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Memo:
Marlon James interview: 'I didn’t want to fall into a pornography of violence'

“I didn’t want to fall into a pornography of violence but I think violence should be violent,” says James. “I find the violence in PG13 movies unbearable. This kid will never run home, never have another birthday. His death is slow, nightmarish. And you have to explore the consequences – the people who live on with this death.”


He mentions Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying as another major influence on the novel, but ascribes his determination to find complexity in all his characters, even the most vicious murderers, to his admiration for Greek tragedy. “I think the Greeks were the only people ever to nail character. Their heroes are deeply flawed. They murder, they rape, they kill children.”


In the past, James has discussed the theory of how white depictions of black experience are often presented so that even the worst horrors visited upon black people are viewed as learning experiences for white characters. I ask him how he saw 12 Years a Slave – whether it felt to him like a film directed by a black director (Steve McQueen) or the product of a white film industry. “It did feel like the film of a black director,” he says, pointing to its depiction of “casual cruelty – when somebody breaks a glass in someone’s face just because they can. Even liberal artists draw the line at casual cruelty… institutionalised brutality, yes; sadism, not so much. It means you have to accept a level of cruelty that your ancestors were capable of that you may not want to.”