Gus Van Sant & David Foster Wallace Talk - Dazed and Confused May '98
(talking about Good Will Hunting, specifically Will’s photographic memory)
GVS: And he had learned and he had become very advanced but that his memory was maybe separate — the memory was like the trick part. So he remembered certain things that he had read in different books his retention was so phenomenal but it was almost like a trick so when he is defeating the guy in the Harvard bar by quoting from text books this sort of capitalist versus socialist…
DFW: Which trust me is every bonehead kid’s fantasy of being able to do that. (Gus laughs) Fuckwad with a pony tail in a Harvard bar, I’ve met that guy. The girl I went and saw the movie with first thought that the guy was like to icky and villainous to be realistic and I hastened to disagree with her. It was the first script they had written?
GVS: Yeah, it was.
DFW: That’s kind of amazing.
GVS: And they were really young, I mean, at the time they were like 22 and 24.
DFW: Really? …bastards.
GVW: I know, it’s crazy.
(also via @Blythest)
