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For your viewing pleasure we present this 1963 documentary Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer, produced and directed by Terry Sanders, in which the late science fiction author (who was forty-three when the film was made) shares his thoughts on writing and perseverance: "You've got to be inspired and mad and excited and love it more than anything else in the world!"
In Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder, which opens tonight in New York City, director Christopher Felver reveals the poet's true role as a catalyst for numerous literary careers and for the Beat movement itself. The documentary features one-on-one interviews with Ferlinghetti as well as appearances by Allen Ginsberg, Dennis Hopper, Dave Eggers, and others. For more opening dates, visit the First Run Features website.
This brief documentary by Kristin Moe follows Kendall Merriam, the Johnny Appleseed of poetry in Rockland, Maine. The video was produced at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine.
Poet Ron Silliman recently drew attention to this footage of Frank O’Hara from the 1966 TV series USA: Poetry. O’Hara died a few weeks after the filming was completed.
While essentially a promo for the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world, this clip does offer a valuable look at the jobs of a few of the many people who work at Random House, from editorial and design through production, marketing, sales, and distribution.
Commissioned by America: Now and Here, an organization founded by Eric Fischl to promote conversation about contemporary America through the arts, the forty-five-minute film "Crossing State Lines: An American Renga" is based on the book of the same name, curated by Bob Holman and Carol Muske-Dukes and published by FSG last April, that features fifty-four poets from across the country in conversation.
"The writer's job is to get naked—to hide nothing." Southern Gothic novelist Harry Crews, who passed away Wednesday in Gainesville, Florida, at the age of seventy-six, wrote seventeen novels, including Feast of Snakes and The Knockout Artist. He taught fiction writing workshops at the University of Florida from 1968 until his retirement in 1997.
In the Realms of the Unreal, a documentary film directed by Jessica Yu, explores the mystery of Henry Darger, a reclusive janitor in Chicago who wrote perhaps the world's longest novel and became one of the most famous figures in outsider art. A 15,145-page, single-spaced manuscript titled "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion," along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story, was discovered shortly before Darger's death in 1973.
In 1964 author Ken Kesey and his Merry Band of Pranksters set off on an LSD-fueled bus trip to the New York World's Fair. Along the way they intended to make a documentary, but the film was never finished. Directors Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood were given access to the raw footage to create Magic Trip, which is now available on iTunes and Netflix.
"My father, he'd say, 'You have to have a career.' I said, 'I want to be a writer.'" Born in Brooklyn in 1911, Ruth Gruber became the youngest PhD in the world before going on to become an international foreign correspondent and photojournalist at age twenty-four. "Ahead of Time," a documentary by Bob Richman, tells the story of how Gruber defied tradition in an extraordinary career that has spanned more than seven decades.
