Paul Auster on Martin Frost

If you’ve read Paul Auster's work, you already know he's a brilliant writer. If you’ve seen his films—Smoke, Blue In the Face, Lulu On the Bridge—you get to experience the workings of his mind on entirely different level.

His latest, [The Inner Life of Martin Frost], which he wrote and directed, entertains with its unpredictability. It’s a multilayered romantic mystery; a “story within the story within the story,” as Auster puts it. A bit confusing, yes. But you’ll enjoy looking for the clues to suss things out.

The Inner Life of Martin Frost is mentioned in The Book of Illusions. How did the film come about?

Martin Frost started out as a film, not as part of a book. It was back in 1999. There was a German film producer who was planning to do 12 short films about men and women, and she asked me to do one. And I wrote a script. I was intrigued by this idea, just with two actors, Martin and Claire. We were just on the brink of really organizing a production when they sent a contract which said that they would pay us 1/3 on signing, 1/3 when we started shooting, and 1/3 when it was finished—and if they approved it. And I thought, what if they don’t approve it? They’re going to hold back 1/3 of the budget. My poor producer is going to be stuck.

So I did back out. And then I thought, well, this is a good thing because actually I want to make it a full-length film. So I made a lot of notes about how to continue it and put everything away and started writing The Book of Illusions. When I came to the spot sort of late in the book where Zimmer gets to see one of Hector’s later films, I thought, aha, maybe Martin Frost would fit in very well with the themes of the book, the whole spirit of the novel. And so I stuck with the short version and put it in the book.

I thought that was the end of it, but the story just kept coming back to me over the next few years. And then eventually I decided to sit down and write it and see if I could eventually get financing to do it. And it happened. So this is a long saga, but I’m happy we did it.

What’s the difference for you between writing a film and writing a novel?

Writing a film is very different from writing a novel. It’s a whole different spirit. It’s a different frame of mind entirely. With a novel, you’re living in three dimensions and there’s a kind of narrative push that keeps you going, whereas a film is two-dimensional. You’re writing for a rectangle on the wall, and everything is chopped up into little scenes and you’re thinking visually in a very special kind of way. When you’re writing a novel you’re imagining what’s going on, but you’re not necessarily describing what you’re seeing in your head. There’s a lot that you leave out. And it’s important to leave things out.

This is a serious film, but it’s also very funny. Fortunato is hilarious!

Michael [Imperioli] was wonderful to work with. In the rehearsals, we refined Fortunato a lot. He was a little larger and more bombastic at first, and we kept toning it down. And the more we kept toning it down, the funnier it got. You know, ‘The Little People of Lastmania’ [a story written by Fortunato], when we were rehearsing, no one could stop laughing. 

And he plays screwdriver darts with Martin…

We all played on the set. It’s very difficult. You get into a groove and you can get a number in in a row and then suddenly you lose the touch. Manuel was the one who was actually throwing Fortunato’s screwdrivers. And then the prop man was doing Martin’s, and he was pretty good. And I told him, try to get as many in as you can. Don’t try to fail. But he just didn’t get a single one in the whole time. It was very funny.

Can you play screwdriver darts?

I can do it. But I have my good days and my bad days.

You’re also the narrator of  the film.

I thought it would be interesting for my voice to be the voice, even if no one knows who it is, because I wrote the story. I think I was thinking of Truffaut, who narrated a lot of his own films. I did it, and I wasn’t very happy with the results. And then I got an actor to do it. And then we listened to the two, and finally everyone said mine was better. When I was in the sound editor’s studio in Lisbon in post-production, I said, okay, I’m going to record it all over again. And so I went into the booth and I started doing it and I couldn’t—I choked up. My throat got tight and I was too nervous because I’m not an actor at all. So we just decided to go with that original one, done sort of off the cuff.

There are so many layers in this movie...

There are all these levels. I imagine that the so-called reality of the film is only the beginning. And then the moment when Martin wakes up with Claire, that’s the story he’s writing, see. It’s all in his head. And that’s why it’s called ‘The Inner Life of Martin Frost’!

You’re characters show up in more than one novel. It’s like you’re not done with them yet.

To me, they’re still percolating. They’re still out there somewhere. They’re as real to me as real people. It’s funny. It’s a dark confession, but it’s true.