicated. I think she values their eradic
nature and dedication to a very lofty ideal of academia i think we're supposed to be taken by
the romance of the sort of lives they live there but spoilers these people either end up dead or
profoundly miserable by the end of the novel. They think they're above any sort of conventional
morality and their lives fall apart because of it,". "It's definitely a bit satirical but
also a loving homage within the satire. I think it plays a bit in the space of the
aesthetic being enthralling but also corrupting. The students aren't very good people but they're
still people.". "The reason their characters are so miserable is because they are living for their
aesthetics. Misery fits their aesthetic. The long hours studying the decline in mental health and
a flair for the dramatic are at the core staples of dark academia. This book isn't about glorifying
these qualities, it's criticizing how unfulfilling and destructive their elitism is." Books like
The Secret History aren't always about one thing. In fact, i would agree that the point of the book
is to slip into and experience the high of the events in the way Richard does. But then you fall.
You're meant to realize that these characters are fundamentally flawed people. They're not as
smart as they think they are. They're incredibly privileged and conceited people. At its core it's
a critique of these characters and the privileges that allow them to behave in the way that they do.
But just because a book concludes one way doesn't mean that it didn't revel in the romanticization
of it. I kind of feel like this battle between aestheticism, romanticization and its critiques
just won't play out well on film. Especially not now in the 2020s. Here's why. I think that all of
these conversations and thoughts around the book and a potential film i think are really coming to
light because of just the rapid traction that dark academia as an aesthetic has gained over the past
maybe five to ten years. The secret history is one of the core texts that has driven this aesthetic's
popularity over time. We've also seen what happens when people engage in the dark academia aesthetic
without any nuance or critical analysis: ultra romanticization. As an interest in dark academia
has increased we've also seen an increase in the fetishization of Donna Tartt's characters and The
Secret History as a whole. I want to state that i don't believe that everyone who's interested in
dark academia is involved in this, but i'm also not saying that it isn't a thing because it's
absolutely a thing. You can take a short look at tiktok if you're interested in seeing this.
Without critical analysis applied to both the book and the wider dark academia aesthetic we're left
with a romanticization of a very white eurocentric privileged view of education and life. That is
not the intent of the book or the dark academia genre as a whole. The film could absolutely go
in this ultra romanticized direction, with either the filmmakers not fully addressing and showcasing
the book's critiques of the characters lifestyles, or moviegoers latching onto the beautiful visuals
disseminating them across platforms like tiktok without context controls or critical thinking
skills. The good the bad and the problematic. Let's ask the burning question. Would this film be
acceptable to make in the 2020s? I don't think so. The language. Donna Tartt uses cruel and
derogatory language, including homophobic, racist, or classist dialogues to prove the bad in
her characters. For example, quite early on in the book we see Bunny go on this incredibly jarring
tirade about gay men. He even drops the f word. Would that be acceptable sitting in the film
scripts of the 2020s, regardless of the point that it was trying to make? It calls into
question whether Donna Tartt had the right to invoke speech like that in order to make a
point. A lot has happened in media, literature, film and political movements in the 30 years since
this book's release. We've had a lot of films exploring the disillusionment with modern markers
of success. Fight Club for masculinity. American Psycho and The Wolf of Wall Street for corporate
cultures and capitalist dreaming. Virgin Suicides for utopian American suburbia. Or even smaller
productions like The Riot Club for fetishization of the upper class lifestyle and elite education.
It's kind of funny because all of those films are really aestheticized and romanticized on social
media actually. That's not to say that any of those films are bad, but they're certainly a
product of their time. At this point in time a new production of the secret history, a book about
rich white kids with immense amount of power and privilege, could result in a film that feels done
before, trite, out of touch, problematic or just plain cliche. I think there was a time when this
film could have been made, but i also feel like that time has passed. Casting. Making this film
a good fit for the 2020s is a real challenge and i've seen lots of people suggest that diversifying
the cast could make the film fit and ready for the 2020s. I even saw a major publication
try and fan cast John Boyega as Richard. My answer to that is no. I don't think that
colorblind casting is a solution to a book like this which so aptly shows the way white power
and privilege works and enables these characters to engage in the behaviors that they did. This
privilege influences their overall philosophies. Even Richard as an outsider of the group, who is
less well-off than the group, still does benefit from the white male privilege that allows him to
slide into spaces like that in the first place. His whiteness is just as important as the other
characters. Bennington college, Donna Tartt's alma mater, was also incredibly white. So here's
the issue, I don't think colorblind casting is the correct decision for a film like this, but if
you take that away you're left with an incredibly white cast in the 2020s. It's not looking good.
And again it might be fair to say that production houses should be focused on equaling the playing
field as to whose stories are presented on film. Even taking the issue away of colorblind casting,
you're left with another big blow. What casting of this film would actually make people happy? As a
side note, in the 90s fan favorites of this film at the time were young hollywood heavyweights
like johnny depp and leonardo dicaprio. Can you imagine watching that now? We also live
in an era where films are undoubtedly tainted by the people who are in them. Like how seeing Armie
Hammer is just a jump scare now? So how would this work. Let's look at the real descriptions of the
characters based on what's written in the novel and then look at dream fan castings
for the secret history over the years. This is just for fun, i found it funny. Henry. The
larger of the two and he was quite large well over six feet was dark-haired with a square jaw and
coarse pale skin he might have been handsome had his features been less set or his eyes behind the
glasses less expressionless and blank. zane holtz, george mackay, penn badgley, max mingella, cillian
murphy. Bunny. The smaller of the two but not by much was a sloppy blonde boy rosy cheat and
gum chewing with a relentlessly cheery demeanor and his sandy hair was parted on the left so a
long fall lock fell over one bespectacled eye. Bunny Cochoran was his name. Patrick
gibson, garrett headland, dave franco, chord overstreet and michael pitt. Francis.
The third boy was the most exotic of the set. Angular and elegant. He was precariously thin
with nervous hands and a shrewd albino face and a short fiery mop of the reddest
hair i've ever seen. George mackay, dylan bell, luke newbury, antony elchin,
timothy chalamet, and ollie alexander from years and years? Charles and camilla. They looked
very much alike, with heavy dark blonde hair and epicene faces as clear as cheerful and as grave
as a couple of flemish angels. Emily Alyn Lind, mia wasikowska, natalia dyer, saiorse ronan,
and cara delevingne. George mackay, dane dehaan, alex pettyfer, jesse plemmons, jamie bell. Look
at this article too like i'm dead, but it's so acutely satirizes how ridiculous the fan casting
obsession is with this film. I think any casting director who took this on would have the worst
time of their lives trying to make everyone happy about this. To be honest that's the way with like
all cult books. In conclusion, i have a lot to say about casting but essentially it just sounds
like a nightmare on so many levels. Donna tartt's writing: does it translate? I think donna tartt
is an incredibly descriptive and immersive writer which is probably why the book is so popular. The
fact that donna tartt's real college is the basis for the college in the book is really helpful but
it doesn't guarantee a seamless adaptation from book to film. As a case study let's look at
reviews for the goldfinch which was a book to film adaptation of donna tartt's third book. i've read
the goldfinch and i've watched the film and i was disappointed. These critics say the same. A
flat and lumbering albeit beautifully film drama that bores me more than it entertains.
I sat there watching and thinking there's so many good things in this and yet none of them are
touching me in the slightest. Painfully one note and sort of pointless. A beautifully shot
mess. There's no sense of pace or mystery but rather an evident need to get through tarte's
dense plotting in a two and a half hour run time. Even at two and a half hours john crowley's
film version of the goldfinch feels compressed sacrificing plot development for the sake of
character development to the point where it becomes absolutely unbelievable. It's well crafted
but there's absolutely no emotional connection. Now i'm not gonna lie to you the goldfinch was
an incredibly dense book and i feel like it could have been cut down significantly. With that
being said, her visual descriptions her ideas and her characters really resonated with me and i had
a very visceral emotional reaction when the book ended. With the film i was just like, oh. It
didn't feel like they found a way to translate or convey that at all and it was a long film too.
And it stars ansel elgort yikes. Would the secret history face the same issue? I think it could.
those long dense philosophical conversations could really bore moviegoers, but in the book they feel
really integral. Would a filmmaker cut them down or get rid of them all together? Another
thing is like how they would best convey richard's point of view. Would they deal with like
a lot of narration and direct quotes from the book like Baz Luhrman's the great gatsby? Would they
leave the audience to contemplate in relative silence? Or would it be a mishmash of both? I
think in all cases it could cause problems. A mix of them could definitely feel messy we could
end up with another film that felt incredibly flat like the goldfinch. You might be thinking
that something like a mini series could work, but if a production company went down the route
of turning the secret history into a mini-series, would the tv show be able to keep good pace?
Would each episode be interesting enough to keep people's attention? I read a really interesting
quote from someone who did want the secret history to hit screens and i found it super interesting.
I loved this book when i was an impressionable university student. I think a film adaptation was
mooted in the 90s but it would be perfect for a tv adaptation, maybe in six parts on apple or hbo. It
has nostalgic 80s 90s fives which are all the rage and a classic outsider trying to fit in with the
cool kids story that jumps backwards and forwards. I imagine if it was netflix it would
turn into a parody of cruel intentions or just a dull slug if it was on amazon. I find
it really interesting that not only do we have all these other factors to contend with when it comes
to book to film or book to series adaptations, but people are more interested than ever about
which production house or streaming platform is gonna do the best job adapting a book to the
screen. There are just so many parts at play. But what does this all show? This all shows that
from the romanticization and critique debate, to the casting, to the area that we're in and to
the project of filmmaking, we can just tell that everyone has a profoundly different and varied
version of what they would like to see this film be. I think that the secret history continues
to survive today because it's left to people's singular imaginations. It's also still anchored in
a time where this story was a great one to tell. It was interesting, it was groundbreaking and it
suited the time it was in. For all the fans of the book i don't think that a secret history film
could be anything other than... disappointing. If you liked this video please like and subscribe, leave a comment. Thank you so much for
watching and i'll see you in my next video
