On April 30, renowned novelist Rachel Kushner (author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room) delivered a special talk at the packed Margaret Jacks Hall, discussing the influence of film on her novels. The lecture, titled “My Movie Life,” allowed Kushner to share her approach to culture and the impact of movies on her writing.
The evening began with Nicholas Jenkins, Director of the Creative Writing Program, introducing Kushner to an eager audience, building anticipation for what was to come: “It’s like the premiere of a new series. We are about to experience a new and exciting moment,” he said.
Kushner opened her talk by discussing authority in relation to culture. She explained that authority can be shown in different ways, asserting, “You never want to be dogmatic, and you don’t want to claim authority over something that doesn’t belong to you.” For Kushner, watching movies gives viewers agency over what they see and how they respond to it. Writing, she added, is about capturing what one witnesses and appreciating the beauty in it. She emphasized that this beauty and emotional resonance is the material she uses to construct her novels’ emotional depth and structure.
During the lecture, Kushner explored works by authors Miriam Gurba and Bret Easton Ellis. She pointed out that these works show how popular culture is not just a background element but shapes the perspectives, voices, and identities of the characters. For instance, Gurba’s Creep features a narrator who compares their family to a sitcom family from The Addams Family. Similarly, Ellis’s The Shards uses a fragment of Kim Wilde’s video as a lens through which to view his narrative.
Kushner also discussed how she integrates film into her novels. She often places her characters in scenes where they are watching films, and their reactions to these films become integral to the broader social commentary in her stories. At times, her characters’ responses reflect her own views, while at others, they don’t. What remains consistent is her attempt to find beauty in films and offer perspectives that others may not be able to reach.
Kushner further explained the influence of Don DeLillo’s Underworld on her work, especially the part where DeLillo quotes Robert Frank’s 1972 documentary Cocksucker Blues, which follows The Rolling Stones. This led Kushner to consider the possibility of incorporating film into her own stories. She shared a powerful passage from Underworld, where the protagonist, Klara Sax, reflects on the objectification of women in the documentary. Kushner used this moment to explore how films shape our personal subjectivity and how characters interpret them.
Kushner also shared an example from her novel The Flamethrowers, in which she incorporated a little-known Italian documentary, D’Amore Si Vive (1984) by Silvano Agosti. The documentary features a nine-year-old boy named Frank who speaks eloquently about sexuality and adulthood. In her novel, Kushner reimagines Frank, transforming his story, yet preserving the discomfort and intrigue his character evokes.
Throughout the talk, Kushner explored a variety of films that have shaped her work, including obscure gems like Cuban Rebel Girls (1959), California Trilogy (1999), and Wanda (1970). These films, often filled with cultural debris from American life, are filtered through her characters’ experiences of class and gender. According to Kushner, the relationship between life and art, image and prose, reality and performance is at the heart of her work.
The core thesis of Kushner’s talk was that writers must create a private toolbox of influences and use them freely, without apology. “There’s a gap between the source material and the thing I make of it, which is where fiction happens,” Kushner said. She emphasized that the power of authority in literature lies in its subjectivity, allowing writers to shape and manipulate art within their narratives.
Kushner’s lecture offered a clear invitation to her audience: look harder, borrow from the right sources, and write what only you can understand. In her world, defined by the grainy textures of forgotten VHS tapes and half-remembered films, there’s always room for reinterpretation and exploration.
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