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A Loving Gentleman
Romance
This is the love story of renowned writer William Faulkner and his muse and "Hollywood wife," Meta Carpenter, which continued for eleven years during Hollywood's heyday in the 1930's and 1940's. Faulkner, already famous and critically ...See moreThis is the love story of renowned writer William Faulkner and his muse and "Hollywood wife," Meta Carpenter, which continued for eleven years during Hollywood's heyday in the 1930's and 1940's. Faulkner, already famous and critically praised as a novelist but unable to meet financial obligations, reluctantly accepts a writing assignment in Hollywood for film director Howard Hawks. He leaves behind in Oxford, Mississippi his modest plantation home, Rowen Oak, his alcoholic wife, Estelle, a young daughter, Jill, and two stepchildren. In Hollywood he meets and is immediately attracted to Hawks's young and charming script girl, Meta Carpenter. When he discovers she had also grown up in the Southern Delta like himself, he becomes further captivated. Meta is reticent about Bill being a married man and Bill feels guilty about betraying his family commitments, but their attraction is so strong that they fall into a passionate love affair. Wife Estelle soon joins Bill in Hollywood, and she picks up clues that her husband is being unfaithful but doesn't know who the other woman might be. Bill and Meta continue to meet secretly even while Estelle is in Hollywood. He even brings his daughter, Jill, with him when he and Meta go on swimming dates or on picnics. Meta feels awkward and remorseful, but her love for Bill grows ever stronger, and she throws caution to the wind. Meta discovers she's pregnant with Bill's baby. Without informing Bill she is pregnant, Meta has an abortion. Bill, later learning of this, goes on a drinking binge that ends with him having to enter a dry-out sanitarium. Meta realizes that Bill is not taking steps to get a divorce, primarily due to Estelle's threats to banish him from ever seeing his daughter again and ruining him financially and socially in Mississippi. Meta resolves to break off their affair and succumbs to a marriage proposal from Wolfgang Rebner, a respected and talented Jewish pianist. She travels with him to his homeland in Germany. But the fear of the rise of Hitler and personally witnessing the upsurge in persecution of Jews make them flee back to America. Meta's marriage becomes rocky partly because of Rebner's behavior due to his insecurity and disillusionment in finding work in the studios, and also because Meta realizes that her love for Bill is still powerful. They agree to a separation. Meta continues to work steadily at the studios but finds it insulting for women doing a job such as hers in the industry being called script "girls." She organizes and wins a hard fought battle against the studio system that results in the position to be now referred to as "Script Supervisor." Bill, feeling miserable at being deprived of time to write his novels and being forced to write what he considers second-rate screenplays just to keep sending money back to Mississippi, begins to put a strain on his relationship with Meta. He knows that staying in Hollywood will destroy him as a serious novelist, and he must make the difficult choice between staying in Hollywood with Meta or returning to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. William Faulkner returns to Rowan Oak to write some of his finest novels and eventually winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. Meta Carpenter continues working in Hollywood as script supervisor. Bill and Meta continued to correspond and remained friends until his death in 1962. Written by Thom Thomas See less
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Director
Nadia Tass
Producer
Nadia Tass
Cinematographer
David Parker
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