Cormac Attack
by Giampaolo Bianconi
Hello
Cormac McCarthy came out of the rock he’s been under (family life, whatever) and granted the once-illustrious Wall Street Journal an interview. It’s worth the read, since he seems as acerbic and intelligent as ever. Furthermore, he discusses the numerous adaptations of his novels into films. About All The Pretty Horses, he says:
“The director [Billy Bob Thornton] had the notion that he could put the entire book up on the screen. Well, you can’t do that. You have to pick out the story that you want to tell and put that on the screen. And so he made this four-hour film and then he found that if he was actually going to get it released, he would have to cut it down to two hours.”
There you have it, right from the horse’s mouth. The myth of fidelity to the text—-shattered. Even novelists think all that matters is a good film.