Auster Returns to the Director’s Chair

“The Inner Life of Martin Frost” begins with a slow tracking shot of family photographs belonging to Jack and Diane Restau, the owners of the country house to which author Martin Frost has escaped having just finished a novel. But upon closer inspection, one recognizes that these are pictures of Paul Auster, the film’s writer and director, and his wife, the author Siri Hustvedt. (Rearrange the letters of the surname Restau, and it becomes Auster).A narrator with a gravelly voice begins to speak as if reading from a book. In a film that has only four actors, the voice over — uncredited, but unmistakably Mr. Auster — becomes the fifth. Add to that the typewriter font that pecks out the film’s title and a spinning typewriter in some dream sequences, and one experiences firsthand the transformation of a story from novel form to film.Indeed, “Martin Frost” is a real-life film of the make-believe film that the Brooklyn-based Mr. Auster wrote into his 2001 novel, “The Book of Illusions.”“[It] is a story about a man who writes a story about a man who writes a story — and, of course, the story inside the story which is the film,” the author said.Tomorrow, Mr. Auster will premiere “Martin Frost,” his second film as a writer, director, and producer, at the opening of the 36th New Directors/New Films series. The series, a collaboration of the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is a two-week event aimed at showcasing films by new and emerging filmmakers.Fans of Mr. Auster’s fiction — he published his 14th novel, “Travels in the Scriptorium,” in January — should find the idea of a film version of one of his fantastical and unpredictable tales exceeds expectations. For the uninitiated: Prepare for a convoluted, albeit sensual film in which coincidences abound and characters who share names and occupations are just the start of it.“Film has been a passion since I was 19 or 20,” the 60-year-old native of Newark, N.J., said. “I seriously thought about going to film school to become a director, but I was too shy. So I abandoned the idea and stuck with writing.”Nevertheless, his novels eventually drew him into the world of film. In 1993, his eighth novel, 1990’s “The Music of Chance,” was made into a film starring James Spader and Mandy Patinkin by the director Philip Haas. Not long after, Mr. Auster met the director Wayne Wang after the latter read “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story,” an Op-Ed piece Mr. Auster had written for the New York Times, and wanted to turn it into a film. Mr. Auster agreed to write the screenplay for what became the award-winning 1995 film “Smoke,” which offered a slice of Brooklyn life as it passed through the smoke shop run by local entrepreneur Auggie Wren. As production began, Mr. Auster found himself drawn into the making of the film because Mr. Wang, who lives in San Francisco, wanted the author to work on it with him in New York. “We did everything together,” Mr. Auster said. “That was my film school. It was on-the-job training.”The experience showed Mr. Auster that he could traverse the divide between novels and films. “When we started rehearsals for ‘Smoke,’ I understood that being a novelist and being an actor are not so different,” he said. “Both are working to bring imaginary beings to life — the actor with his body and the writer with his pen.” The director, he added, just needs to know what he wants from his actors.Messrs. Auster and Wang went on to co-direct “Blue in the Face,” a follow-up to “Smoke” featuring many of the same characters. In 1998, Mr. Auster returned to write and direct “Lulu on the Bridge,” which was made with a much larger budget and bombed at the box office.Around the same time, “Martin Frost” began as a short film, originally to be one of 12 made by a German producer. Willem Dafoe was to play Frost, but the project was eventually shelved for financial reasons. Mr. Auster moved on to “The Book of Illusions,” which he finished in late August 2001. But instead of putting “Martin Frost” aside, he folded this short film — about a writer who meets a mysterious woman who turns out to be an embodiment of the story he is writing — into the novel.“I knew even then that it would be better as a feature film,” he said, although he did not revisit the screenplay until three years later, doubling both its original length and its characters. “Martin Frost” now has four actors: David Thewlis, who replaced an unavailable Mr. Dafoe, Iréne Jacob, Michael Imperioli, and Mr. Auster’s daughter, the singer Sophie Auster.Mr. Auster said the nine-year gap between “Lulu” and “Martin Frost” was attributable to other books he wanted to write and the attack on the World Trade Center. “September 11 hit me very hard,” he said. “I wanted to be alone, to think my own thoughts. Directing a film means giving up a good two years of your life … You’re working with other people all the time. I just wasn’t in the mood for that.”It was only after he completed “The Brooklyn Follies” in 2004 — the fourth novel he had written in six years — that he came back to “Martin Frost.” He had a final draft by early 2005.Mr. Auster said he cannot think of a single disadvantage to wearing the two hats of writer and director. “I profit from the fact that I know the rhythm of the words, the rhythm of the images, and I can communicate these things directly to the actors and the crew,” he said.“Martin Frost” was made on a small budget because, he said, after the “Lulu” debacle, he knew that his second chance at directing would have to be done on a small scale. “That’s why I wrote it for just four actors and used just three locations,” he said. “The film was literally edited in the script, so that every scene and every word of dialogue wound up in the finished version. Not one moment deleted. More money is always welcome, but I enjoyed the challenge.”With “Martin Frost” ready for screens, Mr. Auster’s next challenge is already under way. The film version of his 1987 novel, “In the Country of the Last Things,” is currently in preproduction. He wrote the screenplay but left the directing duties to Alejandro Chomski. Nevertheless, he can’t get the director’s chair entirely out of his thoughts. “My next project is another novel, but I’d like to make another film,” he said.

Auster Returns to the Director’s Chair

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