Reading McCarthy Episode 61: Part One of Seeking Guidance for THE COUNSELOR
Swift Origin And Publication
- Cormac McCarthy wrote The Counselor screenplay quickly as a spec script and had it published as a book, treating it like literary work as well as a film script.
- The rapid translation from script to film surprised McCarthy and shaped production involvement and expectations.
Filmed Largely In Spain
- Bryan Giemza details that much of the film shot in Spain, including Rainer's mansion at a 22,000-square-foot villa.
- McCarthy stayed months in Europe to oversee filming and expressed surprise at the film's rapid staging.
Surprising Reaction From Publisher
- Bryan Giemza recounts that McCarthy's agent expected a novel but received a 180-page screenplay instead.
- Ridley Scott then offered to make the film six months later, surprising McCarthy with rapid production.
Full disclosure time here on the READING MCCARTHY podcast. When Ridley Scott’s film The Counselor arrived in theaters with its very own shiny McCarthy screenplay, I was underwhelmed. We’d been waiting for over half a decade for The Passenger and had no idea we’d be almost another ten years waiting for that project (and of course we had no concept of Stella Maris at the time). I found interesting elements in the film but didn’t think it held together. But people smarter than me (such as my three guests in this program) convinced me to return to it it and here we are in a 2-parter.
Appearing for the first time is Dr. Russell Hillier, whose consideration of the screenplay sparked my interest in returning for another bout: he is Professor of English at Providence College, Rhode Island. He is the author of two books, Milton’s Messiah (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Morality in Cormac McCarthy’s Fiction: Souls at Hazard (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and he is coeditor of Combined Lights: Comparative Essays on the Writings of John Donne and George Herbert (University of Delaware Press, 2021). Additionally, he has published articles on many authors in many journals.
Returning as well is the excellent Dr. Dianne Luce. She is the author of Reading The World. Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Period, University of South Carolina Press, 2009, and Embracing Vocation: Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, 1959-1974, U South Carolina Press 2023. She is currently working on a second volume of Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, covering 1974-1985.
Bryan Giemza holds a Ph.D. and J.D. and is the Provost’s Fellow for Outreach and Engagement in the Honors College at Texas Tech University. His books include Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South as well as Images of Depression-Era Louisiana: The FSA Photographs of Ben Shahn, Russell Lee, and Marion Post Wolcott (2017). His book Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds was published by Bloomsbury in 2023.
As always, listeners are warned: there be spoilers here. Film trailer excerpts from The Counselor, directed by Ridley Scott, distributed by 20th Century Fox, 2013.
Thanks as always to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY.
The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. Download and follow this podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on these platforms. To contact the host, please reach out to readingmccarthy@gmail.com.
Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor...