What was it about reading Barney’s Version that made you want to
transform the story into last year’s film adaptation?
It made me howl out loud in laughter, it made my eyes tear up later on — the full range of human emotions was
covered by this story, and so that was a good beginning. It deals in a world that is very close to me, that I
know well and the characters in it are composites of people that I know, so it was material and stories and
characters quite close to my own life. So I felt compelled to be the one to bring them to the screen.
I was a few pages in when I came to the conclusion that I was reading a magnificent writer’s greatest book. I
didn’t know at the time it would be his last book, but it was his best book. I had made a previous film based
on one of Mordecai’s Richler’s earlier novels called Joshua Then and Now, [which] he wrote the screenplay
for. I read the book early on before it was published, and seized upon it — pounced on it.
How did you approach the task of transforming a 400-plus-page novel
to the big screen?
How I dealt with it is by taking a very, very long time — 12 years to be exact. At the beginning, Mordecai
himself was writing the screenplay and then he passed away and didn’t finish the work. From that point
forward I was the custodian of art of the whole movie enterprise, so I kept trying to look at it using
Mordecai’s very judgmental antennae, and trying to second-guess how he would feel about this or that or the
other thing. [That is] one of the reasons why it took many writers to finally get to the one who delivered
something that I felt comfortable with, because I felt Mordecai would be comfortable with it. That’s why it
took so long.
What was your main priority while making this
film?
The one thing I was determined to do was to honour the book, and to try at least to come close to its
integrity and to its artistic quality. How to best accomplish that? We tried various ways. In the case with
this novel — it’s not the case with every novel — but this sprawling, convoluted novel that has many, many
subplots —there’s no way to actually keep all that and narrow it down to two hours. If we kept everything
that Mordecai had in the novel, and every character and every subplot, it would be a 10, 12-hour movie. So
choices had to be made. What do you keep, and what do you not? That took a long time because I love all of
it, and I wanted to keep at least a little bit of everything, and keeping a little bit of everything actually
doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it becomes skin-deep; you can’t get deep inside anyone or any story if
you only keep a little sprinkling of it, so it becomes totally fragmented.
So that was the first approach, which I tried for the first few years [and] that’s where the final writer who
finally wrote the screenplay that I produced, Michael Konyves, [became] extremely useful and played an
important role — that we can’t keep everything, and that the best way to honor the book is by simply finding
the heart and keeping only that, and then using everything else only to the extent to which it enhances the
heart, and let go of the other organs. We could not have all the organs and all the limbs, so rather than
trying to have little bits and pieces, we kept the heart. And the heart of this story is the relationship
between Barney and the love of his life, his third wife, Miriam, and between his father, the other love of
his life. Those are the centrepieces of the story. There are lots of other things in the movie, but they are
designed to lead up to, orchestrate and be the choir for the centrepieces. So that took a long time to figure
out, particularly because I love the book so much and I was attached to every part of it.
What is your take on the belief many hold that novels shouldn’t be
made into films?
Mordecai himself thought this should be made into a film. He started to write the screenplay, so who was I to
say I shouldn’t, it’s too good a book? There’s that school of thought and there’s some merit to it, but I
think it becomes a filmmaker’s challenge to make a film that’s worthy of the book, and I’ve been doing this
now for long enough that I managed to acquire a couple of skills that came in handy. But we still couldn’t do
a whole book, so we made a cinematic version of that story, and we kept what we kept intact in order to
[highlight the] central relationships: Miriam and Izzy Panofsky and their relationship with Barney — that’s
what we kept intact from the book and even those were slightly shrunk.
What did you learn the most about producing this
film?
I learned once again what I learned in the past, but I learned even more now — pretty much what I’ve just
been describing to you — that when you’re translating a book into the screen, if you’re going to honour its
quality, you can only do it by reinventing it. You can’t actually manage it by trying to edit the book down,
and just keep a little of everything edited down because that’s an invalid approach and I spent some years
with that approach and in the future I wouldn’t even attempt that. You have to be willing to reinvent the
book from scratch in sincere language. That was the lesson. I had that lesson before, but this time it was
definitive.
What was it about actor Paul Giamatti that made him a perfect fit
for the role of Barney Panofsky?
He’s got this wonderful combination of curmudgeonly looks and personality, kind of like a prickly pear
personality, much like Mordecai himself, under which beats a terrifically human heart and you can feel his
heart beat even when he’s being prickly. Barney is that character.
You met Mordecai Richler in 1980 and were good friends up until his
passing in 2001. How would you describe your late, great friend?
Mordecai — he stood out left side and centre. All those who were high or mighty — they were especially his
favorite targets. He didn’t spare Jews, so that’s why for some time he was the black sheep of the Jewish
community in Montreal, although it’s long history, it’s ancient history because he’s very much worshipped
now. He became public enemy No. 1 of the Quebec separatist movement. I mean at one point he needed security
to walk the streets of Montreal because of the pieces he wrote in The New Yorker and The New York Times about
Quebec separatism. He didn’t spare anyone [except] those who were vulnerable. He never aims arrows at the
working class, or at those who are down. In the case of Barney’s Version, just look at the character of Izzy
Panofsky, Dustin Hoffman’s character — even though he’s politically incorrect much like Barney, there are no
darts going his way. The arrows go towards the stepfather, the one who lives in a mansion, the father of the
second Mrs. P. [Barney is not someone] who is loved by all, [which] only makes him more endearing to me.”
How much of the novel (and film) is
autobiographical?
To some extent. Barney’s character is a composite. Mordecai was not a producer of a television show starring
Mounties — I was. So he borrowed freely. On the other hand, he did meet the love of his life at his wedding
to his previous wife, so that he took from himself. There are significant autobiographical elements, but he
also made a composite character.
What makes this film unique?
It’s the kind of film that isn’t made anymore because it doesn’t deal in black and white, it doesn’t deal in
absolutes, there are no white knights, and there are no devils. It reflects the way life is — shades of grey.
It’s a film that tells the story of a man’s life, a man who was so far from perfect, just as far as most
people are, and we show his ups and downs, his flaws, his missteps, and the challenges for the filmmaker — my
challenge was and what Mordecai gave to me — is to show this character who does all kinds of things you’re
not supposed to do, and he’s often obnoxious, and yet do it in such a way that you love him because of his
humanity.
Movies like this were made often in the ’70s, but they’re not today. Today, we’re living in a cinema world of
absolutes; it’s good or bad. If you’re a hero, you’ve got to be a hero all the time.
This is not that kind of movie, and that’s where Paul Giamatti comes in. Mordecai gave us the ingredients,
but Paul infused them with flesh and blood. •
Photo Credit: Sabrina Lantos / eOne Entertainment
