Film Stories

From The New Yorker’s archive: pieces about the influence of film on literature, and vice versa. View in browser | Update your preferences Film Stories In 1992, Salman Rushdie published a ruminative essay in The New Yorker about “The Wizard of Oz” and its surprising influence on his own writing. As a child, in Bombay, he titled the first story he ever wrote “Over the Rainbow.” Rushdie was captivated by the movie’s twin themes of escape and homecoming. The film, he argues, is “about the joys of going away, of leaving the grayness and entering the color, of making a new life in the ‘place where you won’t get into any trouble.’ ” It can also be lightly interpreted, he suggests, as a kind of homage to the immigrant experience—with Judy Garland’s beguiling “Over the Rainbow” serving as a “grand paean to the Uprooted Self.” Rushdie’s work points to the allure of this idea of reinvention. One more step down the Yellow Brick Road (and toward less travelled shores), he seems to be saying, and you’re well on your way to freeing your imagination. This week, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces about the influence of film on literature, and vice versa. In “A Psychotronic Childhood,” Colson Whitehead writes about how his childhood love for B-movies and science fiction influenced his prose. (“When I finally got around to writing my own horror novel, ‘Zone One,’ years later, I tried to capture this elemental terror, of the familiar turned homicidal.”) In “The Movie Lover,” Pauline Kael reflects on how she found her own voice as a film critic. In “Slow Fade,” Arthur Krystal examines F. Scott Fitzgerald’s complicated relationship with Hollywood. (“Billy Wilder, who seemed genuinely fond of Fitzgerald, likened him to ‘a great sculptor who is hired to do a plumbing job.’ ”) In “No. 1512—II,” Lillian Ross chronicles the tensions behind the scenes of John Huston’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Red Badge of Courage.” Finally, in “The Clockwork Condition,” Anthony Burgess explores how Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film captures the spirit of his dystopian satirical novel, “A Clockwork Orange.” (“Alex is a comic reduction of Alexander the Great, slashing his way through the world and conquering it. But he is changed into the conquered—impotent, wordless.”) Film and literature alike take on new layers of meaning with the passage of time. We hope that these pieces inspire some satisfying cinematic (and literary) detours this weekend. —Erin Overbey, archive editor From The New Yorker’s Archive A Critic at Large Out of Kansas Revisiting “The Wizard of Oz.” By Salman Rushdie | May 11, 1992 Personal History A Psychotronic Childhood Learning from B-movies. By Colson Whitehead | June 4 & 11, 2012 Reflections The Movie Lover My life as a film critic. By Pauline Kael | March 21, 1994 Newsletters Sign Up for The New Yorker’s Books & Fiction Newsletter Book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature, twice a week. Life and Letters The Clockwork Condition The author comments on his most famous book, in 1973. By Anthony Burgess | June 4 & 11, 2012 Onward and Upward with the Arts No. 1512—II “Everything has just gone zoom.” By Lillian Ross | May 31, 1952 Life and Letters Slow Fade F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood. By Arthur Krystal | November 16, 2009 You're receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the New Yorker Classics newsletter. Was this e-mail forwarded to you? Sign up. Unsubscribe | Manage your e-mail preferences | Send newsletter feedback | View our Privacy Policy Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.