Thank you very much for your swift reply.
The relation between the name Cammell and Scammell is truly serendipitous,
but I am indeed looking for information regarding Donald Cammell. I have
not actually seen the letter Cammell is said to have received from VN,
but at least one person who knew Cammell claims to have heard him (Cammell)
refer to the letter ("Donald was very proud of that letter,"
said his friend Drew Hammond.) Donald's brother, David Cammell, also avers
that Donald wrote a screenplay of Pale Fire. I thought I'd check it out
before claiming the letter was spurious.
My dating for his writing of the screenplay
(ca. 1965 or 1966) are conjectural, but I believe the screenplay has to
have been written sometime between 1963-1967. I do know that Cammell admired
Despair, especially the theme of the relation between crime and art and
the idea of murder as a work of art, themes which recur throughout Cammell's
own work. Cammell lived in Paris from mid-1961 to the end of 1967, and
if memory serves VN lived in Switzerland after April 1964; I assumed the
correspondence must have occurred during this period. Again, it's an educated
guess. I will write the Berg Collection at NY Public Library and see if
that turns up anything.
If I find out anything (or not) I will
let you know.
Again, thank you very much.
all the best,
Sam
Samuel J. Umland
Department of English
University of Nebraska at Kearney
Kearney, NE 68849
308.865.8299
RE: QUERY: Nabokov's Pale Fire &
film director Donald Cammell
Dear Sam and List,
I don't have any record of this either from the Pale Fire MSS (and when
I
catalogued the MSS for Vera Nabokov, I always put translations and
adaptations with the original) or from the correspondence. Having been
fascinated for many many years by the problems a Pale Fire film would face
and the solutions it might inspire, I'm sure I would have noted a remark
like this from VN (he wasn't profligate of praise) and remembered it; and
ditto with at least aspects of a screenplay.
However, it could be possible that the Berg Collection of the New York
Public Library (brgref@nypl.org) has catalogued correspondence between
VN
and Cammell. Since the Ns meticulously kept carbon copies of outgoing
correspondence, and the Berg has everything from this period, it would
be
there if anywhere.
Are you sure there isn't a confusion with Michael Scammell, whose
translation (with Dmitri Nabokov) of Nabokov's The Gift was published in
1963 and (solus) of The Defense in 1964?
Best wishes,
Brian Boyd
-----Original Message-----
From: Donald B. Johnson [mailto:chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu]
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 8:48 AM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: QUERY: Nabokov's Pale Fire & film director Donald Cammell
Dear Sam,
Thank you for writing, and thank you for your very nice comments. I don't
see a mention of Cammell in either the _Selected Letters_ or in the Brian
Boyd biography, but I am forwarding your letter to the Nabokv-L forum,
where
they really, really know their stuff.
(Roeg did _Walkabout_, right? That's a wonderful movie. I think I sometimes
get him confused with Weir.)
Best,
Juan
- - http://www.fulmerford.com
>>> Sam Umland <umlands@unk.edu> 01/23/05 1:56 PM >>>
Dear Mr. Martinez:
I came across your excellent Nabokov appreciation site and thought you
might
be able to answer a question for me (or know someone who might).
I'm
completing a biography of the late British film director Donald Cammell
(most famous for the film he co-directed with Nic Roeg, Performance, in
1970). Apparently Cammell wrote an (unproduced) screenplay based on
Nabokov's PALE FIRE. Once source indicates after Nabokov read the screenplay
he wrote Cammell a letter praising the screenplay. My guess is the
screenplay was written about 1965 or 1966--do you know of anyone who
might the existence of such a letter? Any information you could provide
would be greatly appreciated (and acknowledged). Feel free to forward this
letter to anyone who might have knowledge of such a letter.
Thank you for your time!
best,
Sam
Samuel J. Umland
Department of English
University of Nebraska at Kearney
Kearney, NE 68849
308.865.8299