TO Paul Auster He was interested in cinema from his youth. In fact, he took an entrance exam at the Institute of Higher Studies in Cinematography, in Paris, during his French period, and failed. It was the time of avant-gardeof the ‘Nouvelle Vague’, which he undoubtedly soaked up in his literary work.
That did not prevent him from continuing to relate to the format and writing scripts, initially through silent films, an artifact that he would use to develop The book of illusions.
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Furthermore, in his novels, cinematographic references were frequent, to films of Yasuhiro Ozuof Vittorio de Sica or of Sayajit Rayas happened in A man in the dark (2008). In Invisible (2009), explicitly cited Ordet (The word)the masterpiece of Carl Theodor Dreyer.
Furthermore, from its beginnings, it paid tribute to the novel and the film noir in his first novel, pressure play (1982), from his particular perspective through which he attempted to renew the stylistic bases of this type of stories.
However, the first time adapted a novel of his to the cinema was in 1993, at the height of his success as a prestigious author. It was about The music of chanceIt was directed by Philip Haas and starring James Spader (fetish actor David Cronenberg).
With the script of Smoke, the figure of Auster came to the fore in cinematographic matters. It was about one independent productionbut which reached an enormous resonance, to the point of reaching the Special Jury Prize in it Berlin Festival in 1995.
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The film, directed by Wayne Wang and starring Harvey Keitel It was set in the eighties through a series of characters who interacted through the smoke of the tobacco. Shortly after, the writer himself, would debut as a filmmaker in a kind of emotional sequel titled Blue in the Facea mix between fiction and documentary set in Brooklynthe place where his novels always took place, and where the protagonists, between cigarettes, talked about life and their circumstances.
The first work that he directed alone and that was based on his own script was Lulu on the Bridgeagain with Harvey Keitel and with Mira Sorvino in the main roles. In it, he addressed the music and also the depression through the existential crisis.
The next and last time he got behind the camera was in The Inner Life of Martin Froststarring David Thewlins, Irene Jacob and in which his own daughter participated, Sophie Austerfruit of his marriage with Siri Hustvedt and that he had already collaborated in Lulu on the Bridge.
That film was presented at the San Sebastian Festival in 2007, where Paul Auster himself was jury president. Coincidences of life, or not, the award-winning film was A thousand years of prayerby Wayne Wang, a director with whom the writer was closely linked.
