Is my film as good as the book? I don't think so 
Former Esquire editor Robert Benton made a memorable entry into movies when he won an Oscar for co-writing Bonnie And Clyde. He later won directing and screenwriting Oscars for Kramer Vs. Kramer, and yet another screenwriting Oscar for Places In The Heart. Now he's directing an adaptation of Philip Roth's acclaimed novel The Human Stain, with Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman.
Are you a fan of Philip Roth's writing?
I have admired all of his books, loved some, and among those I love are some that I wouldn't know how to film. But when I read The Human Stain, I knew it could be made into a film. There were things in it that were, I thought, immensely theatrical. Like the two men dancing, the scene on the ice, Faunia's dialogue with the crow - you could make these things into what I considered a really fine film.
Adaptations of The Shipping News and Bonfire Of The Vanities were disappointing. Have failures such as these made people in Hollywood wary of adapting major American novels?
Yes. I think there was a conference in England about ten years ago which said you can't turn a great book into a great movie. The only argument I have against that is a film by John Huston of The Dead. It is, I believe, as good as Joyce's short story. But is my film as good as the book? I don't think so. The book is close to a perfect piece of writing. But you can do something that doesn't imitate the book; you respect the book and tell the part of the book you want to tell. I could never reproduce, in any successful way, the depth and complexity and richness of Philip Roth's novel.
You don't make many films. What did you want out of The Human Stain?
What I was looking for is a film about that thing deep within the America character at this point, which is the feeling Americans have that we are entitled to go into the world and achieve our individual promise. That we have it as our right to achieve our own individual destiny, as opposed to our responsibility to our community. In America, people rarely stay in the town where they grew up, rarely stay in close proximity to their parents throughout their lives. You rarely find parents in their old age being taken care of by their children.
Why did you cast Nicole Kidman as the blue-collar Faunia Farley?
I've worked with her before [on Billy Bathgate], I love her, she can do anything. I thought she was a great choice. I'd seen her do a film called Birthday Girl, and I thought it was one of the bravura performances I've ever seen in my life. I knew she would understand Faunia's eroticism.
