He was also an accomplished musician, and spent the last 52 years of his life in Tangiers, Morocco, which informed all of his fiction. Paul Bowles was a fascinating figure: he was the connecting tissue between the Modernists of the ’20s, Existentialism and the Beat Generation, although he wasn’t a part of any of those movements, and especially hated being lumped in with the Beats. The Sheltering Sky was not as successful artistically as those films, although there is plenty to admire. Thomas would gain a track record for adaptations, most notably his collaborations with David Cronenberg on Naked Lunch and Crash, and more recently with Ben Wheatley on High-Rise. They decided to next adapt what was considered one of the most unfilmable novels, Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky. It was one of the few great films to win that award in the ‘80s, otherwise a low point in the Academy’s history. When this film was made, Bernardo Bertolucci and Jeremy Thomas were riding high after their shock clean sweep of nine Oscar wins for nine nominations with The Last Emperor.
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