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What makes great literature in the 20th century, to be precise? Where does it depart from earlier works, and where does it take us? This is one of the central questions asked by Genius (2016). “Good literature has to be like Proust but without the upholstery,” writer Thomas Wolfe says in this film, a US-UK coproduction which had its world premiere at Berlinale 2016. The film painstakingly addresses the parameters and framework of literary masterpieces, expressing a number of observations and philosophies about what constitutes great writing and editing. It is the debut feature of London director Michael Grandage with a smart screenplay by John Logan (2015’s Spectre), and you can tell both come out of theatre. Let’s follow the breadcrumbs they leave for the literati.

Maxwell Perkins (Colin Firth), quiet but legendary book editor at New York publisher Scribner’s in the 1920s, receives a huge pile of paper from an assistant. “Is it any good?” he asks. “God, no. But it’s unique,” the assistant says. Cue the eccentric Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law). “You must be Thomas Wolfe,” Perkins states plainly, no introduction necessary. With Wolfe, as with the (somewhat too) passing Hemingway later in the film, personality — big male personality — is part of the literary package of the mid-century. The two woman-artists in the story don’t register and don’t stand a chance; one is rather resigned, one hysterical.

This first outrageous appearance also speaks to Wolfe’s authenticity as an author. He walks the walk; he is reflected in his work. Perkins: “I take it your book is autobiographical in nature.” Wolfe: “Every good book is.” Similarly, according to Wolfe, the “characters are your mirror, hurt and shunned into poetry.”

At a first read-through, Perkins flicks past the title page, and, because this is Colin Firth, we see him make a mental note to later bring up a title change. We also see the manuscript’s emotional impact written all over his face as he sits on his commuter train home that night. It is what 21st century marketers call unputdownable on dust jackets.

Perkins continues reading the tome right up the steps of his house. He walks past his four daughters and wife just to keep reading, taking refuge from the inconvenient family bustle on the closet floor (of course he is seen in a handful of scenes as a loving and semi-attentive father so we can sympathize). This is a must-read book, the audience infers, worth what’s to come. Over dinner the family discuss the glamour of the literary world as opposed to the relative non-glamour of the semi-professional theater world Perkins’ wife inhabits. Perkins is not interested in either; he lives for the word on paper. The book doesn’t even leave him when he is not reading — we can see his eyes glaze over, wanting to get back to it. It seems literally enlightening, a semi-religious experience — Perkins’ face lights up on train the next day with realization and revelation of something grand at his hands. Later, a James Joyce comparison will show up in the rave reviews.

Down to the work then (and thank goodness, in this 1920s-30s intellectual New York paradise, there are no deadlines or publishing schedules, we find out over the next two hours). How important are titles? The working title “O Lost” becomes “Look Homeward, Angel.” Sales considerations creep into the picture early: “The title needs to capture the core of the book,” even Perkins recognizes. Big ideas, less words is the motto the editor adds in one of the many quick-witted exchanges between the two symbiotic geniuses (you will have picked up on the author-editor double entendre of the title by now).

Does length matter? “It’s not the page count that is important; it’s the story,” we learn from Perkins. The two men are about to cut a third of the manuscript over thousands of 12-hour days. “My heart bleeds,” Wolfe quips dramatically (he detests the dramatic arts though). “The roots go deep and are unassailable,” he proclaims as he throws down the gauntlet of the mammoth task. But — earnestly — he promises to work hard, and work hard he does. The scribbler’s second book Of Time and the River (no title change here) arrives in three huge boxes. Even the audience is overwhelmed and realizes that literature has to end; the story has to have an ending; it cannot be 5000 pages. But cuts would have turned War and Peace into War and Nothing, Wolfe protests. That is his biggest challenge — he cannot let go. His brain is one big unstoppable train of thought. Perkins reprimands him, incredulous, trying to insert some realism. “You need 80 pages till the train arrives? No one would wait that long for a train!”

Good literature, if you want to publish it and have other people read it (and Wolfe sure does), has practical and audience considerations. As a burnt-out Fitzgerald appears, Perkins recommends, “Write your autobiography.” The encounter of the near-has-been and his editor adds a subtler layer to the question of what makes great literature: faith — in yourself as well as in you by others —trust, support. Fitzgerald walks out uplifted: “I’ll write you a great book!” “I know,” Perkins responds. We later find out Fitzgerald does not exactly get back to form.

Close friends Perkins and Wolfe indeed finally separate over an ethical, not an editorial question: Wolfe’s sociopathic lack of empathy for anything and anybody, his habit of using and burning the people around him. For one (insincere) moment before the men’s breakup, as the Great Depression hits the streets, Wolfe wonders whether literature is frivolous. No, Perkins appeases his partner: storytelling has been an important tool against the fear of the world since cavemen times.

Another literary element cunningly woven into a jazz bar scene is musicality and tonality. Wolfe makes the band riff on Perkins’ favorite Robert Burns song. The musicians interpret, reinvent and capture the essence. Even the stiff Perkins taps his feet (before being stood up by Wolfe, who runs off with two black prostitutes). The traditional version of the song Wolfe humorously calls “Henry James: comfortable and familiar.” His voice he oddly but aptly calls “an ugly gorilla.”

Good literature needs good editors is the take-away of the film, based on A. Scott Berg’s biography of Perkins. “I don’t believe it,” is Perkins’ reaction to Wolfe’s never-ending love imagery. They discuss cutting adjectives because “every word counts,” as the writer sighs. “No, it doesn’t. You’re losing the plot!” corrects the editor. The result of the exchange is the sentence “Her eyes were blue” instead of 20 pages of colored metaphors. “Is that the point?” Perkins challenges and probes. “How is this moment of falling in love different?” The editor asks questions, asks more questions, makes subtle suggestions, admonishes at times. “It’s your book, just give it a think.” “How did the character know that? - He knows! - How?” In a perfect movie world, the editor is congenial.

That the editor “selects, shapes and sculpts” could be engraved on Perkins’ tombstone, but it is a fine line to walk. Perkins muses that he most fears straying too far from that contained editorial role and “deforming” his author’s work — a phrase Wolfe later throws back as an accusation. Does an editor make a book better or just different? Perkins wonders.

Jack Kerouac. Ray Bradbury. Hunter S. Thompson. Philip Roth. Wolfe, who only lived to 37, was a huge influence on the writers that followed. And if you are the literary type, you will appreciate the film’s meticulous mapping of the process of writing and making books. Grab your copies and start reading now — sales of Thomas Wolfe’s books will surely spike when the film gets a general release in the fall 2016.