Written Interview: Graham Greene

A 1953 Paris Review interview with Graham Greene:

INTERVIEWER: Do you ever need the stimulus of drink to write?

GREENE: No, on the contrary, I can only write when I am absolutely sober.

INTERVIEWER: Do you find collaboration easy, in particular collaboration with directors and producers?

GREENE: Well, I have been exceptionally lucky both with Carol Reed and recently with Peter Glenville. I like film work, even the impersonality of it. I have managed to retain a certain amount of control over my own stories so I have not suffered as badly as some people seem to have; all the same, filmmaking can be a distressing business for, when all is said and done, a writer’s part in making a film is relatively small.

INTERVIEWER: Did it take you long to learn?

GREENE: I learned a lot on some not very good films before the war so I was into my stride by the time that The Fallen Idol and The Third Man came along.

You may know Greene primarily as a novelist, but he was also a screenwriter including the marvelous movie The Third Man. Here is the original trailer:

For the rest of The Paris Review interview with Graham Greene, go here.


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