The University of Virginia has made available online quite a few bits of audio (with transcripts) from 1957 and 1958 when William Faulkner was UVA's very first Writer-in-Residence. It's a thrill to hear his voice. The whole Faulkner at Virginia collection is searchable by keyword.
Unidentified participant: Is the present movie a compilation of various episodes in different novels? For in—I'm thinking of the horse particularly. Did that come from the "Spotted Horses," that's so much like it?
William Faulkner: I don't know, ma'am, because I'm not a moving picture-goer. I haven't seen [the movie]. [audience laughter] I really don't know. My experience with moving pictures is that they have almost any reason for buying the book except to make it. [audience laughter] I remember M-G-M bought a book of mine called The Unvanquished. They were stories of the Civil War. I found out later that a producer named Selznick had bought Gone With the Wind, and he wanted to use Clark Gable in the picture, but Clark Gable belonged to M-G-M, and M-G-M wouldn't let Mr. Selznick have Clark Gable unless Mr. Selznick let M-G-M make the picture, which Mr. Selznick wouldn't do, so M-G-M hunted around for another book to buy of the Civil War to tell Mr. Selznick they were going to make a Gone With the Wind themselves if he didn't let them make his, so they bought my book with no intention of making it. [audience laughter].
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