American writer and screenwriter Richard Matheson: biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

US science fiction writers have always amassed a huge audience of fans who have been waiting for the release of each book with great impatience. This genre always remains popular and loved by many readers. With the development of technology, fantastic works began to be filmed, which led to their even greater success. Richard Matheson also became popular for his key book and the film based on it.

Meet the writer

Before we learn about the work of the American writer, let's get acquainted with his biography. Richard Burton Matheson was born in 1926 in the USA. His parents were Norwegian immigrants who ended up in Allendale and decided to start a new life. The Brooklyn district of New York has become a home for the future science fiction writer. Here, at only eight years old, the boy came up with his first story, which was later published in the local press.

Training

Before the war, Matheson studied at the Technical School, and then began to serve in the infantry. The Second World War made an impression on the young guy, which he later outlined in his novel The Beardless Warriors. This work became autobiographical and the main first work before a booming career.

BeforeAfter the book was published, Richard Matheson went to the journalism department of one of the US universities. In Missouri in the late 40s, he received a bachelor's degree.

Family

After a couple of years, the writer moves to California and gets married. Over time, he had four children. Three of them decided to follow in their father's footsteps. The boys became writers and screenwriters.

Creativity

Richard's career began to flourish right after graduation. Thanks to his love for fairy tales and fantasy stories, the writer knew what genre he would work in. Already in 1950, he began to publish his short stories in magazines. The first was a frightening fantasy work - "Born of a man and a woman." This story about a mutant boy scared and captivated the readership. Later, this was the name of the collection of short stories.

In California, Matheson continued to write his dark stories that chilled the heart and soul. Each of them was something quite unusual and new in literature. They aroused interest along with horror, and new books were awaited with great impatience. So, in 1951, the following were written: “White Silk Dress”, “Massacre House”, “Witch's War”, “Wet Straw”, etc.

After a couple of years, the author paid attention to detective stories as a genre of his works. The novels "Somebody's Bleeding" and "Sunday Fury" were written immediately.

Style

Of course, the science fiction author has his own style, which is mainly aimed at giving the reader goosebumps, fear and awe. RichardMatheson used various techniques characteristic of him in his works. For example, he had a number of stories with an original ending, there were also stories that resemble more a psychological thriller. Many of his stories were devoted to satire, stereotypes and genre clichés.

Film career

Activity as a screenwriter began already by 1960. His first place of work was the American company American International Pictures. They were doing horror projects, so Matheson was the best addition to them. For a long time, the science fiction writer worked on adapting the works of Edgar Allan Poe to film scripts. Thanks to him, films were created: "The Raven", "The Fall of the House of Usher" and others.

While working on the novels of the American writer, Richard tried to add something of his own to their adaptation to make the film more vivid and memorable. The screenwriter tried to add a touch of comedy, which subsequently made an excellent comedy out of The Crow.

After Matheson decided to turn to the work of Fritz Leiber and Jules Verne. He is attracted to their work, and the scripts are great. He does not leave the author's activity, continuing to create stories, collecting them in collections. So, 86 stories were included in the "Collection …" of 1989.

Richard Matheson has worked with more than one great journalist in his career. Of course, he managed to create a film with Steven Spielberg. Duel came out in 1971. The history of this film was somewhat autobiographical. Matheson, based on a situation from his life,wrote about a paranoid driver chasing a car and having a real duel.

Fantast also worked on the novel "The Night Stalker" (Jeff Rice), and also did not forget about the film adaptation of his works. So, the film "The Legend of the Hellish House" was released. The publication of the scripts of the series "The Twilight Zone" became interesting. He regularly wrote episodes that became popular and exciting.

Recent works

Richard worked very hard and hard. Thanks to him, a huge number of books and films in the genre of fantasy and horror came out. In the early 90s, Matheson published a series of Western books. And at the end of the century, his book "What Dreams May Come" is filmed, and it becomes one of the best films of the 20th century. This was followed by the film "The Echo of an Echo", also based on Matheson's book.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Richard Matheson, whose books were awaited by his fans and simply science fiction lovers, did not leave the work of the writer. He released opus after opus. His last work was the novel Generation, published in 2012.

The author died at the age of 87 in the USA, in Los Angeles.

Legendary novel

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson has come a long way from publication to film adaptation. The novel was published back in 1954 and forever formed the image of sinister zombies, vampires and other monsters in the minds of mankind. The main idea of the novel is the popularization of the very apocalypse that will surely come to Earth.

The cause of the disaster was a pandemic. That is, vampirism is represented here asdisease. According to legend, Matheson came up with the idea after watching Dracula. Then he asked himself, if one vampire is terrible, then how terrible will the world inhabited by these creatures be? In an interview in 2004, Richard confidently said that, in his opinion, I Am Legend is the best novel he has ever written.

The plot of the book is quite simple. The hero of the novel was the only non-infected person on Earth. Most likely, the reason for this was the recent bite of Robert by an infected bat. Now, after he had been ill, immunity to the vampirism virus had formed in his blood. The hero hides in his armored house at night, and goes out in the morning and afternoon to remove the corpses of uninvited guests from his home and repair the shelter.

After experiencing depression, Robert decides to study this disease and is taken to research. One day, he meets Ruth, who is supposedly not infected. Conducts analysis, but still discovers that there is a virus in her blood. She runs away from him, but later warns of danger. She tells that there is a certain society of people like her, who have not completely become vampires and are trying to restore the social order.

The end of the book is presented by the suicide of Robert, who swallows poison, realizing that he is not accepted by the new society because of his normality. The 2007 film is somewhat different. It is adapted to current technologies, and the main character has a friend - a dog. The ending has also been changed.

Famous stories

"Man of Steel" also gained fame thanks toscreen adaptations. But first it was published in 1956. The story of the battle between a man and robots also did not leave director Sean Levy indifferent at one time. In 2011, a film was released with a different name - "Real Steel". It is worth noting here that the similarity of the film and the story is small. We can say that the director was only inspired by the story of Matheson. This is most likely due to the fact that almost 60 years have passed since the writing of the story "Man of Steel" until the release of the film.

An interesting story was written in 1970 by Richard Matheson. "Button-Button" is a provocative story that will make anyone think. What to do if a box with a button gets into your house? Maybe it's a publicity stunt? Will you press the button when you find out that you will receive 50 thousand dollars, but in the process a stranger will die?

It's worth noting that "Button-button" was filmed twice. First it was the Twilight Zone series in 1986, later, 23 years later, the film The Box. In Russian, the name of Matheson's story sounds a little different - "Press the button, press."

Richard Matheson received the World Fantasy Award, the Bram Award and the Edgar Poe Award. 3 years before his death, he was given a place in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Ray Bradbury was his fan, and Stephen King claimed that it was Richard's work that influenced his development as a writer.