William Faulkner and Alejandro González Iñárritu:
The Fragmentation of the Time and Space in a Story
Shinsuke Ohchi

William Faulkner has had a significant influence upon filmmakers. The first instance wasprobably the script for Orson Welles’s immortal film Citizen Kane (1941), which was written by
Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz. It was based on the life of press baron William Randolph Hearst
and on Faulkner’s novel Absalom, Absalom! (1936) (Kawin 145-46). The very prominent filmmaker
Jean-Luc Godard should also be mentioned, as his films have continuously paid homage to Faulkner.
The earliest films in which Godard refers to Faulkner are À bout de souffle (1960) and Pierrot lefou (1965), which are said to be Godard’s two finest films. À bout de souffle references Faulkner’sbook The Wild Palms repeatedly. “Between grief and nothing I will take grief” is a line in the novelthat is read by the heroine, and forms the ironic basis of the film. Moreover, either a Faulkner work
is mentioned or a passage is quoted in many of Godard’s works, such as 2 ou 3 choses que je sais
d’elle (1967), Week-end (1967), Nouvelle Vague (1990), Hélas pour moi (1993), JLG/JLG:
autoportrait de décembre (1995), and Histoire(s) du cinéma (1998).1
Although Godard had been paying homage to Faulkner for many years, except for Bruce
Kawin’s 1977 study, which briefly touches upon the relationship between Faulkner’s novels andGodard’s films (151-52), no research was done on it for a long time. However, in 2007, Catherine
Gunther Kodat drew a detailed comparison between Faulkner’s If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem andGodard’s À bout de souffle.
Since a detailed paper on the relationship between the works of Faulkner and Godard has alreadybeen written, it seems a little insipid to examine that relationship; therefore, in this paper I would
like to discuss Faulkner’s influence on two filmmakers who are now in their prime, Quentin
Tarantino and Alejandro González Iñárritu. In my paper published in the fifth issue of The William
Faulkner Journal of Japan, I commented on the relationship between Faulkner and Tarantino. To
briefly describe what I wrote, I suggest that Faulkner’s technique of dramatically fragmenting thetime and space in a story, namely, the technique of “disassembling the base” of a story, is linked to
his theme of “the disassembly of the base” in the society of the Old South―or the disassembly of thepatriarchy, that is to say, the disappearance of paternal authority or fatherhood―which was
dramatically caused by the South’s defeat in the Civil War. On this premise, I point out that
Tarantino, in his films, applies Faulkner’s technique of fragmenting the time and space in a story and1the novelist’s theme of the absence of fatherhood. Iñárritu, who professes to be influenced by
Faulkner, basically borrows his technique in the same way as does Tarantino. Before explaining therelationship between Faulkner and Iñárritu, I would like to sketch Iñárritu’s career.
Iñárritu was born in 1963 in Mexico City, Mexico. In 1999, he directed, produced, and wrote thescript for Amores perros. Although the credits of some of his films do not show him as the
scriptwriter, he is engaged in the scriptwriting of all his films (LoBrutto 4; Takaya 7). Amores perros,
whose title means “miserable love like a dog” (Noya 5; Kihira 50), became a big hit not only in
Mexico but also all over the world (Hayward 464) and won the Critics Week Grand Prize at theCannes International Film Festival, the Audience Award at the American Film Institute’s
International Film Festival, the British Academy Film Award for Best Film not in the English
Language, and 11 sections of Ariel Awards, also known as the Mexican Academy Awards (Smith
13).
In 2001, Iñárritu directed and wrote the script for the short film “Powder Keg,” for which hereceived the Cyber Lion Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. In 2002,
he directed, produced, and wrote the script for the short film “Darkness,” which was featured in theomnibus film 11’09”01―September 11 made by 11 film directors from countries all over the world.
The film which Iñárritu, “who had become a filmmaker much sought after by Hollywood” (Hatano10), chose the United States as the setting for is 21 Grams (2003), which he also directed, produced,
and wrote the script for. Starring two Academy Award actors, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro, thisfilm made it into the international spotlight and won awards in three categories at the Venice
International Film Festival.
Iñárritu directed, produced, and wrote the script for Babel in 2006, which features superstar Brad
Pitt and Academy Award actress Cate Blanchett, and resulted in his winning numerous awards
including the Best Director Award at the Cannes International Film Festival, the Academy Award forBest Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, and the Golden Globe Award for Best
Motion Picture (Augustyn). In 2007, the Cannes International Film Festival requested that Iñárritu
participate in the production of the omnibus film Chacun son cinéma ou Ce petit coup au coeurquand la lumière s’éteint et que le film commence, for which he directed and wrote the script for the
short film “Anna.”
As discussed above, Iñárritu is one of the most active filmmakers in the world today. Since thethemes of his short films were not decided by him and their running times are extremely limited, I
shall examine only his long films, namely, Amores perros, 21 Grams, and Babel, the three of which
he calls “the trilogy.” In regard to the suggestion that his films resemble Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction(1994) in structure, Iñárritu commented, “I like the way he [Tarantino] plays with structure―but I
don’t know why he gets the credit. It’s really William Faulkner; it’s a literary structure that has
existed for a long time” (Romney 12). Furthermore, Guillermo Arriaga, who collaborated with2

Iñárritu on writing the scripts for these films, remarked, “I was surprised when people said that
Amores perros was like Pulp Fiction. I admire that movie, but I based my script on William
Faulkner” (Hirschberg 34). It follows from what Iñárritu and his co-writer say that in addition totheir films the structure of Tarantino’s are also derived from Faulkner’s novels, and that their work istherefore based on the work of Faulkner not Tarantino. Since nobody, including Faulkner scholars,has researched the relationship between Faulkner and Iñárritu, I would like to examine Iñárritu’s
works by comparing them to those of Tarantino, who also follows Faulkner’s technique and theme.
Like Tarantino, Iñárritu, who distinctly declares his films to be based on Faulkner’s works, uses
the novelist’s technique of fragmenting the time and space in a story and his theme of the absence offatherhood. The “technique of fragmenting the time in a story” divides a ‘story’―which follows thepassage of time―into segments and arranges them out of chronological order. And the “technique offragmenting the space in a story” either depicts ‘one story by using multiple narrators’ or depicts‘one story by using multiple narratives in which the protagonists differ from each other’; and films
generally make the latter depiction. Amores perros, the first of Iñárritu’s trilogy, consists of “three
narratives whose protagonists differ from each other,” but are nevertheless interconnected: thenarrative in which Octavio, a poor young man in Mexico City, tries to get out of the slums with his
brother Ramiro’s wife, Susana; the narrative in which the supermodel Valeria suffers a severe injury
when Octavio’s car crashes into hers, and her relationship with her lover Daniel thereby deteriorates;
and the narrative in which the professional killer, el Chivo, who has something to do with Octavio’s
car accident, quits his profession after his ex-wife’s death. Because each of these three narratives isdivided into segments that are “arranged out of chronological order,” we can say that Amores perros
fragments the time and space in a story.2

Moreover, when asked at what point his film Babel turned

into “a story less about globalization and more about three families,” Iñárritu replied, “The only
reason why this trilogy can be considered as such, besides its having been shaped for films that havethe structure of overlapping stories, is that in the very end, they are stories of parents and children”(Hagerman 257); the director goes onto explain that the central theme of the “stories of parents andchildren” is “loss” (Hagerman 256). Indeed, the trilogy’s main theme is specifically the “loss” orabsence of fatherhood. In regard to the absence of fatherhood in Amores perros, both Octavio’s
family and Susana’s parental family, which suffer from poverty in the slums, are fatherless; Susana’shusband, Ramiro, does not welcome her pregnancy at all, and while committing a robbery, gets shotand dies leaving his two babies behind; el Chivo has deserted his wife and daughter because of his
antigovernment activities; and Valeria’s lover, Daniel, deserts his two daughters for his life with her.
Incidentally, a scene that was deleted in the public release but was included in the film’s DVD
depicts Valeria as also starved for her father’s love. As we have seen, the aspect of fatherhood isthoroughly absent in Amores perros.
The second film in the trilogy, 21 Grams, consists of “three narratives whose protagonists differ
3

from each other,” but are nevertheless interconnected: the narrative where Jack Jordan, who is an
ex-convict in Memphis and has now turned to Christianity for help, accidentally kills―while driving
his car―a man and his daughters as they are crossing the road, and is tormented by guilt; thenarrative where Christina Peck loses her husband and daughters in Jack’s car accident and tries toavenge their deaths; and the narrative where the university teacher, Paul Rivers, who undergoes aheart transplant and discovers that his new heart was that of Christina’s husband, seeks her revenge.
Like Amores perros, because each of these three narratives is divided into segments that are“arranged out of chronological order,” 21 Grams also fragments the time and space in a story. With
regard to “the theme of loss of parents or children” in 21 Grams, although Christina loses her
children, the loss or absence of fatherhood is also emphasized, as it is in Amores perros. Paul does
not want his wife to bear a child. When Jack, who repeatedly gets sent to jail, is arrested for having a
car accident, his wife says that their children may have to spend another five years without him(Arriaga 75). Although Jack returns to his family in the end, he is tormented by guilt over killing
people and deserts his wife and children, rejecting his wife’s plea to help the family because theirdaughter is sick.
Babel, the last film in the trilogy, consists of “four narratives whose protagonists differ from eachother,” and nevertheless have a few connections: the narrative in which Chieko Wataya, a deaf highschool student in Tokyo, suffers from loneliness; the narrative in which the destiny of Abdullah’sfamily in Morocco is completely changed by his getting the gun that Chieko’s father, Yasujiro, gifted
his guide on his hunting trip in Morocco; the narrative in which Richard Jones, an American traveler
in Morocco, tries to somehow save the life of his wife, Susan, whom Abdullah’s younger son
accidentally shot; and the narrative in which the Mexican nanny, Amelia, whom Richard asks to lookafter his children, gets involved in an incident at the United States–Mexico border and is forcibly
deported to Mexico. Each of these four narratives is divided into segments that are “arranged out ofchronological order.” Similar to the other films of the trilogy, Babel fragments the time and space ina story. In regard to “the theme of loss of parents or children” in Babel, although Richard and Susan
have lost one of their sons and Abdullah loses both of his sons, just like in the other films of thetrilogy the loss or absence of fatherhood is the main theme of this film, suggested by the following
narratives: Yasujiro’s daughter, Chieko, who does not get along well with her father since his wife
committed suicide with his hunting gun, laments, “Father does not really listen to me”; Abdullah’ssons get arrested or shot and killed by the police because of the gun he gives his sons and because of
his running away from the police, both of which highlight the father’s incompetence, namely, theabsence of fatherhood; Richard’s children hover between life and death in the desert near the borderdue to his wife’s accident during the trip he planned for her to Morocco, and because of which
Amelia was forced to look after them, suggesting that Richard is also an incompetent father; andAmelia stays and works illegally in the United States because her family is fatherless and poor, and4this situation eventually leads to tragedy.
We have seen that like Tarantino, Iñárritu follows Faulkner’s technique of fragmenting the timeand space in a story and the novelist’s theme of the absence of fatherhood; however, there are also
two substantial differences between Iñárritu and Tarantino. The first difference is that in Tarantino’s
work, the absence of fatherhood is not only seen as tragic but also as comical. For example, Butch
Coolidge, one of the protagonists of Tarantino’s masterpiece Pulp Fiction, lost his father during his
infancy and since then has cherished his father’s watch as a keepsake, and in that respect the absenceof fatherhood is tragically depicted; on the other hand, Butch’s father is taken prisoner during theVietnam War after inheriting that watch―which his own father, who was killed in World War II,
used to wear as a good-luck charm―and dies of dysentery as a result of concealing the supposed
good-luck charm in his anus for five years. His fellow soldier then conceals it in his anus for anothertwo years before handing it to Butch. In this way, Tarantino depicts the absence of fatherhood as not
only tragic but also as comic. Because Iñárritu’s works depict the absence of fatherhood solely
through tragedy, they are closer to Faulkner’s than Tarantino’s are.3
The second substantial difference between the work of Iñárritu and Tarantino is that unlike
Tarantino, Iñárritu, a Mexican, depicts the predicaments of Latin Americans. In Amores perros, herefers to the chaotic social conditions and the problems of poverty in Mexico (Hayward 465). In 21
Grams, he depicts a Latin American man who suffers from disadvantages such as poverty in
American society. Jack in 21 Grams―played by Benicio Del Toro, an actor from Puerto Rico―has
black hair, speaks English with a Spanish accent, and is a Catholic (Clifford; Putman); therefore, heis a typical Hispanic. Incidentally, it is very interesting that Iñárritu, who was invited to the UnitedStates to shoot, chose Memphis, a city in the American South, as the setting for 21 Grams, because it
also appears in Faulkner’s work. Iñárritu states, “Memphis is a unique city completely different fromother American cities. It has something in common with Latin America. . . . It has a nostalgic andsorrowful atmosphere” (Takaya 24); his words reminding us that such Latin American writers as
Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, who, like Iñárritu, professed to be influenced by
Faulkner, pointed out the similarity between Latin America and Faulkner’s American South (Guibert
327; Vargas Llosa 75-76). Iñárritu’s words also remind us of those of Carlos Fuentes, who, likeIñárritu, is a Mexican that professes to be influenced by Faulkner: “Only Faulkner . . . offers animage that is common to both the United States and Latin America: . . . the image of tragedy”(Fuentes 23).
Regarding Iñárritu’s depiction of Latin Americans’ predicaments in Babel, the filmmaker derived
the title from an Old Testament tale in which God punished humans―who tried to build the Towerof Babel―by dividing their language. As the title suggests, one of the main themes of Babel is thedifficulty of communication or the barrier between races: the narrative of Amelia, a Mexican livingin the United States, depicts the problem of racial discrimination against Mexicans. As to her
5crossing the border from Mexico to the United States, Iñárritu remarks, “I think that it exactly
represents the dramatic situation of Mexico. People look for jobs desperately and devote themselves
to live, and so tragedies occur at the border” (Sato 56). He explains the situation as follows, “Thereis a prejudice against Mexico in American society” (Kihira 47-48), stressing that the problem of
discrimination against Mexicans is at the heart of the tragedy of Amelia, who gets involved in an
incident at the border and is forcibly deported to Mexico (Mitchell 42-43). Unlike Tarantino, Iñárritu
depicts the predicaments of Latin Americans, and, especially in Babel, refers to the problem of racial
discrimination against Mexicans. This difference between the filmmakers as well as the difference intheir approach to the theme of the absence of fatherhood are the substantial areas of divergence
between Iñárritu and Tarantino.
Finally, I would like to show what these differences mean when we examine these filmmakers,
who both follow Faulkner’s technique and theme. If I were asked what Faulkner’s masterpiece is,needless to say, various opinions would be given, but the most likely candidates would be The Soundand the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Go Down, Moses. Among them, except forthe cinematization of a chapter of Go Down, Moses, “The Bear,” only The Sound and the Fury wasadapted to film. The film version of this novel, an extremely poor piece, is very different from theoriginal, which might be excused due to the impossibility of faithfully cinematizing The Sound andthe Fury, which fragments the time and space in a story whose content is extremely complex. In thecase of novels, while appreciating the complexity of a work, the reader can frequently check thechronology of events or the relation among characters; in the case of films, the viewer cannot.
Checking is possible if the work is viewed on DVD, but since film is basically an art that is premisedon being shown in movie theaters, the audience generally cannot check the chronology of events or
the relation among characters, and therefore cannot fully comprehend an extremely complex film. It
can be said that Tarantino realized such a situation and made films in which only the technique wascomplex. Tarantino applied Faulkner’s complex technique of fragmenting the time and space in astory in film, but made the story’s content simple enough that an audience could understand the film.
Tarantino took the material for his masterpiece Pulp Fiction from simple, hackneyed stories of pulp
fictions and fragmented the time and space in the story. His audience was shocked and puzzled by
the complex technique of fragmenting the time and space in a story but could understand the film
because the story itself was familiar and simple. Eventually, in the 1990s, Tarantino’s films took theworld by storm and were constantly imitated (Andrew 313). From viewing them, audiences becamefamiliar with the technique of fragmenting the time and space in a story. The appearance of afilmmaker who, while fragmenting the time and space in a story, would also make the story’s content
a little more complex and heavy seemed inevitable: such a filmmaker is Iñárritu. Tarantino takes thematerial for his work from simple stories, and as stated before, adds comical elements to Faulkner’s
tragic theme of the absence of fatherhood: the contents of Tarantino’s stories end up being lighter
6than those of Faulkner’s. On the other hand, Iñárritu, like Faulkner, tragically depicts the absence offatherhood in his work, and deals with the predicaments of Latin Americans or the problem of racial
discrimination: it can be said that the stories of Iñárritu’s works are heavier and more complex thanthose of Tarantino’s. As observed above, Tarantino introduced the technique and theme of Faulkner’s
novels into film by making the story’s content light and simple, and after audiences got familiar withthe technique of fragmenting the time and space in a story, Iñárritu, while using this technique, also
made the story’s content heavy and complex.
As we have seen, Faulkner’s technique and theme are important keys to analyzing the recent
trend in films. In other words, the fact that Iñárritu and Tarantino, two of the most active filmmakers
in the world right now, follow his technique and theme is a piece of evidence that Faulkner, who diedalmost a half century ago, still holds importance today.

Notes
1.

Godard also often refers to Faulkner in his essays and interviews. Incidentally, Godard

repeatedly attempted to make a film out of the narrative, “The Wild Palms,” that is in Faulkner’s If I
Forget Thee, Jerusalem, which Godard “praises” (718). In 1962, Godard planned to request that
Faulkner appear in his film, but because of Faulkner’s death this plan did not become a reality(Brody 141-42).
2.

D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) entwines multiple narratives, but it does not use thetechnique of fragmenting the time and space in a story. This film consists of four narratives about“intolerance,” namely, the fall of ancient Babylonia, the sufferings of Christ, the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew, and the predicament of a young couple today; however, these four narratives, whosetime settings are far apart, have no connection to each other. In short, Intolerance is essentiallydifferent from a work of Faulkner, Tarantino, or Iñárritu, in which characters appear acrossnarratives: Intolerance, which is a kind of omnibus film, has nothing to do with “the technique of
depicting one story by multiple narratives whose protagonists differ from each other,” or thetechnique of fragmenting the space in a story. Moreover, although Intolerance, which divides thefour narratives and shows them alternately, may seem to fragment the time in a story, the truth is thateach of the narratives is arranged in exact chronological order, and therefore the film cannot be said
to fragment the time in a story.
3.

If I may add a few words about the similarity of Faulkner’s and Iñárritu’s tragic depiction of theabsence of fatherhood, each of their actual fathers was very undependable. Faulkner’s father
repeatedly failed in business (Blotner 40, 73-74), and Iñárritu’s father was similar. Iñárritu remarksthat his childhood became very difficult when his father became bankrupt (Hirschberg 34).
7

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