Reading McCarthy Episode 59: The Big Screen Beckons--McCarthy's Screenplays with Stacey Peebles
13 snips
Sep 23, 2025 Stacey Peebles, a film-studies scholar and the president of the Cormac McCarthy Society, delves into McCarthy's screenwriting journey. She explores his early film experiences and how they influenced his screenplays, like the evolution of *No Country for Old Men*. Stacey discusses unproduced works like *Whales and Men*, highlighting their philosophical depth and cinematic challenges. The conversation also covers the reception of *The Counselor* and the difficulties in adapting *All the Pretty Horses* and *Child of God*. A fascinating look at McCarthy's cinematic legacy!
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
McCarthy's Early Film Encounters
- Cormac McCarthy had early film experiences as a child, auditioning for The Yearling and appearing in a 1946 dairy documentary.
- Those episodes help explain his lifelong interest in cinema and later screenwriting efforts.
Screenplays Seeded Major Novels
- McCarthy wrote several screenplays in the late 1970s–1980s including El Paso Juarez (later Cities of the Plain), No Country for Old Men, and Whales and Men.
- Two of those screenplays later became novels, showing his screenwriting informed his fiction.
John Grady's Evolution Through Drafts
- The screenplay for Cities of the Plain prefigures All the Pretty Horses but presents John Grady as less of a master horseman and more stubborn.
- McCarthy remodeled the character across drafts, demonstrating iterative evolution from screenplay to novel.