Shows on writing or writers

[skip.knox]

I love documentaries about artists, especially about music and musicians. Film second, other art forms a distant third. But it strikes me I know of few documentaries about writers or about the business of writing. Let's leave Hunter S. Thompson to one side, as I know of more than one on him.

Any suggestions? I'm looking for documentaries, not fictional portrayals. Movies about writing is like ... dancing about architecture, to clip a coin.

 

[Penpilot]

This might be tangential but have you just tried looking up author interviews on youtube?

Also here's a podcast that interviews a writer or a writing professional each episode. You might find it interesting.

Adventures in SciFi Publishing Podcast ArchiveAdventures in SciFi Publishing

 

[Scribble]

One of my favorite shows of interviews with authors, the Canadian show Prisoners of Gravity. I used to watch this in my teens, amazing list of people interviewed: Neil Gaiman, Larry Niven, Harlan Ellison, Ursula LeGuin, Alan Moore, Clive Barker, etc...

Every episode has a theme: Immortality, Racism, Technology, Utopias, and so on. Brilliant!

Playlist: Prisoners of Gravity: Racism (Part 1 of 3) - YouTube

 

[Scribble]

Another source I like to go to are author interviews by Big Think:

I couldn't find a Big Think writing playlist in my minute of searching, but here's a Youtube search string that returns a quite a good list of interviews with writers about writing:

big think writing - YouTube

 

[skip.knox]

Thanks for those references, folks; I intend to look into each of them. I was, however, speaking to something a bit different from author interviews.

I just finished watching a documentary about Bill Watterson. Before that it was one on John Milius. That's more what I'm talking about--a documentary *about* some author. There are dramatizations (e.g., about Tolstoy). There are author interviews. But where are all the documentaries about authors, living or dead? Given there are so many about artists in other media, it strikes me as quite odd there are so few about writers. There's no shortage of analyses of writers in written form.

I dunno; I find it curious. Possibly insignificant, and maybe I'm just missing some trove of films on writers. Meanwhile, I'll settle for author interviews. Thanks again!

 

[stephenspower]

The Salinger bio on Netflix, expanded from the theater release. is fantastic.

 

[Butterfly]

Ian Rankin did a documentary over a year of writing and publishing one of his books. I couldn't find it on the old links. It was title The Case of the Disappearing Detective Ian Rankin And The Case Of The Disappearing Detective - couchtripper - Video Dailymotion

There's a film about Beatrix Potter, called Miss Potter. Renee Zelwegger and Ewan MacrGregor were in it.

 

[skip.knox]

I'll look for the Salinger one, but I suspect that's a dramatization, not a documentary. Maybe we're not very interesting as subjects!

 

[Scribble]

I found this ranked list of documentaries on writers, I didn't watch them - but I intend to check them out.

All have links to Youtube videos, I make no claims about the rights to share these so use your own judgement.

Top 10 Documentaries About Writers | Vivascene

Also, check this list on ranker.com:

The Best Documentaries About Writers

 

[stephenspower]

No, the Salinger isn't a dramatization. It's a search for what made him tick, in particular how WWII affected him. It also revealed, as did the huge companion biography, the mss in his fabled vault that await publication. In my opinion, there needs to be exactly one: Seymour at 14 or 15, having his first sexual experience of some kind. Hapworth showed that Seymour was becoming, basically, a boddhisattva, and such a book would be a great way to show the clash between the spiritual and physical. Because as Bananafish showed, he chose the physical and that was the wrong path.