Director and screenwriter Scott Frank said that he was ready to start working on the film adaptation of the novel by Russian and American writer Vladimir Nabokov "Camera Obscura".

The filmmaker spoke about this in an interview given to the hosts of The Watch podcast Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald. 

The director admitted that the adaptation of The Camera Obscura was his long-standing dream: “The last project in line, which I am terribly impatient to do and thanks to which I will be able to return to filming in Berlin, is the adaptation of another novel.

This is "Laughter in the Dark" (English version of the novel "Camera Obscura" -

RT

) by Nabokov.

We will shoot it with Ani.

The book is just great.

Masterpiece!"

- he noted.

Anya Taylor-Joy will play the main role in the new film.

In 2020, the actress appeared on the big screen in the superhero horror film New Mutants and the film Emma, ​​a new adaptation of Jane Austen's novel.

In the fall, Netflix launched the Queen's Run starring Taylor-Joy.

It became Netflix's most watched limited-edition art series in terms of views in its first 28 days of release.

Scott Frank noted that he would like to work again with other actors and crew members who were involved in the work on "Queen's Move".

The director has already decided on the genre and the main idea of ​​the future tape.

“It will be a kind of declaration of love for cinema.

I plan to shoot it in noir style ... It will turn out to be a truly incomparable, gripping thriller, "- this is how Scott Frank sees the new project.

The filmmaker warned that he plans to place accents in a different way than in the novel: if in the original it was primarily about the visual arts and paintings, then Frank is going to make a film within the film.

Also among the upcoming projects of the showrunner is a film based on Mary Russell's science fiction novel "Little Bird", which will be directed by the director of the "Chernobyl" series, Johan Renck.

In the story, Catholics finance a trip to the planet in the Alpha Centauri system.

In addition, Scott Frank will develop a mini-series about a private detective named Sam Spade.

The hero will be older than in the books of the 1930s and will change his place of residence.

Frank hopes Clive Owen will star in the lead role.

  • Scott Frank

  • © Presley Ann / Getty Images / AFP

"Camera Obscura" is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov.

The first chapters of the book were published in newspapers since 1931, and in 1933 the novel was first published in a book version.

In Camera Obscura, Nabokov begins to explore the theme of an adult man's attraction to young girls, which would later form the basis of his more popular work, Lolita.

The main character of "Camera Obscura" is art critic Bruno Kretschmar, a family man: he lives with his beloved wife, whom he has never cheated on, and brings up a daughter.

One day the hero meets the 16-year-old usher Magda, the mistress of the artist Robert Horn.

Soon, a romantic relationship is struck between Magda and Kretschmar, which the latter's wife learns about.

As a result of this relationship, the man loses his family.

However, the relationship with Magda does not bring him happiness: the girl still loves Horn and tries to take possession of Krechmar's fortune.

Ultimately, the hero, consumed by the gratification of physical desires, destroys his entire life.

The novel was warmly received by critics.

They noted his laconicism and accuracy of images.

For some, however, the book is superficial.

Nabokov himself considered "Camera Obscura" a weak work, and called his own characters "hopeless cliches."

However, most experts agreed that this novel is unusually cinematic.

Literary critic Nikolai Melnikov wrote that with the help of the "Camera Obscura" Nabokov tried to attract a mass audience, including foreign ones.

In the late 1960s, the book was filmed by Oscar-winning director Tony Richardson.

Nichol Williamson and Anna Karina played the main roles in the film entitled Laughter in the Dark.

  • © Still from the film "Laughter in the Dark" (1969)

Interestingly, Nabokov himself did not like the film.

The main complaints from the writer were caused by bed scenes.

“Over the past centuries, acting has acquired an incredibly sophisticated ability to portray, say, how a person eats, or gets deliciously drunk, or looks for glasses, or proposes.

The situation is quite different with the depiction of sexual intercourse, which has no tradition at all.

Both the Swedes and we must start from scratch, and everything that I have seen on the screen so far: a pimply male shoulder, fake groans of bliss, four or five intertwined legs - all this is primitive, banal, conventional and therefore disgusting " said Nabokov in an interview.

At the same time, the writer praised Williamson's performance and praised the staging of other scenes.