Interview (Written): Paul Thomas Anderson (“Inherent Vice”)

Rolling Stone interview with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, focusing on his newest movie Inherent Vice.

Do you remember the first time Pynchon’s work came across your radar?
It’s a little messy up here [taps forehead], but I think I tried to tackle Gravity’s Rainbow first, based on its reputation. I would not advise people to start with that one [laughs]. So then I reached for a thinner one, The Crying of Lot 49, and that just got me hungry for more. I remember hearing Pynchon’s name in high school, but I was a slow reader and a really slow learner. The schools I went to were very academic, and you were expected to be as smart as everyone else. I just wasn’t moving at that pace. But by my senior year, I started becoming serious about reading because it wasn’t a contest anymore, and that’s when Lot 49 and V. just floored me.

What was it about his writing that grabbed you?
It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, because I have such a different relationship with his writing now that I’ve gone through this experience. I mean, it’s challenging, which is fun. His writing . . . it just lifts me out of my seat. I read Vineland a couple of months ago, and there were sections where I felt like I was just floating. I got a high out of it.

Weren’t you originally thinking about adapting Vineland or Mason & Dixon before tackling Inherent Vice?
Well, no. I think I just said that in an interview. I never tried, really. They’re very difficult books. I mean, the story he tells of Mason and Dixon, of that line being cut through the Earth, has never been told in a movie. That would be a great one to do, though — maybe Lifetime or A&E could make it. Shit, I’d watch it! But Vineland? It’s just too intimidating. My brain’s not big enough.

This is the second time you’ve adapted someone’s work, after There Will Be Blood [based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!], and it’s the first complete adaptation of Pynchon’s work for the screen. Did you feel like, “I better get this right or I’m screwed”?
Yeah, this was different than Blood. Being too precious about anything is bad for your health, you know? So being too precious about his words, or being too precious about making it my own — either one of those sounds horrible, and kind of a mistake. [Pauses] There were definitely times during the process of doing this when I thought I was being overly protective about what he wrote. And that was not a good place to be. . . . The film actually became more fun to make when we weren’t doing that.

For the rest of the interview, go here.