Up in the Air

"Up in the Air," nominated for this year's Academy Award for Best Picture, is based on a book written by Walter Kirn '83. Street sat down with him to talk about career transition counseling, "air world" culture, his experience in Hollywood and whether or not you'll be seeing him at Reunions this year.

Q: Aisle or window?

A: Jason Reitman, the film's director/co-writer, has espoused the theory that people with dominant personalities choose aisles so that they can come and go at will. But I'm a novelist, so I choose window, always. To me, the spectacle of the international landscape from 40,000 feet never fails to produce awe and curiosity and intrigue. I feel that when I'm sitting in the window of planes, I can put together a quilt-like map of America, and I would not ever deny myself that perspective on society, geography and America itself. I guess that makes me subversive in the plane culture. The only downside is that you have to ask the guy next to you to move if you wanna pee.

Q: So the film was directed by Jason Reitman. How did the project come about?

A: I wrote the first script of the book for 20th Century Fox in August 2001, just after the book came out. But after Sept. 11, airports and airplanes became things that people did not want to see in a movie. They let me write the script, but they knew and I knew that it wasn't going to get made anytime soon. So Fox dropped their option. My experience in Hollywood has taught me that projects and developments are a lot like engagements when no one sets the wedding date. They can go on forever and never come to any conclusion. So I didn't expect very much. About a year and a half ago, I got Jason's script and liked it immediately. And I found out George Clooney had agreed to play Ryan Bingham from a Variety article that was forwarded to my Blackberry. But I don't think that I really believed that until I was on set, watching it being filmed. But still, George Clooney could be struck by lighting - so it wasn't until Jason Reitman's private screening that I fully believed the film existed. That was a very emotional moment because I had no idea what the tone would be, what the look would be, what the effect would be and I was moved in a way that I didn't expect to be. I thought that it had a bold and unusual tragic ending for a polished Hollywood ending. To me, it was a Hollywood movie with an indie heart and first-rate actors. I couldn't have been more pleased with the final product.

Q: Do you have any interest to write a screenplay that's not based on one of your novels?

A: I'm writing a screenplay of my last book about Princeton, "Lost in the Meritocracy." But I don't know that novelists are the best ones to write screenplays of their own books - a little distance is a good thing when it comes to adapting the written word for a visual medium. I have some ambitions, maybe more, as a conceiver of a television story, an hour drama series, although I'm excited to write another book more than I am to write a screenplay.

Q: As a Hollywood outsider, and a writer first and foremost, how have you found the big-budget moviemaking industry?

A: I became a writer to get my name on the cover. I know that sounds vain, but it's true. People who toil in the world of TV and film make a lot of money, but they never get named. But now, a lot of movies, more than ever, are adaptations from literary works. It's actually strange that Hollywood relies hugely on the ultimate solo artists - novelists, journalists, memoirists - for their movies. So without these crazy people who work alone, those big sets, full of hundreds of technicians and big-budget actors, might not be doing what they do.

Q: Your most recent book, "Lost in the Meritocracy," talks about your time at Princeton. Do think you'll find yourself breaking out the orange and black for Reunions anytime soon?

A: Princeton taught me to think critically. I didn't realize that the one thing that I wasn't supposed to think critically about was Princeton. I think the Ivy League is one of the last institutions in America that isn't dissected critically. We upbraid the churches for their hypocrisy, we analyze the nuclear family endlessly, we've exploded the myth of suburban happiness, we've peered into the sometimes-corrupt workings of government - but the Ivy League has this golden dome of protection around it. Why would Princeton not want to know one person's true account? Why should the universities be immune from the pursuit of truth that universities try to instill in us? So while I do have criticisms and observations to make about Princeton - because that's the place I went - I have no animus towards it. Walter Kirn is no Princeton-hater, nor is he wearing a Tiger sweatshirt right now.

Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Guy Wood ‘13.