Michael Cunningham

I'm your host, Hannah Wilensky, here to guide you through a trip to the past via the silver screen.

Back in May, when I covered movies that made me think of my mother, I did one episode on the 2002 film, The Hours, which adapted a 1998 novel written by Michael Cunningham as a tribute to the 1925 novel, Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf.

This movie came about right around the middle of a trend in movie making that started, I would say, in the mid-'90s and lasted through the 2010s, during which quite a lot of literary works were adapted to the screen.

Some of them, like Baz Luhrmann's highly stylized 1996 film, Romeo + Juliet, and the 1999 teen movie, 10 Things I Hate About You, modernized an old story, reinterpreting Shakespeare in contemporary settings and with all the cultural trappings of the current era.

Stephen Daldry's film, The Hours, is a poignant exploration of the lives of three women across different eras, each connected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

The film, based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, weaves together the stories of Virginia Woolf, played by Nicole Kidman; Laura Brown, portrayed by Julianne Moore; and Clarissa Vaughan, played by Meryl Streep, creating a tapestry of emotions that resonate deeply with the audience.

Set in 1923, 1951, and 2001, the film delves into the inner lives of these women, each grappling with their own struggles and desires.

Virginia Woolf, living in Richmond with her husband Leonard, is in the throes of writing Mrs. Dalloway while battling her mental health issues.

I forget who's in there.

I think it's Michael and somebody else.

And he literally goes, "I'm looking for Mark.

Have you seen him?"

Oh my God, first of all, first of all, it is the greatest movie ever made.

Great film.

It's like somebody went in my brain, Michael Cunningham went in my brain and took out everything-

Yeah

She trained several generations of

Stanford students in the craft of fiction, including Scott Turow, Tobias Wolfe, Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Akhil Sharma.

She was unsparing, but generous with her students.

They're all human beings, they all have a capacity to grow, and they all have feelings, and never forget those facts, she told the oral historian.

She was like, why isn't anyone having you read the bell jar? I read the hours.

I remember meeting Michael Cunningham at an event when I first moved to New York and going up to him and... telling him like I was like derelict in my duties as a lifeguard because I would be trying to like sneak pages of the hours he was like oh my he was like had a martini in his hand he was such a distinguished fellow he was like I hope no one drowned on your watch like I mean they could have but they didn't so I'll have to go with my mom on that one

Well, who was the first of those characters that you might have wanted to trade places with, whether it was as an adult or if it was a book you read as a child? Who was the first fictional character that you wanted to trade places with?

Probably not Sylvia Plath,