Cormac McCarthy interview

[[A]]

Primarily, the interview is about the movie based on The Road but he talks about a lot of things..

WSJ: When you sell the rights to your books, do the contracts give you some oversight over the screenplay, or is it out of your hands?

CM: No, you sell it and you go home and go to bed. You don't embroil yourself in somebody else's project.

WSJ: When you first went to the film set, how did it compare with how you saw "The Road" in your head?

CM: I guess my notion of what was going on in "The Road" did not include 60 to 80 people and a bunch of cameras. [Director] Dick Pearce and I made a film in North Carolina about 30 years ago and I thought, "This is just hell. Who would do this?" Instead, I get up and have a cup of coffee and wander around and read a little bit, sit down and type a few words and look out the window.

WSJ: But is there something compelling about the collaborative process compared to the solitary job of writing?

CM: Yes, it would compel you to avoid it at all costs.

WSJ: When you discussed making "The Road" into a movie with John, did he press you on what had caused the disaster in the story?

CM: A lot of people ask me. I don't have an opinion. At the Santa Fe Institute I'm with scientists of all disciplines, and some of them in geology said it looked like a meteor to them. But it could be anything—volcanic activity or it could be nuclear war. It is not really important. The whole thing now is, what do you do? The last time the caldera in Yellowstone blew, the entire North American continent was under about a foot of ash. People who've gone diving in Yellowstone Lake say that there is a bulge in the floor that is now about 100 feet high and the whole thing is just sort of pulsing. From different people you get different answers, but it could go in another three to four thousand years or it could go on Thursday. No one knows.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572.html

 

[Max J Power]

Interesting. He seems to view film adaptations of his books quite positively, which is unusual among more literary authors.

 

[[A]]

Not that it ever stopped Hollywood from making book adaptations.

 

[lzzy]

He's quite vague, keeps the mystery going.