3 HN users recommended this documentary3 months2023–2025score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
It is one of the few long, candid interviews with the famously reclusive McCarthy, and commenters share it whenever he comes up.
A 2017 documentary filmed at the Santa Fe Institute in which novelist Cormac McCarthy talks with SFI's David Krakauer. They discuss isolation, mathematics, character and the nature of the unconscious.
“This is my favourite interview with him so I will take this post as an excuse to share it.” (HN, 2025)
Thanks for posting, he was a really interesting guy. This is my favourite interview with him so I will take this post as an excuse to share it. [this video]
Worth a watch if you're interested in McCarthy: [this video] The gist is that he liked smart people. He was good friends with Murray Gell-Mann and others at The Santa Fe Institute. I absolutely think he "liked science," I don't think he was cynical about it, though I do see where you could pick that up in his writing. According to Gell-Mann, McCarthy knew a lot about 20th century physics...not in terms of math but in a "history of ideas" sense, i.e. where major physicists stood on various questions.
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