SOURCE: “Ellison Wonderland: Harlan Ellison Interviewed,” in Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, Vol. 10, No. 1, Fall, 1990, pp. 9–20

In the following interview, Francavilla and Ellison discuss various aspects of Ellison's work, focusing predominantly on works that have been adapted for film and television.

Harlan Ellison is a writer who explores, uncovers, and displays the nightmares and dreams that haunt and enchant us all. Usually identified with his science fiction screenplays and speculative fiction, in the late 1960s Ellison was one of the American writers loosely associated with the controversial British “New Wave” authors grouped around New Worlds magazine. These writers generally employed radical stylistic experimentation, taboo subject matter, and innovative narrative structures. In this period, Ellison began turning out his award-winning science fiction screenplays, noteworthy for their meticulous attention to the sort of details—camera angles and movements, cuts and dissolves—that screenwriters have traditionally left to...