The Inner Life of Martin Frost - Softcover

Auster, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312427034 ISBN 13: 9780312427030

Verlag: Picador, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

A Picador Paperback Original

"Auster is one of our most intellectually elegant writers. . . ."
-The Washington Post Book World

Written and directed by bestselling and award-winning author Paul Auster, the screenplay for The Inner Life of Martin Frost, starring David Thewlis, Irene Jacob, Michael Imperioli, and Sophie Auster.

From The New York Trilogy to The Book of Illusions and 4 3 2 1, Paul Auster, one of America's most spectacularly inventive novelists, established himself as an award-winning filmmaker as well, with Smoke, Blue in the Face, and Lulu on the Bridge. Here, The Inner Life of Martin Frost brings together his talents as a novelist and filmmaker with a work that is tender, moving, and funny.

Searching for solitude, the writer Martin Frost borrows a friend's country house. Waking up one morning, he is shocked to find a nearly naked young woman beside him in bed. She also has a key to the house and claims to be the owner's niece. Martin's initial annoyance at Claire's intrusion is rapidly forgotten as he falls passionately in love with her. Even when it is revealed that Claire is not who she claims to be, their idyllic passion continues-until she suddenly falls ill.

The Inner Life of Martin Frost is based on an imaginary film that appears in the author's novel The Book of Illusions. Unlike the fictional Hector Spelling's "lost" 1946 black and white film of the same title, Auster's luminous celebration of the mysteries of love, art, and the imagination was released in 2007.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.

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The Inner Life of Martin Frost

By Paul Auster, Tim Squyres

Picador

Copyright © 2007 Paul Auster
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-312-42703-0

CHAPTER 1

1. INT. A COUNTRY HOUSE — DAY

A slow, methodical tracking shot through the ground floor of a country house. The camera skims along the walls, floats above the furniture in the living room, and eventually comes to a stop eight feet from the door in the entrance hall.

NARRATOR (voice-over)

The house was empty.

The door opens, and in walks MARTIN FROST, a man in his early forties. He is carrying a suitcase in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other. As he kicks the door shut behind him, the voice-over narration continues.

NARRATOR (voice-over)

His friends Jack and Diane Restau were going to be gone until the end of the year. If Martin felt like getting out of New York for a while, Jack said, he could camp out at their place any time he wanted.

MARTIN puts down the suitcase and then exits the frame with the grocery bag.

NARRATOR (voice-over)

Martin had just spent three years writing a novel, and his brain was tired, in need of a rest. He had no plans. All he wanted was to spend a couple of weeks in the country and do nothing, to live the life of a stone.

As we listen to the NARRATOR'S voice, we see MARTIN wandering around in various parts of the house. He carries the groceries into the kitchen, but the moment the bag touches the counter, the scene cuts to the living room, where we find him inspecting the books on the shelves. As his hand reaches for one of the books, we jump to the master bedroom, where MARTIN is opening and closing the drawers of the bureau, putting away his things. A drawer bangs shut, and an instant later he is sitting on the bed, testing the bounce of the mattress.

It is a jagged montage, combining close and medium shots in a succession of slightly off-kilter angles and cuts paced at varied, unexpected tempos.

The camera fixes on the photograph of a young girl. As we listen to the last words of the opening monologue ("to live the life of a stone"), the image begins to blur. Silence follows. For a beat or two, it is as if everything has stopped — the voice, the sounds, the images — and then, very abruptly, the scene shifts. Cut to:

2. EXT. THE GROUNDS OF THE HOUSE — DAY

MARTIN is walking in the garden. A long shot is followed by a close shot; MARTIN'S face, and then a languid perusal of the things around him: trees and shrubs, the sky. When the camera finds him again, MARTIN is crouching down to observe a procession of ants. We hear the wind rush through the trees — a prolonged sibilance, roaring like the sound of surf. MARTIN looks up, shielding his eyes from the sun, and again we cut away from him to another part of the landscape: MARTIN is walking slowly, deep in thought. He approaches the camera and then exits the frame. Meanwhile:

NARRATOR (voice-over)

But what did he know? A few hours of silence, a few gulps of fresh air, and all of a sudden an idea for a story was turning around in his head. That's how it always seems to work with stories. One minute there's nothing. And the next minute it's there, already sitting inside you.

A wide shot of the trees. The wind is blowing again, and as the leaves and branches tremble under the assault, the sound amplifies into a pulsing, breathlike wave of percussiveness, an airborne clamor of sighs. Then, once again, the scene shifts abruptly. Cut to:

3. INT. THE HOUSE HALLWAY — DAY

MARTIN walks down the hall and opens a closet door. He looks inside, immediately shuts the door, and then opens the next door. He reaches in and pulls out a fifty-year-old Olympia typewriter. Shutting the door behind him, he carries the typewriter into a small study across the hall.

4. INT. THE STUDY — DAY

MARTIN is sitting at the desk with the typewriter in front of him. After a moment, he begins examining the contents of the drawers. The first drawer is empty; he slams it shut. In the second drawer he finds some ballpoint pens, some pencils, and a pad of yellow legal paper. One by one, he puts these items on the desk, then slams the drawer shut. In the third drawer he discovers a stack of blank white paper — about two hundred sheets. He pulls out the whole stack and puts it on the desk beside the typewriter, then slams the drawer shut. A brief pause as he surveys the objects in front of him. After a moment, he begins to arrange them: centering the typewriter on the surface of the desk, aligning the paper, putting the pens and pencils in a neat, orderly row. Finally, he removes the top sheet of paper and rolls it into the machine. He begins typing.

NARRATOR (voice-over)

It might not have been the newest equipment in the world. But it worked.

Close-up of the sheet in the typewriter. We can read: "It might not be the newest equipment in the world ... but it works." Cut to:

5. INT. MASTER BEDROOM — NIGHT

MARTIN is lying in bed with his eyes open. The bedside lamp is on.

NARRATOR (voice-over)

It wasn't going to be a long story. Twenty-five or thirty pages, forty at the most. Martin didn't know how much time he would need to write it, but he decided to stay in the house until it was finished.

MARTIN leans over and turns out the light. Darkness.

NARRATOR (voice-over)

That was the new plan. He would write the story, and he wouldn't leave until it was finished.

6. EXT. THE GROUNDS OF THE HOUSE — DAY

A close shot of a leaf, trembling in the light, followed by a close shot of wild-flowers jutting up from the grass in the garden. Early morning.

7. INT. MASTER BEDROOM — DAY

A tight shot of MARTIN'S face shows him to be asleep, his head resting on a pillow. Sunlight pours through the slatted shutters, and as we watch him open his eyes and struggle to wake up, the camera pulls back to reveal something that cannot be true, that defies the laws of common sense. MARTIN has not spent the night alone. There is a young woman in bed with him, CIAIRE MARTIN.

As the camera continues dollying back into the room, we see that she is asleep under the covers, curled up on her side and turned toward MARTIN — [her left arm flung casually across his chest. As MARTIN gradually emerges from his torpor, he notices the bare arm lying across his chest, then realizes that the arm is attached to a body, and then sits up in bed, looking like someone who's just been given an electric shock.

Jostled by these sudden movements, CIAIRE groans, buries her head in the pillow, and then opens her eyes. At first, she doesn't notice that MARTIN is there. Still groggy, still fighting her way into consciousness, she rolls onto her back and yawns. As her arms stretch out, her right hand brushes against MARTIN'S body. Nothing happens for a second or two, and then, very slowly, she sits up, looks into MARTIN'S confused and horrified face, and shrieks. An instant later, she flings back the covers and bounds from the bed, rushing across the room in a frenzy of fear and embarrassment. She is dressed in nearly nothing — at most a skimpy, sleeveless T-shirt. She snatches her bathrobe from the back of a chair and hastily thrusts her arms into the sleeves.

MARTIN

(Beside himself) Who are you?...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Picador
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312427034
• ISBN 13: 9780312427030
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 128
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland