Paul Auster - The Inner Life of Martin Frost: A Film

THE INNER LIFE OF MARTIN FROST. Copyright 2007 by Paul Auster.

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ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42703-0

ISBN-10: 0-312-42703-4

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Sigrid Estrade

PAUL AUSTER is the bestselling author of Travels in the Scriptorium, The Brooklyn Follies, Oracle Night, and The Book of Illusions, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

ALSO BY PAUL AUSTER

NOVELS

The New York Trilogy (City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room)

In the Country of Last Things

Moon Palace

The Music of Chance

Leviathan

Mr. Vertigo

Timbuktu

The Book of Illusions

Oracle Night

The Brooklyn Follies

Travels in the Scriptorium

NONFICTION

White Spaces

The Invention of Solitude

The Art of Hunger

Why Write?

Hand to Mouth

The Red Notebook

Collected Prose

SCREENPLAYS

Three Films: Smoke, Blue in the Face, Lulu on the Bridge

POETRY

Unearth

Wall Writing

Fragments from Cold

Facing the Music

Disappearances: Selected Poems

Collected Poems

ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

The Story of My Typewriter (with Sam Messer)

Auggie Wrens Christmas Story (with Isol)

City of Glass (adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli)

EDITOR

The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

I Thought My Father Was God and Other True Tales

from NPRs National Story Project

Samuel Beckett: The Grove Centenary Edition

The Making of

Cline Curiol: You already wrote part of Martin Frosts story in The Book of Illusions. Why go back to it, expand it, and turn it into a screenplay?

Paul Auster: The Inner Life of Martin Frost has had a rather complicated history In 1999, I was approached by a German producer to make a thirty-minute film for a series she was putting together of twelve short films by twelve different directors on the subject of men and women, so-called Erotic Tales. I was intrigued by the proposal and decided to take the plunge. It was early in the year, I remember, February or March, and I sat down and wrote my little script, which came to about thirty pages. Since the budget was going to be low, I confined myself to just two actors and one locationan isolated house in the country. The story of Martin Frost, a writer, and a mysterious woman who turns out to be his muse. A fantastical story, really, more or less in the spirit of Nathaniel Hawthorne. But Claire isnt a traditional muse. Shes an embodiment of the story Martin is writing, and the more he writes, the weaker she becomesuntil, when he comes to the last word of the text, she dies. He finally figures out what has been happening and burns the manuscript in order to bring her back to life. Thats where the short version endedwith Martin bringing Claire back to life.

CC: What was the response from the German producer?

PA: Very positive. Everyone liked the script, and I went ahead and began making preparations to shoot the film. Willem Dafoe and Kate Valkthe great actress from the Wooster Groupwere going to be my cast. Peter Newman, the producer of all the previous films Id worked on, was again going to produce. We made an itemized budget and were starting to look for a house to film in when negotiations with the German company broke down. They wanted to release the money to us in three stages. One-third on signing the contract, one-third when we started shooting, and one-third when we were finishedand they approved the film. This last point worried me. What if they didnt like what I did and rejected the results? One-third of the budget would be lacking, and suddenly Peter would be in the position of having to pay off tens of thousands of dollars from his own pocket. I didnt want to put him at risk like that, so I backed out of the project. The thing that clinched it for me was a conversation I had with Hal Hartley. He had just finished shooting one of the twelve films for the series, and lo and behold, the German producer was insisting that he make changes, putting Hal in exactly the same mess I was afraid of getting us into. His advice to me was to pull out, and thats what I did. In the end, it was probably all for the best. For the fact was that not long after I finished writing the short version of Martin Frost, I began thinking I should extend it into a full-length feature film. Martin brings Claire back to lifeand then what? Thats where the story would start to get even more interesting, I felt. So I sketched out a plan for the rest of the filmnothing definite yet, but a stack of notes to mull over for the future. Then I put it all away and started writing The Book of Illusions, which had been brewing inside me for a long time, close to ten years. That was the summer of 1999, and I finished the manuscript two years later, exactly one month before the attack on the World Trade Center. Toward the end of the book, David Zimmer, the narrator, gets to see one of Hector Manns late films shot in the New Mexico desert. For numerous reasons, The Inner Life of Martin Frost seemed to be the perfect story to use at this point in the novel, so I adapted the short version of the script and put it in.

CC: Did you make many changes?

PA: Nothing essential, really. The action had to be shifted to 1946, for example. The location had to move to Hectors house in New Mexico. The film had to be shot in black and white, and I had to abandon the scenario form and describe the film in prose. Quite a challenge, I might add. Those changes aside, however, the film in the book is very close to the original screenplay.

CC: Why didnt you incorporate the longer version into the novel?

PA: I was tempted, but I decided it would take too many pages to do it right, and in the process I would throw off the balance of the narrative.

CC: Why did it take you three years to go back to Martin Frost after you finished the novel?

PA: There were other books I wanted to write, books I had been thinking about for many years, and I was reluctant to leave my room.... Now that I think about it, September eleventh probably had something to do with it as well. It hit me very hard, watching it happen from the window of my house in Brooklyn, and the idea of making another film lost its attraction for a while. I wanted to be alone, to think my own thoughts. Directing a film means giving up a good two years of your life, and except for the writing of the screenplay, youre working with other people all the time. I just wasnt in the mood for that.