Hemingway

This is the life of passionate and complex man. Here the documentary is very much one of an outsider looking in, like walking through an old museum and seeing lots of memorabilia in glass cases.

The format seems cookie cutter - a Burns documentary and flat narration where the subject of the day could be anything.

It shows what, but never really understands why.

Obviously there has been much effort in to collecting material. But, we are presented with a dry collage of events.

This is a supherb telling of a biography of Hemingway and done in the inimitable style of Ken Burns. It is well paced and presented in such a way that every minute of the 4 1/2 hours or so of the documentary is relevant, except for the talking heads.

Most of the talking heads had nothing to say that was not their opinions, and very often the opinions of people that did not know the person are essentially worthless. To see how a very good documentary can be made without a single talking head, one only need to watch the Apollo 11 documentary film!

If it wasn't for the talking heads I would have given this a 10. Lastly, why does pbs insist on inserting their promos mid screen every 15 or so minutes? It can only be to disrupt the viewers experience, it can have no other purpose!

Despite the 6-hour running time, this documentary skips along the surface of Hemingway's life like a piece of flint.

Great writer? Yes. Great man? No. Hemingway was a narcissist, a liar, a brute, a womanizer, and a blowhard.

Hemingway basically lived off his wives and lost the friendship of everyone he ever knew. And while this documentary skips along with fleeting mentions of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc., it totally neglects an important Paris connection: Robert McAlmon.

It was McAlmon who published Hemingway's first book: "Three Stories and Ten Poems" thru his Contact Publishing. It was McAlmon who accompanied and paid for Hemingway's first trip to Spain to watch the bull fights. And it was McAlmon who was among the first people Hemingway turned on after his success with "The Sun Also Rises."

The novel's character Robert Loeb is based on Harold Loeb and also McAlmon. Hemingway turned on McAlmon and called him a gossip after he learned that McAlmon was "telling tales" about his his sexual proclivities and punched him out in a bar screaming. "Now tell that to your goddamned friends!"

McAlmon later got revenge in his memoir "Being Geniuses Together," and their relationship was further examined in "Letters from Oblivion," a novel by Edward Lorusso.

Great writer, yes. But Hemingway was one nasty piece of work!

I enjoyed this documentary; as I do most all documentaries done by Mr. Burns and unlike so many other reviewers, I am a fan of Hemingway's writing; a millenial fan at that. And in the spirit of Hemingway, I'll keep this review short and to the point.

The main focus of this six hour affair was Hemingway's relationships; especially with regards to the women in his life. I found this choice interesting, and insightful. The only downside to said choice, is that other parts of his life were glossed over; parts I find exceedingly engrossing; i.e. His literary beefs (Faulkner immediately comes to mind) and the friendships he formed in Paris with his fellow artists. Despite me knowing quite a bit about most of his contemporaries in Paris, a little backstory about each would've been an welcomed addition. These are my only real complaints about the documentary. Here's to hoping an equally good Faulkner or Wolfe documentary is in the works.

This was broadcast this week in 2-hour time slots on three consecutive nights on PBS. It is very well done and I can't imagine anyone watching it and NOT learning a lot new about the man. His life certainly was not one of a role model and perhaps his many, many faults, both personal and interpersonal, were a necessary part of developing the writing style that made him indelibly famous.

Perhaps even less well known are Hemingway's four rules for writing well:

USE SHORT SENTENCES.

USE SHORT FIRST PARAGRAPHS.

USE VIGOROUS ENGLISH.

BE POSITIVE, NOT NEGATIVE.

Back in my working days I took a course on effective writing, the essence was the same. I would add "use active voice, not passive voice" when you can.