Film series focuses on celebrating written word
Given the long history of screen adaptations of books, it’s easy to see how movies have capitalized on the creative energy of authors. But the film series “Auteur, Author: Film & Literature” now in its second year, provides a unique showcase for the synergy between filmmakers and writers.
“Naturally, both are concerned with telling great stories,” said Tom Luddy, cofounder and co-director of the Telluride Film Festival, who proposed the book festival film series to Cherilyn Parsons, the festival’s founder and executive director.
Luddy then pulled in Kathy Geritz, film curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). BAMPFA hosts the series, and Luddy has curated its first two editions.
“Filmmakers have built on written literature in terms of story, character, structure, tone and more, but increasingly, the reverse is true, too,” Luddy said. “Literary authors are inspired by film—by the way that this visual medium tells stories and conveys emotion. At the Telluride Film Festival, we often have guest curators who are authors selecting films that have influenced them.”
Luddy previously served as director and curator of the Pacific Film Archive, now BAMPFA, which collaborates with the book festival on the series. “Both BAMPFA and the Bay Area Book Festival are creatively adventurous, and it seemed natural to bring them together,” he noted.
BAMPFA curator Kathy Geritz agreed.
“At the first Bay Area Book Festival, there was a burst of energy and creativity, bringing attention to all types of writing in a myriad of ways ... with a feeling that writing and books are vital, complex and central to what we as people need and want to immerse ourselves in,” she recalled.
“It serves as a reminder of the incredible vitality of writing and the importance of reading; we feel the same way about film.”
Geritz added, “The film series ‘Auteur, Author’ is unique in that it looks at the intersection of film and literature in diverse ways — it features adaptations of books of course, but also portraits of authors, meditations on writing and films on adventurous publishers.”
That diversity also spans genres, themes, countries of origin and the speakers who introduce films and lead conversations afterward. Highlights in the five-day series, which begins May 31 in advance of the book festival, include:
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” Phil Kaufman’s acclaimed 1978 adaptation of a 1956 horror movie based on Jack Finney’s 1955 novel, starring Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy and Veronica Cartwright. The series opener screens at 7 p.m. May 31, followed by conversation between Kaufman and noted film historian and critic David Thomson, author of more than 30 books, including the “New Biographical Dictionary of Film.”
“Stalker” (1979), Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s brooding sci-fi dystopia, adapted by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky from their own novel, “Roadside Picnic.” Author Geoff Dyer, whose “Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room” (2012) meditates on “Stalker,” introduces the screening at 7 p.m. June 1.
The director’s cut of “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters,” Paul Schrader’s 1985 portrait of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, includes scenes from three of his novels and biographical flashbacks, leading up to the day of his suicide in 1970. Author Rachel Kushner, finalist for the National Book Award for her novels “The Flamethrowers” and “Telex From Cuba,” introduces the film at 8:30 p.m. June 3.
“Intruder in the Dust,” the 1949 film adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel by Ben Maddow, directed by Clarence Brown. Considered one of the first Hollywood movies to address racism of the Jim Crow era, it stars Juano Hernandez and a young Claude Jarman, Jr. The director of the San Francisco International Film Festival from 1968 to 1980, Jarman will appear at the screening, 3 p.m. June 4.
Other films include Agnieszka Holland’s “The Secret Garden,” an adaptation of the children’s classic, introduced by “The Gutsy Girl” author Caroline Paul; Doug Nichol’s “California Typewriter,” a documentary about the writing machine as muse and the eponymous Berkeley shop; “100 Years with Juan Rulfo,” a six-part biography of the celebrated Mexican author by his son, who will present selections; “Obscene: A Portrait of Barney Rosset and Grove Press,” introduced by journalist Robert Scheer; and “Memories of Underdevelopment,” a 1968 Cuban film based on Edmund Desnoes’ novel about a writer who stays in Cuba after its revolution.
“The first film series was super successful, and the introductions and conversations afterward were so rich, we’re really happy to be doing it again,” Geritz said.