Movie studios wait until the end of the year to release their best stuff, so they can capitalize on the many awards being handed out around now. That’s why this coming weekend we’ll see the unveiling of four of the best films of the year: The Kite Runner, based on the bestselling novel by Khaled Hosseini about the bond between two children in Afghanistan; The Savages, about two siblings-played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney-who are dealing with their father’s dementia; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, an elegiac film about a man’s struggle with his stroke-caused paralysis; and Juno, a hysterical, moving comedy about teenage pregnancy. In the past few weeks, I’ve sat individually with The Kite Runner‘s screenwriter David Benioff, The Savages writer/director Tamara Jenkins, The Diving Bell‘s director Julian Schnabel, and Juno’s director Jason Reitman to discuss their respective films.
David Benioff, screenwriter of The Kite Runner
How involved were you with Khaled, the writer of the novel? He was a wonderful resource. Obviously, I didn’t grow up in Afghanistan and did not grow up knowing the culture at all, so I had many questions while writing the screenplay, and he was always available. Very often in the relationship between the author of the novel and the screenwriter, there can be friction. It can be tense. Khaled was never anything less than a gentleman. This book was his baby, and he gave me the baby for a couple years to take care of. The best comment I received throughout the course of this whole movie [was when] : somebody asked, “Is this line from the book or is this from the screenplay?” And [Khaled] said, “Honestly, I don’t remember which lines are mine and which are David’s.” As an adapter of such a beloved novel, I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.