Author of The 'Talented Mr. Ripley' Patricia Highsmith speaks to Mavis Nicholson about her many works. First shown: 18/05/1978 If you would like to license a clip from this video please email: archive@fremantle.com Quote: VT18997
@@AnthonyMonaghan She battled depression, she was born in a time where being gay was never to be admitted, so guilt and shame led her from one tragic affair to another - one of her lovers took their life with nitric acid, she herself was an alcoholic. Just read up on her.
And as we see in this interview, being a lesbian was so far from many people‘s imagination, that this interviewer did not ask her about a partner, but asked why she wasn‘t married. And Pat continued to play the hetero game. „Not always too happy“ - one of the reasons, I suppose.
Fantastic interview. I recommend the biography Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith (by Andrew Wilson). Full of insights into this brilliant suspense novelist.
🧑🏻I don't, because all she thinks about is murder, and how to murder, and how do you catch a furtive person. She died a miserable person. But I do admire a book I'm reading she wrote in 1966 or 1983 called, "Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction," which I do recommend, if you want to get better as a writer. I do admire her honest break down of her own writing and creative process which is highly original and second to none. There may be books on methods of writing, but Patricia Highsmith gives you no elaborate [B.S.] bull, but guides you to developing your own voice. She has the "Key" you're looking for, for writing, and it doesn't have to be about murder, it can be about business or flying machines, etc. JB 🧑🏻
So easy for ignorant public that only appreciates a glancing facade of "goodness" to label a person that writes about murder and human flawes honestly and simultaniosly has a bleek opinion of humanity in general as psychopath..as if she committed the murders herself.
Wow! Every aspiring writer should watch this! Incredible. The interviewer gives her plenty of space , mostly. I still want to know more about makes her tick but this interview goes more than anything than ive seen to dig deeper. My other favorite is Elmore Leonard would love to know much more . Thanks to so many inspirational people!
Patricia Highsmith was a master writer of crime. She said « Maybe there is some kind of violence in myself, some kind of obsession.” Yet she appears so vulnerable and sensitive in this interview.
Wow, what an interview! The interviewer has the courage to ask questions she really wants to know--you can tell she's genuinely curious about what makes Highsmith tick--& Highsmith, notoriously private, has the courage to respond honestly rather than evasively. I mean, she brought A WRITING JOURNAL for this interviewer because she asked her to. That's like being willing to stand naked in front of someone, basically. Amazing exchange, & I feel like I know so much more about Patricia Highsmith thanks to this outstanding interview. Thankyou for sharing this, it really is very moving.
Yes. Some interviewers ask questions they think people want answered. But I agree it is better to ask questions about subjects that really interest them. I did that too.
yes i saw this same interviewer do a very interesting interview with david bowie about his artistic output. i was impressed with her background in art and her skill at interviewing and her apparent deep interest in the work of the person she was interviewing. i never forgot this interviewer and recognized her again this time.
I have not heard an interview of this quality on British television for a very long time. Our vapid Graham Norton celebs could not be in the same room as these two. Modern life!
That show tries desperately to be outrageously humorous all the time. As a result it can be annoyingly clever, like a self-important old hag who thinks she is the definition of wit.
Fantastic!!! I have not been able to find this on RU-vid ever before and have looked for a few years now for Patricia Highsmith on this show. Yay! Great interview and amazing to see her . . . Pat . . . in her full glory.
Thank you for uploading. Such an insightful meeting of the minds here…wish current interviews were this substantive. And at about 10:10, the interviewer (obviously a huge fan) totally wants to snatch that notebook and run!
this interview was really good. i saw this woman interview david bowie once. she was fantastic and what i love about her isn't just her understanding of art and being an artist, i really dig the way she does her homework and knows the artists work, has a deep appreciation for it
Mavis Nicholson probably did the best string of interviews during the 70s and 80s. I remember being home from school in the early 80s and catching some of these, not really knowing how valuable they were in comparison to the dross of the future.
...and at the end of the interview patricia highsmith looks at the interviewer with warmth and respect because she knew she did her homework thru and thru and david bowie did the exact same thing he acknowledged her with so much warmth and respect for the way she approached his work like a fluffy rock star, but as the serious artists body of work he spent his life creating until that point.
7:43 “I begin with a certain action…. A stretch of action.’ As it goes on, this marvellous and refreshing interview she approaches the writer thru her characters…. This is now 43 years ago, so it’s interesting that it IS refreshing. Perhaps, though, it’s the last 3rd, concerning environment and ‘living’ circumstances, that is the most enlightening… ‘These terrible situations that they [people] cannot escape from.” Last but not.. we then find out that this took place in the afternoon. Subbed.
I know, right? Can't wait! I actually wrote the publisher begging for an advance copy so I could do a RU-vid review, glowingly, but they never responded. I didn't think they would but I tried! Almost a thousand Pages coming! Can you imagine how horrified Highsmith would be if she knew these were being published? I will read them with a small amount of guilt but a large amount of hunger!
I wonder what her opinion of the film adaptation of the price of salt would have been. She became friends with the screenwriter of Carol in the late eighties.
I think (hope) she would have found something beautiful in the recent adaptation of Carol, it's beautiful. I read a theory somewhere a long long time ago that you see 'Carol' pop up in most of her books afterwards, and that one of her later books, The Cry of the Owl, was also inspired by the woman who inspired her to write Carol, but with a darker storyline. Even though she moved into murder writing, I feel like it was to clear away the experience of having written Carol, which by her own accounts was feverish. I wish someone who knew her writing well could do a book on this question.
Watched all of the Ripley films including even the French one with Alain Delon. Then read all of the books which are delightfully sick and twisted. Plus she was a hot babe when young!
In my opinion, Plein Soleil (or Purple Noon) with Alain Delon was the best film. I didn't like the American film as much, even though I liked Matt Damon as Tom Ripley and Jude Law as Richard "Dickie" Greenleaf. Certainly way better casting than the new "Ripley" series with Andrew Scott, Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning. Did you watch the new series?
@@monaghanboy711 No I haven’t. But I agree that Alain Delon was very good and not just in his Ripley film. I also like the fiilm in which he played a hit man who is being hunted by the police and finally gets killled by other criminals..
🧑🏻I do not admire Patricia Highsmith's outlook in life, because all she thinks about is murder, and how to murder, and how do you catch a furtive person. She died a miserable person. But I admire a book I'm reading she wrote in 1966 or 1983 called, "Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction," which I do recommend, if you want to get better as a writer. I do admire her honest break down of her own writing and creative process which is highly original and second to none. There may be books on methods of writing, but Patricia Highsmith gives you no elaborate [B.S.] bull, but guides you to developing your own voice. She has the "Key" you're looking for, for writing, and it doesn't have to be about murder, it can be about business or flying machines, etc. JB 🧑🏻
"‘She was a mean, cruel, hard, unlovable, unloving human being. I could never penetrate how any human being could be that relentlessly ugly." - Her publisher
She doesn't like the French language or the French people. Finds them cold. Neither do & so do I. And yet I too live in France. Greetings from my exile. The US was worse in many ways.
Would LOVE to know what she would have thought of Minghella's film of Talented Mr. Ripley. I hope her take would have been similar to mine: keep Jude, trade Minghella and Matt for Hitchcock and Tony Perkins. Then you have something like what she wrote.
She preferred her own company, could be hard and was an acquired taste. Andrew Wilson’s big graph Beautiful Shadow is a remarkable work on Highsmith and is well worth a read. She looks quite relaxed, I’d you could ever call Highsmith relaxed, but she seems to not mind this interview and quite likes the lady in my opinion.
@@EcceHumanitatis Just because she was an introvert, doesn't mean she was suffering from depression. I think she would have rejected (an been insulted by) your implied characterization.
@@clayerkwiltee2315 I didn't say BECAUSE she was an introvert she suffered from depression, I said that she was an introvert who suffered from depression. That is a fact to which she attested herself. Quite obviously you've never read her diaries and letters. Short of doing your Highsmith homework, two seconds on Wikipedia will yield the following: > Highsmith endured cycles of depression, some of them deep, throughout her life. Despite literary success, she wrote in her diary of January 1970: "[I] am now cynical, fairly rich ... lonely, depressed, and totally pessimistic." < > Composer David Diamond met Highsmith in 1943 and described her as being "quite a depressed person-and I think people explain her by pulling out traits like cold and reserved, when in fact it all came from depression."
@@EcceHumanitatis If you'd really understood Highsmith's writings, you would know that (1) She'd have resented that Wikipedia entry about her (2) She'd be offended that you've read her diaries. Who cares about a David Diamond's opinion about anything outside of music (I don't even care for his music) ? He wasn't a psychologist (and I'm assuming you aren't either). You, like too many _pop affectionados_ mistake 2nd hand opinions for reality. You think you know Prince Harry and Megan, Johnny Debb and Amber Heard, Tom Cruise and Donald Trump... why? *"Just because"* . *Here's the reality:* Patricia Highsmith lived, suffered, triumphed and died. She was by all accounts an _intensely private_ person who had an aversion to be seen as a victim.
I am now reading the author whose books I most enjoyed reading, The Talented Mr Ripley, (fifth time I think) and I still think the building of tension and story telling are great. you cannot film Tom's world of thoughts and they are so essential to the story.
She despised almost everyone equally : gay / straight / black / white / jew / gentile . No discrimination there !! To be fair she probably despised her " fans " more than anyone else.
Comes across as a woman who is trying to 'work out' and understand herself in relation to the world. Where is humanity to be found, if at all, in this world ? And if we don't find it, or it doesn't exist, then where are we, and what are we ? Her vision is truly dark but at the same time, desperately searching to see some light but without success. PH - RIP
You certainly wouldn't find any " Humanity " in her work. She combined racism , misogyny and misanthropy in both her literary and her personal life . She despised almost everyone - especially her " fans " !
I do not think Mavis Nicholson understands genius nor even respects it. Can only imagine what she is fishing for? Yes Mavis it is lonely. Yes Mavis you do get frustrated. But you can`t have it both ways. Genius needs solitude, privacy, quiet, isolation. Highsmith is such a pet.
This programme was on early afternoon aimed at a non-specialist audience some of whom might not have had much idea who Ms Highsmith was so I guess the producer was telling Mavis what sort of questions to go for. Actually Mavis wasn't too bad an interviewer - she was a regular on daytime telly in the UK way back in the old days.
Well, either a family or a creation. There are no women writers - worth mentioning - who had a longtime husband and children. Since the family pulls a woman down from her creative potential to the level of trivial chores. Even so, many women still choose family before creation - they are evidently themselves to blame!
(arguably) the Best writer of comic books' golden age. Just one of many inconvenient truths the Left wants us to forget. b/c it doesn't fit today's narrative.
Looking forward to the new book with Highsmith's Diaries and Notebooks. I really like that she brought one of her notebooks to share for the interview. I agree with her assessment of Texas: "very boring... even the newspapers are mediocre there."
