Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 12, William Faulkner - 0 views
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Lari Tanner on 27 Jan 14" Nothing can injure a man's writing if he's a first-rate writer. If a man is not a first-rate writer, there's not anything can help it much. The problem does not apply if he is not first rate because he has already sold his soul for a swimming pool. INTERVIEWER Does a writer compromise in writing for the movies? FAULKNER Always, because a moving picture is by its nature a collaboration, and any collaboration is compromise because that is what the word means-to give and to take. INTERVIEWER Which actors do you like to work with most? FAULKNER Humphrey Bogart is the one I've worked with best. He and I worked together in To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep. INTERVIEWER Would you like to make another movie? FAULKNER Yes, I would like to make one of George Orwell's 1984. I have an idea for an ending which would prove the thesis I'm always hammering at: that man is indestructible because of his simple will to freedom. INTERVIEWER How do you get the best results in working for the movies? FAULKNER The moving-picture work of my own which seemed best to me was done by the actors and the writer throwing the script away and inventing the scene in actual rehearsal just before the camera turned on. If I didn't take, or feel I was capable of taking, motion-picture work seriously, out of simple honesty to motion pictures and myself too, I would not have tried. But I know now that I will never be a good motion-picture writer; so that work will never have the urgency for me which my own medium has. INTERVIEWER Would you comment on that legendary Hollywood experience you were involved in? FAULKNER I had just completed a contract at MGM and was about to return home. The director I had worked with said, "If you would like another job here, just let me know and I will speak to the studio about a new contract." I thanked him and came home. About six months later I wired my director friend that I would like another job. Shortly after that I received a letter -
Lari Tanner on 27 Jan 14Sorry this interview is rather long, but I posted it because Faulkner talks about his books/stories being made into movies and how he feels about it. This is another example that makes me think it would be good for both classes, EMAC6300 and DigitalText.
