William Faulkner, recipient of the 1949 Nobel Prize in literature, is considered one of the 20th century’s greatest novelists. Influenced by his Mississippi upbringing, nearly all of his stories and novels flesh out the same fictional Yoknapatawpha County and its various Southern inhabitants. It’s perhaps less well known that Faulkner contributed to nearly 50 screenplays for major Hollywood studios, including the noir classic “The Big Sleep” (1946). This quote comes from a 1956 interview with “The Paris Review,” in which he was asked whether he’d ever want to make another movie. “Yes, I would like to make one of George Orwell’s ‘1984,’” Faulkner responded, adding, “I have an idea for an ending that would prove the thesis I’m always hammering at: that man is indestructible because of his simple will to freedom.”
