STACK #135 Jan 2016

DVD & BD FEATURE

visit stack.net.au

Talking the Walk Best-selling author Bill Bryson talks to STACK 's Chris Murray about the first film adaptation of one of his books, AWALK INTHEWOODS.

A Walk in the Woods is the first film sudden whim to walk the treacherous Appalachian Trail in the 90s, and with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte playing the famous author and his colourful larrikin companion Stephen Katz, respectively, it’s of note this may have been a very different project had the film been green-lit a few years ago. “Oh yes, this was supposed to be the reunion of Redford and Paul Newman on the big screen,” says Bryson today, explaining that the rights were purchased 12 years ago and it’s taken quite a journey for the film to reach audiences. “It would have been a fascinating movie – but obviously a completely different experience, and it would have been much less faithful to the book, I think. Paul Newman, you know – I cannot see him playing Katz, as Katz is to me in life. There would have been great banter, but they would have hyped them as more of equals I’m sure. You could not improve on Nick Nolte; he is the perfect Katz!” Indeed, Nolte’s performance as Stephen Katz, the longtime pal of Bryson and the only guy silly enough to agree to such an arduous journey, is a return to form for the unpredictable actor. In fact, Bryson is amazed at most of what happens in Tinsletown, and certainly won’t be switching careers anytime soon. “Anytime a movie gets made, I guess is some kind of miracle… even if you’re Robert Redford, even if you’re Russell Crowe. It doesn’t make any difference, it’s still really hard to get movies made at all. To then get movies made well or intelligently, well that adds another layer of complexity and challenge. I presume there’s endless amounts of pitches and sucking-up to people and all that kind of stuff too; I just go to lunch with my publisher and they say ‘yes’ to my idea, we shake hands and a contract arrives the next day.” Bryson readily admits that great fortune and a certain lack of ambition mixed with adaptation from the best-selling works of Bill Bryson. Detailing the author’s

Anytime a movie gets

made, I guess is some kind of miracle…even if you’re Robert Redford

DVD&BD

• A Walk in the Woods is out on Jan 6

going to have an interlude where I’m quite somber

to do little else. Yet when the novels started selling in the millions, life changed. “Most of the credit goes out to my wife, she more or less bullied me into doing it,” he laughs. “My ambitions were simply to write newspaper and magazine articles, I didn’t see any further… now everyone is expecting you to be the funny author, and kind of irreverent and not take anything too seriously. And then on the other hand there are times when there are things I do feel serious about. When you’re writing a book you just can’t say, ‘Well seriously folks, now we’re

about something,’ so keeping the mood going and bouncing back and forth between different

ones is a little bit tricky – I’m not sure that I’ve always mastered it as well as I’ve wished I had. “S.J. Perelman was the biggest influence on me, ” he continues, “A man largely forgotten now. He was not only very funny, he was elegant. If you ever see me using a big word or trying to be classy, it’s because I’m trying to be like S.J. Perelman! Even now, after all these years, I still bow down to him ‘cos he was just brilliant.” Also citing David Sedaris and Clive James as authors of admiration, Bryson feels he’s personally remained enigmatic when it comes to writing about what’s really going on inside his head. “I’m in a funny position that I write an awful lot of personal books, and I’m the centre, I’m the narrator – but at the same time I don’t really give a lot of stuff away. I’m not really a very confessional sort of person. I guess I don’t feel that I have a lot to

naivety was his secret to success. Being the undisputed ‘highest selling writer of paper books without recipes in them’ in his home country of Britain, the Iowa-born ‘man of the world’ first wanted to be a freelancer and earn enough money

confess, it’s not like I’ve got some deep dark secrets or anything hidden away – but at the same time you know, you have to kind of guess my politics and my religious sentiments and things like that.

JANUARY 2016

32

jbhifi.com.au