When Fiction Becomes Reality:
Authorial Voice in The D oor in the F loor ,
Secret Window , and Sw im m ing P o o l
The intimate connection between authors and their works has always
captivated readers. Where is the line between an artist and his or her creation?
Are there times when the line is invisible, when the real and the imaginative
become one? This paper deals with the role of the imagination in storytelling,
with the distinctions between genius and madness in the creative process, and
with meta-fiction, or the way in which literary and visual texts about language
and images comment upon themselves.
With varying degrees of success, three recent films—two of which are
drawn from literature—address the complexities of the authorial process and
form the basis for several conclusions about storytelling as a stay against chaos.
While creating characters and plots, novelists and screenwriters are also authors
of their own experiences and are often extraordinarily conscious of how the
narratives they create mimic the narratives they live. This study addresses the
self-consciousness of three fictional authors as they weave experience into art.
The Door in the Floor (2004), Secret Window (2004), and Swimming
Pool (2003) feature protagonists who have lost their way and who hope fiction
will save them. Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges,) considers himself “an entertainer of
children,” although his book The Door in the Floor is an exploration of the
horrors that lie beneath us as we move unsuspectingly through life. Reviewer
Arthur Lazere writes:
The title of the film is also the title of one of Ted’s books and
it’s a variation on one of the classic, central themes of
children’s literature—the frightening unknowns hiding
somewhere nearby, whether under a door in the floor or in
[Stephen] Sondheim's Woods or down Alice's rabbit hole.
Children, the innocents, must venture out into life with all its
risky experiences, including hurts and losses and
disappointments and the mysteries of sexuality, too.
In The Secret Window, an accomplished writer, Morton Rainey (Johnny Depp),
is accused of having plagiarized one of his stories, “Sowing Season": 2