Loving Highsmith (2022)

[bunniefuu]

(mellow music)

(clacking of typewriter keys)

(hissing, sizzling)

Ideas come to me like birds,

that I see in the
corner of my eye,

and I may try, or may not,

to get a closer fix
on those birds.

(clacking of keys)

(mellow music)

The music of the merry-go-round
sounded tired and very distant.

(carnival music)

If he had Miriam here
in the boat with him,

he would hold her head
under the water with pleasure.

(chatter, laughter)

(woman screaming)

The lights on the water

silhouetted her head
and shoulders.

Never had he been so close.

She faced him,

Is your name Miriam?

But he knew,
she could barely see him.

His hands captured her throat,

but he had her too tight
for a scream.

(mellow dramatic music)

Good stories are made from
the writers' emotions alone.

Even if a suspense book
is entirely calculated,

there will be scenes
which the writer

has very likely known himself.

(bird cawing)

(mellow music)

Like many other filmmakers,

I was immediately drawn to
Patricia Highsmith's writing.

Almost all of her books
were made into films.

(soft chuffing)

But when I started reading
her unpublished diaries,

I fell in love with
Patricia Highsmith herself.

(meowing)

Her very first diary entry
is rather mysterious:

(pencil scratching)

And here is my diary,
containing the body -

the painfullest feeling is that
of your own feebleness.

(mellow music)

(bright mellow music)

(waves crashing)

(insects chirring)

She had a strangeness.

She picked strange ideas,

that I would never
be able to think of.

(leaves rustling,
birds chirping)

We met in the Village,
in New York.

She found out I was a writer
and that interested her.

She was not a forward person
at all.

She didn't assume that

she was entitled to anything

and that was nice, in a way.

Because certainly, she was
very famous when I met her.

(sweeping dramatic music)

Strangers on a Train,
your first book, Ms. Highsmith,

it was bought by a
celebrated film director?

Yes, Hitchcock took
an interest in it.

(dramatic music)

Ever since I was 16 or 17,

I get, what is sometimes
called "creepy ideas. "

Wanna hear one of my ideas
for a perfect m*rder?

I may be old-fashioned,

but I thought, m*rder
was against the law?

(dramatic music)

Your initial idea was

these two men
exchanging murders?

Yes, that was the very
initial idea, to be sure.

These things just pop into
one's head, in my opinion.

I can never say why or when.

(soft dramatic music)

Highsmith's writing
is so cinematic,

that the master of suspense
finds the perfect,

somber universe
for his film in it.

But from then on,
she struggles with

the label of being
a crime writer.

(dramatic music)

I am always categorized
in mystery and suspense,

when I never wrote
a mystery in my life.

I just write a story

and sometimes
it has v*olence in it,

sometimes it has a m*rder

and therefore,
it's called crime.

(dramatic music)

She was better looking
than I thought she would be.

That's only because I'm a writer

and usually when we meet,

I meet other writers,
they're all sort of seedy,

like I am.

And. .

She was different.

(car horns honking)

We met in L's.

It was called L's
for lesbian, I guess.

New York was loaded
with gay bars.

It was the '50s.

I was very interested
in gay places.

And I would ask cab drivers. .

And I remember
a cab driver said:

"I know,
a place over in blabla. "

And he took me there.

And the owner, a woman,

said: "You never
come here again, ever"

And I said: "Why?
It's for me, isn't it?"

She said: "It's for people
with discretion.

And you just ruined it.

You've given a cab driver
the name of this place. "

(solemn music)

Gay bars are a dark door
somewhere in Manhattan,

where people wanting
to go to a certain bar,

get off the subway
a station before

or after the convenient one,

lest they be suspected
of being h*m*.

This is William Street.

(solemn music)

Pat was more dedicated
than any writer I'd ever met.

I was curious to write a book
about a writer like her.

I wrote a book
about her later on.

A handsome, dark haired
woman in a trench coat,

drinking gin, stood at the bar.

In the outside world,

she was better known
as Patricia Highsmith,

author of
"Strangers on a Train. "

But in L's, there was the buzz
that she was Claire Morgan.

Pat was revered for her
pseudonymous novel, Carol.

It stood on every
lesbian bookshelf

and was for many years,

the only lesbian novel
with a happy ending.

(mellow music)

Do you think it was important
for Pat to write a gay book?

Sure.

Sure. I mean,
she was gay and. .

And if she was a writer,

that's what she wanted to do.

Write about that life.

People were saying: "Write
the same thing as Strangers.

Write it again.
Write something like that. "

And I wasn't, at that moment,
inspired to do so.

(soft music)

I had a job in a very busy
department store in New York.

I was selling dolls.

It was at Christmas rush hour.

And a woman came in
in a fur coat,

who was rather striking.

(dramatic music)

The woman seemed
to give off light.

I felt odd and swimmy
in the head,

near to fainting. .

Their eyes met
at the same instant.

(siren wailing)

(alarm ringing)

When she stood up,
the woman was looking at her

with the calm grey eyes

that Therese could neither
quite face nor look away from.

Where did you learn
so much about train sets?

Therese noticed the woman's
perfume, for the first time

and wished with all her
power to wish anything,

that the woman would simply
continue her last words

and say: "Why can't we
see each other again?"

(soft music)

I like the hat.

(indistinct PA announcement)

That night, I wrote out the
whole story in my notebook.

(scratching)

Highsmith never meets
the woman again.

She feverishly writes down

the plot of the story
in her notebook.

At the end, she adds notes
of her own experiences,

from her private diaries.

Madly in love with my Carol.

I want to spend all my time,
all my evenings with her.

(birds chirping)

Oh God, how this story
emerges from my own bones.

It flowed from my pen
as from nowhere.

Beginning, middle and end.

(mellow music)

Although writing Carol
is greatly liberating,

Highsmith has doubts about
publishing the book at all.

Ultimately, she releases it
under a pen name.

Anybody didn't use
their own name

on a gay book.

It wasn't smart.

I used Ann Aldrich,

Vin Packer and any name,

but not my own name ever.

It was my family's name.

(mellow music)

Your second book, I think,

you published under
a nom de plume.

- Yeah.
- Why was that?

No particular reason.

Was it accepted by the
publisher you sent it to?

It certainly was not.

It was rejected by
New York publishers.

And they said: "No one
can bring off this ending. "

A lesbian book had to
have an unhappy ending.

Somebody who was living
with a straight family

and fell in love with a woman.

And depending on your publisher,

you were either very sorry

or you had a nice time.

But it didn't last.

It couldn't last
and you realized it.

Why did Pat never publish
a "girls' book" again?

The family.

Certainly family,
certainly mother.

And. .

Those two things were big
enough to stop anybody.

(cheering)

(mellow country music)

(insects chirring)

Look, toughie Pat.

I think she's got
a cigar in her mouth.

But that's so cute.

She looked like
a little boy there.

This. .

is granddaddy and Pat.

Her brother.

Pat always called him brother.

She never referred to
him as her cousin.

Dan and Pat grew up together.

(insects chirring)

(mellow music)

Dan was a rodeo announcer.

Our family has just been
a ranching, rodeo,

probably a basic Texas family.

(mellow music)

We spent every weekend,
growing up, going to rodeos.

(crowd cheering)

So, who was more famous here?

Her "brother" Dan or Pat?

In Texas?

- Dan.
- Oh yeah, granddaddy.

Definitely my granddad.

(insects chirring)

Your childhood was a
little unsettled, wasn't it?

Yes.

My mother decided to get
a divorce before I was born.

Pat's mother Mary divorced
nine days before Pat was born.

And then married
Stanley Highsmith.

I don't know if it was Mary that
decided to move to New York,

if her next husband
decided that for them,

but Pat's mother
moved to New York

and left Pat with, who I
will refer to as "Grandma. "

(children chattering)

My memories are very pleasant,

of the first six years
of my life.

My grandmother had,

what we call a backyard
and a big lawn.

Texas is definitely southern.

So, I have a sense
of being a Southerner

rather than a Northerner.

(insects chirring)

(mellow music)

My character was essentially
made before I was 6.

(applause)

(mellow music)

And 6 is exactly the age

when Patricia's mother
takes her to New York.

She starts living with a
stepfather she didn't know,

and a mother, whom she only
knew as a visitor to Texas.

(mellow music)

(gulls cawing)

According to my mother,

she took turpentine to
induce abortion and failed.

According to my mother
(still another story of hers),

my father suggested that
she have an abortion.

I have asked her
which story is true.

But my mother does not like
direct, simple questions

and has not answered to date.

I realize that both
stories could be true,

if the turpentine bit
comes first.

(crowd chatter)

(mellow music)

I would bet anything,

that Mary was appalled
at having a child.

The first person you look to,

to love you unconditionally
is your mother.

And I don't know that
Mary had that to give.

She dedicated
two books to her mother.

She had a mother love.

And. .

It was never returned.

Her mother was a bitch.

(gulls cawing)

Highsmith holds on to the
unattainable love of her mother

and states in her notebook:

I am married to my mother,
I shall never wed another.

(gulls cawing)

(solemn music)

(children chattering, playing)

I entered New York
public school,

I had just come from Texas
and I was six years old.

When my mother came

to fetch me from school
the first day,

I was walking hand in hand
with a little black boy.

(solemn music)

My grandmother was shocked

when she heard of black
children in my school,

and she asked my parents
to put me in some other school.

I had not been to school before.

Not in the South.

So, I knew nothing
of segregation.

(solemn music)

(chatter)

(siren wailing)

(indistinct radio chatter)

Today I saw two little girls,

sitting
on the threshold of a door.

The older was touching
the other in some way,

so when they saw me pass,

they pulled their dresses
over their knees.

I knew that something
had occurred,

that they would remember
possibly all their lives.

I know all this,

because the same thing
has happened to me.

(hum of motor)

(waves crashing)

When did you realize that
you fall in love with women?

In boarding school.

But I think I always knew.

I was always interested
in women.

(gulls cawing)

When I was 14,
my mother said to me:

"Why don't you straighten
up and fly right?

Are you a les?

You are beginning to
make noises like one. "

At 16, when rather notably,

I was uninterested in young men,

my mother found
a boyfriend for me

and he and I used to
go dining and dancing.

It was not pleasant for me
to have to kiss him goodnight.

"It's like falling into
a bucket of oysters"

I think she wished she wasn't
that way because of her mother.

She really had a thing
about her.

But. .

it was not returned,

except in the snidest,
meanest way possible.

"Well, if you like me so much,

why don't you dress
like a woman?

What are you
wearing pants for?"

You know, that kind of thing.

Pat's mother wants her
to marry a friend

she met while writing
Strangers on a Train.

I attempted this sexual
intercourse many times.

I was going to the
analyst at this time.

I kept trying my very best

to get into a condition
to be married.

To be plain:

Sexual intercourse for me,
is like steel wool in the face.

She went to a doctor

and tried to change her ways.

She tried.

She did try.

But I don't know
anybody who didn't.

Including me.
We all tried.

But. .

No luck.

(dark music)

(solemn music)

(indistinct announcement)

It is a cloud of
guilt-feelings in my mother

that causes almost
all these difficulties.

If my mother could lift
them from her shoulders,

then she and I would
have no problems.

(solemn music)

(applause)

(indistinct announcement)

Do you feel like I do,
that people who write

have a wound somewhere,
a blessure?

Most of the human race
has a blessure.

There's always some
trauma in childhood.

But not everybody
chooses to be a writer.

(whistle blowing)

(indistinct conversation)

(bright music)

Highsmith never tells her
mother she wrote 'Carol'

Before the novel
sees the light of day,

she escapes on her
first trip to Europe.

She travels extensively between
the continents all her life.

(bright music)

I am determined to
make a good thing

of every catastrophe of my life.

(bright music)

(indistinct singing)

(donkey braying)

(bright music)

There will come a day
When I shall voyage

All around the earth,

When I shall know
The names and faces

Of men and women and children

I shall know the turns
In many roads,

And I shall have friends
beyond number

And I shall still be lonely
As I am now

And I shall still desire then

To know more faces
and names and cities

I am the forever-seeking.

(water lapping)

(speaking in French)

My love of ships
never grows old.

Highsmith writes whole
diaries in French,

German and Spanish.

She lists the destinations
she travels to

on the front page
of her notebooks.

(pencil scratching)

People, Places, Things

are her recurring categories.

Under "Keime", the German
word for "germs",

she notes the seeds of ideas

that infect her
with a new story.

(wind blowing)

I am very happy working
on my new book.

I have never felt so sure.

The sentences of this book go
down on the paper like nails.

It is a wonderful feeling.

(mellow music)

Highsmith lives a double
identity from the beginning.

In her notebooks,

she calls her thoughts
about h*m*:

"Notes on an ever-present
subject"

(mellow music)

h*m* prefer
one another's company

because they have all been
through the same hell,

and those who meet
have survived.

(mellow music)

(crowd chatter)

(mellow music)

(mellow music)

(mellow music)

(mellow music)

A sexual love can
become a religion,

and serve as well.

(mellow music)

If my experience
should be shut off,

sexually, emotionally,

I feel l should have enough.

I have stretched
an hour into eternity.

(hum of airplane overhead)

Millie Alford, who started
American Airlines.

Yeah, the flight attendant
school?

Was it Aunt Millie who started
the flight attendant school?

Did you know that Pat
had an affair with her?

Shut up!

What did she say?

Pat had an affair with Millie.

- Shut up.
- Wait a minute!

This just in.

How did that come out?

I am trying to think of
how they're related.

I think it was just
a short thing.

I think all of her affairs
were pretty short.

They were related.

Yeah, but. .

Pretty distant, isn't it?

Let me get this
put in my mind here.

I'm going to be thinking
on that for a little while.

If you find out anything,
in any of this,

that says anything
about any of us.

- Burn it!
- You burn it.

(cheering, applause)

(bright music)

(indistinct announcement)

(applause)

Was Pat a typical Texan woman?

- No.
- No.

Not in any shape or form.

My grandmother slept in
a push-up bra and a wig.

The entire time that she. .

and my granddad were married.

And granddaddy liked it
that way.

Granddaddy just thought,
she looked like a million bucks.

You know, for the Coates men,

they've been and done a lot,
morally or not,

but a woman was supposed
to act like a woman.

A lady was supposed
to act like a lady.

And you didn't veer off of that.

(bright music)

(chatter)

(hooves clopping)

Tabea has bowled me over,

knocked me mentally
on the floor!

To laugh and have
a beer with her,

that seems all I want
in life just now.

(rustling)

(jaunty piano music)

Generalizing, women are not
important characters

in your books.

It's hard for me to. .

see women as a whole,

standing on their own feet.

I still see them as, sort of

in relationship to a man,
which is very curious,

because my mother had her
own career since the age of 20.

So, I had, in my childhood

the image of a rather strong,
independent woman.

And yet, I don't see them
that way.

(chatter)

Why do you think Pat
always wrote books

with male protagonists?

Because they sell best.

Women like to read about men

and men like to read about men.

(bird cawing)

Signore Ripley?

That's me.

Of course, welcome back.

Thank you.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

There isn't any constant
personality for the writer.

I like him.

Marge.

The face with which he meets
his old friends or strangers.

He is always part
of his characters.

No, I like him.

Marge.

Ripley.

Well, he's different.

I depicted him as a person

who doesn't feel guilt
in the usual way.

It's as if he's quite. .

It just doesn't bother him,

as it should.

Or as it does in most people.

May I be the only one to say I

really fell in love the day I

first set eyes on you?

May I?

What are you doing?

I was just amusing myself.

Sorry.

I wish you'd get
out of my clothes.

(dramatic music)

Ripley's sex life
is very ambiguous.

He's rather shy

and a little bit
h*m*, I would say.

(dramatic music)

(speaking in Italian)

What I wonder is:

You don't admire Ripley, do you?

No, I certainly don't.

But I think, well,
I hope Ripley is amusing.

Even in America,
Ripley is rather popular.

But of course, he is a k*ller.

Yes, but lately,
he kills only when. .

when he thinks it's right.

They say, most murders
take place within the family.

I admit, his first m*rder
was a very cruel one.

(dramatic music)

The funny thing is,
I'm not pretending

to be somebody else and you are.

Boring.

I've been absolutely
honest with you

about my feelings.

Who are you?

Some third class mooch?

Who are you to tell me anything?

- You give me the creeps.
- You shut up!

You can't move without
your Dickie, Dickie.

Like a little girl!

Shut up!

(grunting)

Stop! Stop!

(panting)

I don't think that
m*rder is my theme.

If anybody wants to ask me,
I would say guilt.

The absence or the
presence of guilt.

Or you could also say, the
overwhelming desire to confess,

to put your foot
in your own trap.

"Oh, my god, what have I done?"

This can be a pain in the neck.

Whereas Ripley, he's very gay
about what he's done.

He doesn't give a damn

and gets away with it.

Very cool.

So far, but what are you
going to do with him?

He'll always get away with it.

Oh, he will?

(hum of traffic)

(mellow music)

I wanted to be out of New York.

I didn't think she would
take to that, but she did.

She had a big black cat.

And I had four cats.

(mellow music)

So, the seven of us were
driving out to Pennsylvania.

The cats were in boxes.

Crying away.

(imitates yowling cat)

My girl, my woman,
my wife in the country.

b*ating my eggs
and arranging my bed,

Arranging my hair
just as she likes it.

Wood fires and twigs,
Apples and figs,

No telephone, no guests,
only our ego-system

of work, love making,
and who will cook today?

(mellow music)

She was easy to love,
let's put it that way.

Even though it was a. .

a sin. .

to have a female lover.

It was a good sin.

(insects chirring)

Two women living together,

everybody would understand that
they'd combine their salaries,

because women didn't make much.

Nobody ever thought that
they were doing it for sex.

(birdsong,
hammering in distance)

Some kids used to come
over to the house and talk.

They were neighbors' kids.

They came to our back door

and we were making Sunday dinner

and we were kissing.

Boy, did they run.

They ran home so fast

and they never came back.

In a small town

that carries a lot of
weight for gossip.

There's a lot of people
that say:

"What you say? Say it again!

You saw them kissing?"

(insects chirring)

Pat collected these diaries.

And there was one missing
and she thought I had it.

She was tipsy enough to tell me
she had read my diaries,

causing me to stop keeping one,

until now, I suppose.

I might have.

I might have, because, you know,

I'm not above that.

But there was not
an opportunity much.

She was also like a cat.

She walked and
you didn't hear it.

The breach of trust

prompts Highsmith to write
her more private thoughts

in her notebooks
from this moment on.

All her life, she is worried

that somebody could
read her diaries.

She places warnings and
curses on their first pages.

(pencil scratching)

The first thing in the morning,
Pat was working.

She always had orange juice
in the morning.

And one morning,
I found it on the table.

I lifted it up
to take it in to her

and she said: "Ah!
What have you got there?"

And I said: "Your drink. "

And she said: "Taste it. "

And it was loaded with gin.

So, all these mornings

that she was down there

working and doing things,

she was filling up on gin.

I didn't think somebody
that wrote so well,

could put themselves in
such a vulnerable position.

(insects chirring)

(soft music)

After a most pleasant
and successful dinner,

MJ ran up the stairs saying:

"You're drunk. I don't want
another fight, Pat. "

We slept in separate rooms.

(soft music)

These days swim all
one into the other.

She's afraid of my drinking,

I'm terrified of her temper.

I said: "This is impossible,
we can't live together. "

At the end, we had
the usual breakup. .

And then she moved out.

(soft music)

Did she have high
expectations for love?

I think we all do.

When we fall in love,
we have high expectations.

That's what it's about.

(clacking of typewriter keys)

We must think of ourselves

as a fertile land
on which to draw.

And if we do not,

we grow rotten,
like an unmilked cow.

And if we leave
something unexploited

it dies within us wasted.

(soft music)

If you write,

it is a form of
analyzing experience.

But one's personal experience
is rather limited.

Even if you have a couple
of divorces or something.

It's limited!

But if you use your imagination,

it's really unlimited!

(soft music)

Highsmith tries to write
another "girls' book,"

as she calls her lesbian novels,

in which she weaves
her personal love biography

from her diaries.

(pencil scratching)

The object of this book

is to depict the mature woman,
who cannot keep herself

from practicing h*m*.

It is the story
of her own greenness,

her selfishness, her idealism,

her maturity -

(distant crowd noise)

Highsmith doesn't finish
the manuscript

and will never publish any
other "girls' book" again.

(solemn music)

After a visit to Texas,

she is afraid of being exposed
as the author of "Carol. "

Her mother has told the family
preacher about the secret book.

She writes a letter
to her stepfather:

I never presented that
book to my mother.

She found it, because I lent
you and her my flat.

Would it not occur to any idiot

that if a person writes a book
under another name,

that person wishes to keep the
fact secret from the public?

But oh, no.

Not my mother.

(insects chirring)

I often wonder, what my mother
thinks is so wrong with me.

I have not been in prison,

I do not take dr*gs,

I have no broken marriages,

no illegitimate children,

I earn a good living.

I am even in Who's Who,

the international,
published in London.

(rustling)

Come on, everybody.

I don't remember ever
hearing her mother say:

"Have you talked to Pat?

Have you heard from Pat?

Do you know when
Pat's coming home?"

Those two people, in my life,

were never even seen
in the same room together.

So, putting them together
as a mother and daughter

and "Why isn't she
caring for this one?"

That would never
have crossed my mind.

(insects chirping)

Highsmith hires a lawyer.

She cuts all legal
ties to her mother

and gets herself disinherited.

I would like to separate
myself from my mother,

my mother from me,
legally speaking,

from any obligation whatever.

It would certainly be
a great relief to me,

and I hope to her.

(cacophony of nocturnal animals)

(bells ringing)

It took me years to find

one of the most important
women in Highsmith's life.

By the time I found out
who she was,

the woman had just passed away.

I will keep her secret
and call her 'Caroline. '

(solemn music)

The color comes
and goes in her cheeks.

Her brown eyes
look at me directly.

And brown is absolutely the
last color I would think of

in attempting to describe her.

Cream, pink, even white. .

And what is the color of warmth?

(solemn music)

(mellow music)

Her married lover
manages to steal away

to meet secretly in Paris
for a few days.

A necklace of verses
I will make you.

One by one,

Strung on a brief time,

A thread of time to remember,

to remember these few days,

to keep these few days, forever.

(mellow music)

Paris struck us like a light,

And dazzled, we groped along
the stones of Notre Dame,

Seeing with our fingertips.

(mellow music)

Beauty, perfection, completion. .

All achieved and seen.

Death is the next territory,

one step to the left.

(mellow music)

Can I kiss you in some doorway?

(mellow music)

(roar of passing traffic)

Back home -

I am absolutely sick for her,

and I must summon up every bit
of courage and determination

that I possess,

in order to carry on alone.

(mellow music)

C's letters are. .

as if she were making love
to me when she wrote them.

I am drunk and drugged on them

and on writing her.

There is no use in
making any further effort

to live without her.

I cannot.

And in all my 41 years,

I have never said or written
this about anyone else before.

(mellow music)

This means England.

This is the first time
Highsmith moves

to another country for a woman.

She buys a cottage in
an English village

close to her lover.

(mellow music)

No sleep.

Quite wonderful to
come to London.

C in her dressing gown
to open the door!

(pencil scratching)

(mellow music)

As I wrote this evening
in my 26th notebook,

of which the last city
and country I'm in

is Caroline.

All I could wish,

leisure, Caroline,
cats, the sea.

I am divinely happy with her.

As if I lived in a dream world,
and yet it is real.

(mellow music)

(footsteps)

(door closes)

Harge, what's wrong?

Nothing.

Does there need to be a problem
for me to visit my wife?

Two letters from C.

Her difficulties with
leading a "double life"

on the grounds that she
was physically sick:

I know she wants
to tell her husband.

How do you know my wife?

Harge, please.

Paris should be kept quiet

no matter what.

I worry about her strong
sense of convention.

I do not know if C can
suddenly or even slowly

take the complete alteration
a life with me must bring.

We could be endlessly discreet,

but without a husband,

could she be happy
and face the world?

The affair
with the married woman.

One may think for a while,
that one is satisfied

with the small amount
of time together.

But one is not satisfied

with taking second
place emotionally.

I miss C so terribly,

I want her in my days,
my bed, my life.

C would prolong forever

her sadistic relationship
with me.

It is not a relationship. .

It has no flow, no joy.

But she would not
break it off, ever.

But I did.

The very worst time
of my entire life.

(solemn dramatic music)

In Paris,

when I began to take
pleasure in existence,

for existence's sake,

it was the beginning
of the end for me.

(dramatic music)

Getting ready to sell
the house in England.

It is a negative thing,

perhaps like an abortion.

(hum of engine)

(mellow music)

I may not be capable of love.

I want something romantic,

perhaps not definite.

I repeat the pattern of
mother's semi-rejection of me.

(mellow music)

The taste of death is
sometimes in my mouth,

these solitary evenings.

Will I in five years,
two years, one,

Smash my teeth again

And curse what I
hesitate to call my fate,

my pattern?

(mellow music)

Mornings are frantic
like all morning,

Exhausted by afternoon,
I have completed my chores,

And am faced with myself
and my not-self again.

Then I work.

I work like a worm in the earth,

I work like a termite
fashioning a tunnel, a bridge.

I work for a future
I can no longer see.

(keys clacking)

(clicking)

Decision of today,

not to ever (share a house)
with anyone again.

(clacking of typewriter keys)

(cat yowling)

(clacking of typewriter keys)

(birds chirping)

(dog barking)

(rustling, creaking)

(mewing)

Every poet knows that
the best images come

when the mind does not
think too intently,

when it is occupied
with doing something else,

something mechanical.

Inspiration and ideas come
from the subconscious

but the subconscious
must be given free reign.

(birds chirping)

(birds chirping)

(birds chirping)

That's very important for you

to work, living alone.

Oh, yes.

And why?

Because of the silence

and because of
not having to talk.

The profound indignity
of being interviewed.

Funny the way
it eats you slowly.

I feel like a patient on a table

with some kind of a disease.

The doctor says:
"Take off all your clothes. "

It becomes very disturbing.

Ok, I ask this stupid question:

Are you happy?

Yes.

Mainly.

Yes.

Why not?

(pencil scratching)

Writing, of course,
is a substitute

for the life I cannot live,

am unable to live.

(whine of airplane engine)

(chatter)

By now, so many of
Highsmith's books

have been made into films

that she is invited
to chair the jury

of the Berlin Film Festival.

(applause)

(rush of water)

I fell in love
not with flesh and blood,

But with a picture:

the sailor cap,

The crazy moustache,

the little bird perched on the
girl-sailor's right shoulder,

And the puzzled and
somewhat serious eyes.

If I would touch you,
maybe you would shatter

Or dissolve, like a dream

one tries too hard to remember.

(wind blowing)

(clattering)

(mellow music)

All of Highsmith's
experiences with Tabea

flow into her 4th Ripley novel

"The Boy Who Followed Ripley. "

Like Tabea and Pat,

Ripley and the teenage
boy in the book

visit "Peacock Island. "

(mellow music)

If I were only a good poet,

Able to distill all this

into a clear
and beautiful little sphere,

Like a gem one could
see through, polished,

Something to keep,
small in my pocket,

Something to look at
That wouldn't hurt.

(mellow music)

(birds chirping)

(peacock calling)

(hum of passing traffic)

(soft music)

Only a dream

Only a dream

Oh, glory beyond the dark stream

How peaceful the slumber,
how happy the waking

For death is only a dream

Oh, Mother, the dark,
the light came at last

It filled me with peaceful gleam

It's true, they say,
it's cloud overcast

For death is only a dream

(soft music)

(music fades)

(buzz of airplane overhead)

No memory of pleasure and pain

amidst years of a love
that was great,

but which ended sadly.

(cat yowling)

For the first time in her life,

Highsmith is unable to write.

After having started
the new Ripley novel,

inspired by Tabea,

she falters after 50 pages.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(groans)

(dramatic music)

It's December 6th.

1976.

There's nothing to fear

but fear itself.

(dramatic music)

I know less and less about. .

who I am

or who anybody else is.

"The difference between
dream and reality:

that's the real hell. "

Would you agree?

Yes, I certainly would

and I wrote that
sentence years ago,

before I ever thought of
writing this book.

Because I. .

I feel it myself.

It's a disappointment
in what one wishes.

But in a way it's normal,
I think.

I mean, it doesn't necessarily
mean that one becomes insane.

Because I think,
almost everybody

has hopes about either their
work or about their marriage

or something that doesn't
quite come true.

(water trickling)

(birds chirping)

(water pouring)

(birds chirping)

(birds chirping)

(water lapping)

(solemn music)

I imagine tomorrow
your letter will say:

"Well Pat, nice to have known
you for a little bit of time,

but we had better stop
seeing each other. "

But you must not feel
that I shall feel sad,

because of this.

It is not your fault,

and you must not think about it.

(solemn music)

(engine starts)

(engine rumbles)

(solemn music)

(solemn music)

(roar of car engine)

Life in Switzerland.

It seems to me that people
could be much influenced

by the lack of sunlight.

However, I happen
to like calmness,

because I am nervous inside.

(solemn music)

I would feel that I got
myself into a trap

and an unhappy one,

in those moments I
remember Montcourt

and its sunlight

which I shall never forget.

(bells ringing in the distance)

Only weeks after Highsmith
sells her house in France,

she wants to buy it back,

but she doesn't succeed.

So, she stays

and builds herself a new house.

(crow cawing)

It must be strange
to enter a house

and begin living there
and fix it up,

knowing it is the last home
you will ever live in.

I carry old memories around
like a heavy suitcase.

I wish I'd never met
this one and that,

But I have,

and I don't forget.

(pencil scratching)

Spent two hours of reading
old diaries of mine.

My life is a chronicle of
unbelievable mistakes.

Things I should have done
and vice versa.

By now, Highsmith
makes fewer and fewer

entries in her diaries.

And they start to contain
rants and prejudice

against Jews, Arabs and Blacks.

As if she were returning
to the racism

of her beloved
grandmother in Texas.

I live my life backwards

My envy turned to hatred
And the hatred to contempt.

Now you, who knew
a freedom I never did,

wonder at my bitterness,

Resentment, you say,
I am full of.

Yet resentment was my
second emotion,

One I knew well before
I knew its name.

(dramatic music)

I know less and less about. .

who I am

or who anybody else is.

(dramatic music)

(wind rustling leaves)

Writing is the only way
to feel respectable,

Highsmith once said.

Already seriously ill
with leukemia,

she is making plans
for another Ripley novel.

(leaves rustling)

The months had been
somewhat angst-filled.

The mental fear needs
a thousand words to describe.

It is as though
death is right there,

suddenly,

and yet one feels no pain,

one is talking in a calm voice
to friends and doctors.

The last chapter of her
famous love story

has remained open.

Nearly 40 years after
its first appearance,

Highsmith decides to
reveal her authorship

and republish Carol
under her own name.

A book like Carol,

why it's so interesting now

to people who know
your work very well,

is not simply that
it was a gay novel.

It was also a very
affirmative gay novel.

It had a happy end.

Yes.

The characters for once
didn't commit su1c1de

or fall into the gutter
or whatever they. .

cut their wrists,
was a great one.

They at least

were going to try to make
something of their lives.

It doesn't say they
will in the end.

But at least they try.

Now, in retrospect, that's
particularly unusual for you.

You're not a writer known
for your happy endings.

It looks for a long time

as if the ending
is not gonna be happy.

And then, quite suddenly

it turns and the two women
come back together again.

Was that at all
a conscious choice

to make the happy ending?

I think so, because. .

Yes, it was a conscious. .

I wanted that, definitely.

(leaves rustling)

Highsmith works until
the very end

on a new gay novel.

This time, openly.

She dies only weeks
before it appears.

It ends with her last
published words:

"The funny thing was, Rickie,
in a quiet way, felt happy. "

(leaves rustling)

(soft music)

At dawn, after my
death hours before,

The sunlight will spread
at seven o'clock as usual

On these trees which I know.

Greenness will burst,
dark green shadows yield

To the cruel-benign,
indifferent sun.

Unweeping for me
on the morning of my death.

The trees will rest
in breezeless dawn,

Blind and uncaring,

The trees that I knew,

That I tended.

(whistling)

(mellow music)

(bright music)

(bright music continues)

(bright music continues)

(music fades, ends)