Meeting a Master of Mystery: An Interview with Paul Halter

There are many people I would like to thank for making this post possible. First and foremost, it is thanks to John Pugmire that I was able to get in touch with M. Paul Halter, and without him, this interview would have been impossible. Words cannot express my gratitude. I would also like to thank M. Paul Halter, who bravely tolerated a barrage of questions from my direction and graciously answered them all. I conducted this interview via e-mail in French— French-speaking readers may want to read the original version of this interview, which I posted here — and Xavier Lechard kindly helped me to translate some of the more tricky passages, also taking the time to read the entire thing after I finished. Thank you very much for your continued support, Xavier. Finally, my thanks go out to Barry Ergang, who took a look at my translation and gave detailed suggestions for improvements.

Reliving Childhood

I have always had a soft spot for Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin. I more or less grew up with the comic books; they were one of the many things that helped me to learn French. Tintin’s adventures are like those of Indiana Jones— there’s often an element of mystery, but there’s plenty of action that could have come right out of a 1930s serial movie. When I learned one of my all-time favourite directors, Steven Spielberg, would be adapting Tintin, I was ecstatic— Spielberg, who directed such classic as Raiders of the Lost Ark, seemed the perfect choice. Unfortunately, I saw the project delayed time and time again—this studio dropped out, this actor left the project, this strike interferes with the script-writing process… The film seemed cursed…

This summer, while I was at the airport in Paris, I went to the bookstore and to my delight found several French mysteries. Then, as I was about to walk off, I noticed another book— this one was about Tintin, specifically the historical events and figures that inspired the various stories. I purchased the book and enthusiastically read it on the flight (as I am unable to sleep on a plane the second it leaves the ground). Thanks to that book I learned just how the idea for a Tintin film struggled even before Steven Spielberg committed himself to the project in the early 80s. Spielberg was a godsend for this series, for he vowed to stay true to Hergé’s vision.

Now the final product has arrived. It was opening night here in our local theatre on the 21^st, and I absolutely had to go see a childhood icon of mine on the big screen. I even paid some more money to see it in 3D, a technology I’m often disdainful of, for the simple reason that the 2D version was not being shown just yet. Has Spielberg kept true to his word? Is this the fun, adventurous Tintin I remember from my childhood or does it resonate hollowly now that I’ve gotten older?