Loving Highsmith: An Eva Vitija interview

Patricia Highsmith fascinates me, but often for the quirky details of her personality. She had her share! For example, writing of her love for snails, Andrew Wilson, in the biography Beautiful Shadow, recounts a story in which a man (Peter Thomson) ran into Highsmith at a cocktail party. "She walked in with this gigantic handbag, which she then opened with pride, and which contained a hundred snails and an enormous head of lettuce. She absolutely adored the snails, they were her companions for the evening." (It may have been in a different bio that the detail was included that she had brought the snails "to have someone to talk to," which makes me love her even more). 

Similarly - both stories are on page 267 of the hardcover of Beautiful Shadow - the English translation of the name of the villa Tom Ripley keeps in the later novels of the Ripleiad - Larry Ashmond of Doubleday talks of how when Pat moved to France in 1967, "she told him that she smuggled her pet snails into the country under her breasts," doing so over the course of multiple trips. And indeed, she has two short stories in which snails figure prominently - "The Quest for Blank Claveringi" is the first Highsmith I read, finding it in an Alfred Hitchcock anthology of horror stories in the library at my elementary school; I wrote about my attempts to figure out who wrote that story here. That story appears in the same book as "The Snail Watcher"- published both under that name and as Eleven. Weirder still, there is also an unfinished story mentioned in the Wilson book (p. 268) about astronauts who return to earth after an apocalypse to find it overtaken by intelligent, vicious, flesh-eating snails, a sort of "Planet of the Snails." And snail breeding plays a role in her novel Deep Water; while I did not love Adrian Lyne's recent adaptation of the book, I was very pleased that he included some snail stuff, which really could have been easily discarded (it's not like the snails are essential to the plot).

And it's not just snails; Highsmith wrote an entire book of short stories called The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder, in which each tale involves animals killing people (I gave a copy of that to Jello Biafra once, apropos of his song "Pets Eat Their Masters"). She also authored - up there as one of her weirder titles - a book called Little Tales of Misogyny, where each vignette involves the murder of, or deaths caused by, various women, whom Highsmith skewers with great distaste and a very dark sense of humour (try "Öona the Jolly Cave Woman" for a taste of that)

Though she thinks her first taste of Highsmith came in the form of the short story "The Snail Watcher," documentary filmmaker Eva Vitija does not stray too far into the weirder details of Highsmith's career in her film Loving Highsmith, opening at the VIFF Centre this Friday. This is probably for the best, because there is a lot else to cover, including the best-known of Highsmith's novels - Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt (AKA Carol), and The Talented Mr. Ripley. There is also substantial discussion of Highsmith's queer identity, with stories told by the women who knew her, including Marijane Meaker, who wrote a book of her own about her time with Highsmith.

But what is really exciting for the Highsmith-phile is the excerpts from Pat's notebooks - including both diary entries and story schematics that take us inside her process; and the wealth of photographic material, including some super-cute black and white photos of Pat as a tomboy in Texas, and, indeed, the first photos I've seen, ever, of Pat holding her pet snails (apologies to her cats, its the snails that make my heart go out; their hermaphroditic nature is likened to Ripley's own less-than-solid rooting in the masculine: "she liked people who were a bit half-and-half"). There is also a terrific, propulsive, and pleasingly loose guitar score, composed by Noël Akchoté and involving Bill Frisell and Mary Halvorson, and a few unexpected appearances by people like Gena Rowlands and (in a story, at least) David Bowie, whose paths crossed with Pat's in the transvestite bars of Berlin. 

I emailed questions to director Vitija, which are presented below in italics. Vitija's answers are not. The film runs October 14th to 20th at the VIFF Centre, along with studio screenings of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Purple Noon (the earlier French adaptation of the same novel, with Alain Delon as Ripley) and Strangers on a Train (Carol was unavailable). There is also The American Friend, a fine adaptation of two Ripley novels, kind of. Highsmith was annoyed Wenders didn't buy the rights to both, freely adding elements of Ripley Underground to the purchased text of Ripley's Game, but one of the things you will spot in footage of her studio is a poster for Wenders film. Dennis Hopper is a weird Ripley, but Bruno Ganz is perfect (John Malkovich is a slightly better Ripley in a later adaptation of Ripley's Game, but overall it is not as great as Wenders' film, and not screening, anyhow,) (Note: I have added these last sentences from my phone in the hospital, so I am not bothering with hyperlinks or italics). 

Note that my first question contained an error on my part, based in a hasty reading of the press release.

How did growing up in the same town that Highsmith lived in in the last years of her life affect your interest in her work? Was Pat still alive when you read your first book of hers? (What was it?). Did you ever see her on the street or such? Was she an inspirational figure to you?

First of all. I did not grow up in the same town as Highsmith. She lived in the Italian part of Switzerland in a small village and I grew up in Zürich. But we once spent a summer holiday in her village (called Tegna) when I was a child. My parents told me, that there was living this famous author alone with her cats. I never saw her on the street. But when I already worked on the film this memory came back to me. Because it really puzzled me as a little girl. Why would a woman live alone with her cats? Maybe the idea of this sparked something in me?

Besides being a portrait of Pat, her work, and her relationships, the film is also a portrait of women who had to keep their identities hidden, because of the times they lived in, and it really hinges on your having found women who would talk about her. Did you reach out to many women who would NOT talk to you? Did any of the women require convincing? (obviously Marijane has already been quite public about her relationship with Pat. Were any of the others?)

Actually all people I contacted would participate in the film but not all I contacted are in the film. Some additional interviews will be on the DVD as Bonus material. I visited all of them several times before starting to film. And although it looks as if Marijane Meaker was the most public and willing one because she had already written Highsmith, A Romance of the 1950’s she wasn’t really ready to participate exactly because of this. She always said: "Everything is already in the book, why should I make a film now?“. Fortunately she changed her mind and granted us this very important interview for the film. For the other women: Although many of them where of course not public with their lesbian love-life in their worklife or towards their families, I guess the time was just ripe to go public with it now. Their parents had already deceased and they wanted to add something to Pat’s public image which they felt was wrong or at least missing important parts.

By emphasizing the "unattainable love of her mother," the film almost seems to take the side of a "nurture" vs "nature" theory of homosexuality, which I believe is a bit politically fraught. Do you think Pat was "born queer," or...? 

Definitely I think Pat was born queer. Her difficult relationship with her mother did for sure not cause her homosexuality but was one of the reasons of not being accepted by her mother later on. First she was just an unwanted child in general, because the mother became pregnant early and with the wrong man whom she divorced 9 days before Pat was born.

One thing that I have seen said about Highsmith is that she was mildly on the autism spectrum. You leave that out, and frankly, I doubt she was. But what do you think? Did you leave that out because it was a distracting digression from the main story, or because you thought it untrue?

I know the theory. And I think she might have been mildly on the autism spectrum. But frankly: Does it change anything to know it? I think many people are mildly on the autism spectrum. Especially writers. I didn’t think it helped to understand her better as a character to mention this.

.Is there anything you wished you COULD have included, from Jap Buster Johnson through to The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder, that you had to cut - whether because it was too digressive, or just made Pat seem too odd, or...?

I clearly focused my film on Pat’s experience of love because it was so crucial for the themes and elements of her writing. And it was the one thing she could not really talk about when she was alive. But even there I had to leave tons of material, stories, lovers and experiences away. I did not do a typical biopic with the idea of mentioning ALL the important things no matter what focus. But not even there anybody would be able to show all important things of an interesting life of 74 years in basically 90 minutes of film… I was sorry I could not talk more about her older years in general because love stories were a bit replaced by friendships. And I was also sorry not to be able to mention more about her being a painter. When she was young she wasn’t sure if she would be a painter or a writer. And she painted and sketched all her life. There will be some additional material on the background of her family on the DVD as well, important to understand her later years.

What are your own favourite books by, or film adaptations of, Highsmith?

My favorite book is This Sweet Sickness. Because I think it combines a lot Highsmith is often writing about: Imagination and Love.

Is the married British woman "Caroline" actually the inspiration for Carol, the woman Highsmith sees in the department store....? You cut to footage from Haynes' film, but you say little about this woman (except that you will respect her privacy). Can you talk a bit about what detective work went into finding her?

The inspiration for Carol was coming from two different women, one was E.R. Senn, the society lady and customer who really bought the doll, when Highsmith was working behind the toy counter of Bloomingdale’s department store around the Christmas days of 1948. Highsmith never met that woman again. But visited her house later on after she had written the story of Carol as it was then titled, as The Price of Salt. There was also some parts of the Carol character and the story inspired by a former lover of Highsmith, Virginia "Ginnie“ Kent Catherwood, a divorced socialite who had lost the custody for her daughter from her marriage. Highsmith met her 1944.

We used the Carol film as a metaphor for the English woman. Because in a way Pat invented the story of the married woman years before she herself fell in love with a married woman. I found it very convincing that the imagination of the writer was before the story invaded her real life in a way. But the English woman in Highsmith's life was much later than when she worked at Bloomingdale’s!

At some point somebody mentioned Caroline's name, so I could find her house. Unfortunately she had just died. So they where just renovating/emptying her house.

Is there anything we have not gotten to, that you'd like to comment on? 

The soundtrack is something I like very much. Noël Akchoté, a French musician, was the composer. He played together with Mary Halvorson and Bill Frisell, two very well known guitarists. Ayler Records published a soundtrack album called Loving Highsmith, published as a double CD (with extra quotes by Highsmith on music) and electronically: https://ayler-records.bandcamp.com/album/loving-highsmith

And there will be a DVD published by Kino Lorber in November with a lot of interesting Bonus Material on the film.

Thank you, Eva!