298
PARTISAN REVIEW
Int.:
Did you ever intend to write any more screen plays?
Williams:
Those experiences had discouraged me from the whole
thing. I felt that if one didn't have control the work would ulti–
mately, inevitably lose its truth.
Int.:
Film is not one of your favorite forms as a writer?
Williams:
I love to go
to
the movies now and I think they've improved
vastly, but I would never write a screenplay again unle9S I knew I had
real control over the script.
Int .:
YQu're never interested in directing anything?
Williams:
Oh, it's too complicated, too technical and too exhausting,
no I couldn't do it.
Int.:
Do you think the cinema industry and filmmakers will suffer from
the lack of great talent such as yours in the cinema?
Williams:
It seems
to
me that they've got a lot of good talent around,
you know. They seem
to
have talents particularly suited to cinema.
The stage was always where I got my working model.
Int .:
What was it that made you so successful as a writer for the stage?
Williams:
I think I have a curious combination of traits that are viable
on the screen and on the stage. Joe DiMaggio came up in an elevator
in a Chicago hotel: He said, "You 're Mr. Williams, aren't you?" He
said, " I want to congratulate you, you're selling the best thing in the
world." I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "Sex."
Hahahal That's an over simplification, isn't it? Hahahaha. But, I
liked it. That was a long time ago.
Int.:
Because sex is closer to the truth?
Williams:
Ya, I can see a lot of things by putting sex in it. I don 't have
trouble doing it, putting sex in it; I like it, you know.
It
seems very
beautiful to me to write sex into plays.
Int.:
What are some of your other qualities?
Williams:
I have a sense of drama, a seventh sense, I think I do. I like
dramatic confrontation.
Int.:
To express ideas or to express feelings?
Williams:
Feelings, mostly. I've been reading the diary of Vlasilov
Nijinsky, the early diary in St. Moritz when he was going mad. He
keeps saying "I am a man of feeling, my wife thinks! " (laughter). I
think people with a slight tendency toward madness are more
inclined to feel, you know. And, I think a tendency toward it, not
total madness, but a tendency toward it, is very adaptable to the
stage. Strindberg found that out.
Int .:
He wasn't mad, but slightly mad?
Williams:
Yes, because you know you get like that, you really hit out
