Apocalyptic visions

ON THE RUN: Viggo Mortensen in The Road.

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The Road screenwriter Joe Penhall talks about unfilmable books, frightening visions and Neil Finn, with JAMES CROOT.

Being the cheapest has its advantages, believes British writer Joe Penhall. He's convinced that's how he landed the job of adapting Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road for the big screen.

"I was also the only writer who said 'leave it as it is. Don't change any of it'," says the 42-year-old Penhall, better known for writing plays, including Some Voices, though he did adapt Ian McEwan's Enduring Love in 2004.

"I was sure that if we could just figure out how to make the transition from novel to screenplay, without losing the essence of it or our nerve, it'd be as mesmeric a film as it was a book. I guess the producers liked that approach - a lot of other screenwriters had said it was unfilmable or needed a lot of changes. When you've just shelled out half a million for the rights to a book you don't want to hear that."

Written in 2006, McCarthy's novel is a post-apocalyptic tale of a father and son who are two of the few life forms left on Earth. Directed by Australian John Hillcoat (The Prophecy) the film version, now screening, stars Viggo Mortensen (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Kodi-Smit McPhee (Romulus, My Father).

Penhall says he and Hillcoat had been looking for a project together and Hillcoat thought he'd found it when he got his hands on a copy of the book before it was published.

"He sent it to me, I read it very quickly and like most people, I found it pretty jaw- dropping," says Penhall. "It struck me as extremely bold for a writer to have such an uncompromisingly frightening vision of the future. But I loved the tenderness of the central relationship, too. Having recently lost my father - and soon to have a son - I related to it on a very personal level."

Despite what others believed, he thought it had all the ingredients of a great film.

"It's essentially a road movie and a love story about a father and son. It's got splashes of gut-wrenching horror. It's about yearning for a lost paradise - but it's also, essentially, two heroes running away from the bad guys.

"There are tonnes of 'unfilmable' books. I read them all the time and really enjoy them, thinking, 'that's one nobody's going to pester me about. I've just read Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole - totally unfilmable but people are trying. I love Tim Winton - he writes great stories, but his morality is dark and Chekhovian - his characters are complex, flawed, haunted, lost souls who lurch from crisis to crisis without ever learning anything about themselves or improving their lot or finding happiness. So of course the stories usually end badly with no resolution or happiness for anybody.

"The film industry loves simple, uncomplicated, happy fools who go on straightforward journeys and learn to be better people, redeem their sorry asses, love to love each other, are kind to children and animals, love their grandmas . . . all that s... . They also love talking dogs and you don't get too many great novels about that."

Gaining other inspiration from the music of Nick Cave (who composed the film's soundtrack) and the novels of John Steinbeck, Penhall "worked closely" on the screenplay with Hillcoat.

"He came to my office every day and hassled me to see pages. I'd show him, he'd read them and give me notes. I'd then get rid of him . . . and go back to what I was doing before. Directors never have anything to do with screenplays. People think they do but most directors are illiterate, dyslexic or just too stupid to understand what you're doing. Most - not all. John, in all seriousness, is very collaborative and considered me boss of the script. I let him be boss of the film- making."

Penhall also spent a day with McCarthy in New Mexico. "He said, 'it's your business, do what you like'. But he liked the finished film and sent me some notes, most of which were very helpful. He's a very smart, interesting guy. I asked him why he didn't write more screenplays. [No Country For Old Men was a screenplay before he rewrote it as a novel.] He said, 'because the future is too short'."

Penhall says he chops and changes between his preference for play or screenwriting. "At the moment, I'm enjoying writing a play - because it's a complex human document and I have stuff I want to get off my chest. Films aren't for getting things off your chest, really. They're primarily about having fun or frightening people or making them laugh . . . and making s...loads of money for everybody concerned."

The other differences are more structural, he says. "Plays are very much about words. You cast a spell with words. With films, it's mostly about the images and the story. Plays are a meditation - like a poem - often on the complexity of humanity or a human subject. Films tend to be entertainment, the simpler and more direct the better. One of my favourite films is Jaws. The shark is what we're there to see - the intriguing local politics of whether to close the beaches is important, but not the most important thing at all.

Philosophically, The Road is a complex meditation . . . but it's the premise and the action that make it an exciting film. A great film could never be a play - and few plays are turned into great films."

Although born and now living in Britain, Penhall was raised in Australia and that's where he first got into writing.

"I started out writing rock'n'roll journalism as a teenager in suburban Adelaide. I interviewed Neil Finn at length several times when Crowded House were starting out and he was very unassuming, introspective and thoughtful and encouraged me to figure out what I had a real talent for without deluding myself or frittering it all away. I was about 17 and he must've been about 25. In Australia, in those days, nobody really did this for you. As a teenager, it was your job to be deluded. It was about chicks, going to the beach, sinking tonnes of piss, getting in brawls and doing a shitty job until you died. Nothing wrong with this at all, but you can't do it all the time or you go mad.

"He encouraged me to think about what I needed to think about next and do what I needed to do - which was to write - without kidding myself too much. He also taught me about hard work because he was incredibly dedicated to his songwriting.

"I think I needed to become a writer or I would've gone slowly mad and he was one person who helped me figure that out and I'll always be grateful for that. When you think about it, he was incredibly young himself, so I was enormously impressed and determined to follow his example and write my way out of the suburbs.

"When I got to London I got involved with the Royal Court Theatre who were the same - to them it was perfectly achievable. If you were dedicated you could be a great writer. It was simple."

As for the future, unlike The Road's apocalyptic visions, Penhall's is looking bright. He has a new play coming out, one of his old plays is touring Japan and he is working on an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel Deep Water with Mike Nichols.

"I get offers from Hollywood all the time, but I turn down 99 per cent of them," says Penhall, who might still be comparatively cheap but whose stocks are clearly on the rise.

The Road is now screening in New Zealand.

- © Fairfax NZ News