How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer was one of the great American writers of the postwar era, exploding on the scene in 1948 with his war novel, "The Naked and the Dead," and writing many more novels and many works of nonfiction for the next 50-odd years. He ignited controversy and passionate debate and never shied from confrontation in his participation in public discourse. HOW TO COME ALIVE WITH NORMAN MAILER (2023), a feature-length documentary of 102 minutes, captures all of this with copious footage of him in action and in his many public appearances and talk-show segments, as well as interviews with authors who knew him and seven of his nine children, all of whom are smart and articulate but a good deal calmer than their father. It's a fast-paced piece and brims with ideas, all introduced at a rapid clip in every minute of the film.

While sharing Mailer's many keen insights with us, including in relatively recent interview footage of him that seems to have been shot earlier this century, the film also acknowledges his demons and his reckless, often violent behavior and some of the fatal miscalculations he made. It can be very painful at times for those of us who are longtime Mailer fans.

Aside from four of his daughters, three of his sons and his sister, Barbara Wasserrman, other figures interviewed for the film include David Denby, Daphne Merkin, Gay Talese, Germaine Greer, Oliver Stone, Dotson Rader, and Lawrence Schiller, plus several others who were previously unfamiliar to me. We see footage from The Tonight Show, The Dick Cavett Show, Charlie Rose, a host of other talk shows, and TV news footage of his arrest for stabbing his second wife in 1960, as well as clips from his famous pugnacious debate with a panel of feminists at Town Hall, captured in D. A. Pennebaker's TOWN BLOODY HALL (1979). (Germaine Greer was on the panel and says nice things about Mailer in new interview footage.) We also see extensive footage from a film Mailer starred in and directed, MAIDSTONE (1968), which ends with an unplanned bloody attack on Mailer with a hammer by actor Rip Torn who has stayed in character long after "cut" was called while the camera was still rolling. This ending is allowed to play out here. Some of his children were there in the shot and recall how traumatic that day was for them.

Sadly, the potential audience for this type of film today tends to steer away from controversial figures and cast sweeping judgment on them, something Mailer recognized in his own time and resented very much. "I hate political correctness. It's fascism of the left." Among some of his other priceless quotes in the film (some of which are paraphrased here):

"The most dangerous question you can ask yourself is 'what is the point?'" "If we're not having an existential experience then we're extinguishing ourselves." "Confront those ideas you're afraid of. That's how you meet God." "We must grow or pay more for remaining the same." "Man is born with full awareness of the universe, loses it and spends his life trying to get it back." "We have an inflated sense of what we know because it all comes too easily."

IMDB has very little info on this film and it wasn't even listed on Mailer's IMDB page when I consulted it. I added his name to the cast. For the record, I saw the film at New York's Film Forum in July 2024.

I have a great appreciation for this movie and everyone that was a part of it. Brilliantly done!!! Norman's family are lovely and very well spoken. Norman knew what the people needed, but his childhood beliefs controlled him in ways he didn't understand. We need our voice to be heard, but in a more alive captivating truthful fearless way. To get out of our own way and come alive we must go deeply into it. We do not truly understand the Big Effect of our childhood and the beliefs and programming we currently operate with. We think we are in control and need it, but you are not and you don't need it. See you soon. Thanks for creating Jeff.

I have to start with the caveat that I wasn't super knowledgeable on Norman Mailer going in. So I don't know if this documentary will bring to light any new insights for people who followed him for years. But I loved it. Moves briskly, has lots of great footage, and is surprisingly inspiring. Highly recommended. Unfortunately, I don't quite think Mailer's status in modern culture is exactly where it should be. He should be studied and spoken about more. That fact coupled with the fact they got his sister, children, multiple of his wives, etc. For this makes it the ultimate documentary on him. It won't be topped.

A good biography of the most interesting American writer of the 20th century. His thoughts on how to come alive are bracing and powerful and we get a full dose of them. What the film lacks is an adequate complement of readings from his work. This is a large gap, a poor decision by the filmmakers. We get some sense of his writing style but not nearly enough. Granted, prose readings can be problematic in terms of filmmaking. So the thing to do is hire a good actor to sit on a bare stage with decent lighting and have him read short excerpts--three or four sentences from at least half the author's works, to give the rich flavor of the prose, which is as sustaining as perfect chowder served in Provincetown. As the actor reads, the sentences can be projected on a screen that's also on the stage. Highly visual. Mailer's words are worth the effort.

If you're new to Mailer (does anyone under 30 have any familiarity with him?) you might want to start your education by watching the film "When We Were Kings" about the Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman fight in 1974 (Mailer is a talking head in the film, very effective) and then reading Mailer's short book about the encounter, "The Fight" (1975), one of his best works.