Can Pynchon write (yet)?

[Paul Nightingale]

On Welles. It has been said that he directed some (his own) scenes in The
Third Man, and that film's conclusion certainly prefigures the conclusion to
Touch of Evil. And there is enough in The Magnificent Ambersons to indicate
what might have been, had the full version been released (the excision of
doesn't-move-the-plot stuff brings to mind similar butcher-jobs on Rudolph's
Made In Heaven and Cimino's Heaven's Gate). But the complete (or as complete
as it's gonna be) version of ToE is, my two bits, superior. I don't know
that Laura's in the minority here--the best ever films lists usually cite
CK; the consensus among most of his biographers--I've read a few but not
all--is that Welles peaked at the outset, then went downhill (wasted talent,
etc). As a ToE fan, I suspect I'm in the minority.

The importance of editing is more obvious (or is it?) in cinema, certainly
now we're getting used to directors' cuts and dvd extras packs including
outtakes. It would be interesting to see different versions of something P
wrote, with evidence of (any) editorial input. If indeed P has been writing
AtD over decades--or even if he started it the day after M&D was published
in 1997--I would like to see how it developed. And yes, that might well be
another minority view.

On Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps. Laura says Hannay comes across as flat
because his actions aren't credible; here, the definition of the rounded
character, then, would emphasise psychological realism/verisimilitude. One
thing we haven't (I think) mentioned when discussing cartoonishness is the
freedom that animated films typically have from realist narratives (and in P
it's often the action, rather than any character as such in isolation, that
might be termed cartoonish). Perhaps this is because cartoons/animated films
aren't seen as an adult form, and adult narratives need realism (a view,
perhaps, that panders to the adult reader's sense of their own importance).
Given the P-connection one can cite The Simpsons, but surrealism is often a
feature in animated narratives. Hitchcock's British films were certainly
influenced by contemporary European theory, eg expressionism, montage
theory; and (in The 39 Steps) the handcuffs scene in the hotel room, for
one, might be considered a tad surrealistic (as well as music hall
slapstick) even borrowing elements of cubism.