In his profile of director Todd Haynes, critic John Lahr writes “When Haynes was in eleventh grade, his film teacher, Chris Adams, told him ‘that films shouldn’t be judged on how they conveyed reality, that films were not about reality.’ Cinema was a trick, almost like Renaissance perspective: a two-dimensional event that represented three-dimensionality; it created the sense of direct, unmediated life, whereas, in fact, everything in it was mediated. The notion, Haynes said, was ‘a revelation to me.’ He began to interrogate our ‘endless presumptions about reality and authenticity.’” (“The Director’s Cut: How Todd Haynes rewrites the Hollywood playbook” by John Lahr, The New Yorker, 11/11/19, p. 57). I think this observation also applies to writing fiction. The author’s challenge is to make readers experience a highly mediated story as a direct and real event. As a writer, I bend reality to my “narrative will” so that fact and fiction are equally plausible and hence achieve authenticity. For more of my thoughts about writing, see REFLECTIONS.
