In this interview with Joe Maurer, the screenwriter for The Song of the Lark, he discusses the
joys and challenges of capturing Cather's vision and the process for bringing Thea to life on film. This interview was conducted in June 1999.Question: How do you feel about taking a literary classic and
popularizing it for a mainstream audience?
Joe Maurer: My college degree was in English and education; I'd been a certified High School English teacher, though I never practiced that profession. I have carried
from my student teaching days a desire to reach out with the classics to people who might otherwise resist them as antique, arcane, or somehow irrelevant to the lives we live today. I've been blessed in this project to
get the greatest chance of a lifetime to do just that. Because of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Our great writers are timeless. Karen Arthur, the director, told me on the set that she was fiercely
determined to "get people reading this book!" I think we all felt that way. As entertainers, we knew we had in our hands a vehicle to expose a giant, Willa Cather, to a new audience, young and old. We also
felt the weighty burden of responsibility to do her work justice, and
to satisfy the readers already familiar with her work. As far as "popularizing" is concerned, we've made great efforts not to vulgarize Cather's vision. It won't be a movie for everyone. But for those who make the investment of time, I think the rewards will be there.
Q: What creative foci did you have in adapting the text?
J: Depending on the version of The Song of the Lark
one picks up, it is some 417 pages long. And the type-size is small! Cather, in this novel particularly, wrote in an expansive style. I liken The Song of the Lark
to a great river with a thousand sparkling tributaries you'd like to paddle up. In a temporal entertainment like a movie, where you have about 112 minutes to tell your story, tremendous distillation and excising is required. The danger of course, is that you must make very certain that the surgery doesn't kill the patient. My great focus at first, because the task was so daunting to me, was to ponder long on the deeper intents in this work. Cather herself has written that the thing that goes unsaid is often the heart of the matter. So I spent many weeks, months during the writing, inhabiting this glorious world she created, awaiting word from her about what was essential. Happily, for me at least, word eventually came.
Q: What did you leave out or what was cut from the original text or your screenplay?
J: Before I was hired, the producers, Marian Rees, Anne Hopkins and Dorothea Petrie, had a vision that the screenplay
should take Thea Kronborg just to her leaping off point into the grand opera career that awaits her. Cather takes Thea much further, and regretted her loquacity in later years, proclaiming that it's the journey to
become that's most interesting, in any field of endeavor. Once arrived, the hero can only diminish in his own long shadow of success. The result, I did a great deal of discarding from the novel's final
"Kronborg" section. However, there are gems there too, and for storytelling purposes, I was able to bring some of those back into my adaptation.
My first draft was overlong. I knew it and so did the
producers. But I had to "write it out," as we say in the film trade, so that we could all see the many places it might go dramatically. Then it was distill, distill, distill, to concentrate the deeper themes
in a shorter script.
Q: What was your biggest challenge in adapting this work?
M: The greatest challenge, once I knew deeply what the heart of the story needed to be, was to catch that expansive, generous,
thoroughly American tone that is so resonant in Willa Cather's work.
Q: If you had total creative autonomy, what would you change about the film?
J: Since I produce and write, I know that all creative
decisions are ultimately monetary decisions as well. It's remarkable to me that our producers were able to free me up as much as they did, given the hard wall of the budget figures which had to be respected. If I had
total creative autonomy and a bigger bankroll, there are many film moments we could have introduced. However, the upside of a tight budget, I learned many years ago when writing and producing ABC's
Afterschool Specials, is that it forces you to find the essence of each scene, and not rely on spectacle to move your story forward.
Q: What scene, in your opinion, truly captures the spirit of Thea?
J:
There are quite a few, and Alison Elliott, who plays Thea, brought her own gifts to the party, improving even some of the less consequential moments. This was true for all of our actors, in fact. I was delighted every
day in dailies [daily shoot footage] to see the unexpected gifts that great actors bring, in collaboration with a strong director. But the scenes of Thea's arduous musical labor and frustrations, that burning desire she
has to be exceptional and true, first at piano and later as a singer, I think catch her spirit best. We had, of course, the tremendous benefit of actually being able to hear Thea sing and play, something Cather could
only suggest on the page. And we tried to make the most of it.
Q: What do you think Cather would say about this production of her work?
J: Well, I keep hoping she'll visit me in a dream and give me at least
a nod of approval. I hope our production would make her happy. For my part, she made a magnificent writing partner.
Q: How much collaboration was done in your writing of the screenplay with directors, producers,
anyone?
J: It was a collaborative venture from the outset—that's the nature of filmmaking—and it's only frustrating if your fellow collaborators aren't up to the task. In this case, we made a winning team. Ideas
came from everywhere. I play piano myself, and was thrilled to get in a few of my favorite pieces. The Brahms intermezzo which Harsanyi plays so exquisitely—it's one of my passions. The idea for Thea's Nathanmeyer
performance came from my friend Will Foster, who gave me a CD of the astonishing Rene Fleming. The "Rusalka" aria, by Dvorak, which can break your heart in the right hands, went immediately into the script.
Everyone was delighted by the choice.
Q: How much input do you have in reviewing of the dailies and what is kept and what is not?
J: I see the dailies, and discuss their strengths and weaknesses with the
creative team. But at this point it's the job of the director, editor, and producers, to gel all of our many working elements into a film.
Q: How much of the original script have you had to rewrite? For what reasons?
J: Much of the rewriting was done for the purpose of shortening and focusing. And I rewrote it over, and over, and over again. While I
and the producers disagreed on some points, the arguments were always intelligent, always thoughtful. Sometimes I'd leave the meeting, grousing to myself in the car on the way home as writers do, only to discover later
that their ideas were terrific. That's the great creative fun in collaboration.
Q: Why is this piece relevant to today's society?
J: Herr Wunsch, Thea's alcoholic music teacher in Moonstone, hits the nail on
the head when he says that "Desire" is the most important passion. In this case, it's an artistic desire which Thea pursues, a desire for truthfulness in her work. But the faith in diligent labor, the
understanding of the joys that come only with authentic struggle, are ideas as relevant today as they were eighty-five years ago when Cather put pen to paper. Ultimately, The Song of the Lark
is about finding one's passion, honoring the people who help along the way, and burnishing the life and talent we're given. The New Agers may claim these ideas as their own, but they've been around our human campfire since the beginning.
Thank you.
