Ken Burns’ Hemingway Documentary

[noharleyyet]

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”​

A Farewell to Arms

 

[Hem]

You got your opinion, I got mine.
Seems plausible. The guy did have a warped mind and was an alcoholic. Infatuation can cause folks to do weird stuff.

Dare I ask?
Have you actually read any Hemingway ?
Have you considered the political time period?
May i suggest you watch the series. It probably will enlighten you about the most accomplished and celebrated author in US history. Your opinion is shallow.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Dare I ask?
Have you actually read any Hemingway ?
Have you considered the political time period?
May i suggest you watch the series. It probably will enlighten you about the most accomplished and celebrated author in US history. Your opinion is shallow.

Yeah. It is hard to imagine an ambulance driver who was so badly wounded (227 pieces of shrapnel) in WWI trenches and who was subsequently so traumatized he was afraid to sleep alone in the dark (mortar attack was at night) would get his jollies watching people being executed. He did his best to stay out of WWII but his third wife who was a successful war correspondent egged him into finally accepting an assignment. During WWII Hemingway's son became a charter member of what would become the CIA. Chapman does a decent job describing the blurred social and economic boundaries during the Cuban revolution. And he would know. He was CIA on the spot. Cuba was Hemingway's home. His involvement was inevitable.

 

[jrabq]

Mea culpa! Got it wrong! Here's the quote!

“Hemingway hailed Castro’s revolution as ‘very pure and beautiful,'” Fontova said. “He was also a guest of honor at many of Che Guevara’s firing squad massacres. Hemingway loved to watch Che’s firing squads murder hundreds of Cubans. Hemingway would watch the massacres from a picnic chair while sipping Daiquiris.”

You have a source for the quote?

 

[noharleyyet]

You have a source for the quote?

Humberto Fontova's quote...https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/of-hemingway-castro-and-che/

I'm not legitimizing nor attesting it's veracity....just source curious.

 

[Otto Matic]

Humberto Fontova's quote...https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/of-hemingway-castro-and-che/

I'm not legitimizing nor attesting it's veracity....just source curious.

Honestly, I can't remember exactly. It was a couple of years back I saw the article.
I pretty much dismissed the whole the thing.
So many of those "Hollyweird" types do (ahem!) "weird" stuff just because "they can".
It's a fanatical desire to be seen as unlike anyone else.

 

[longbow51]

While not in the documentary this struck me, from "The Battler".

“This is my pal Bugs,” Ad said. “He’s crazy, too.”
“Glad to meet you,” Bugs said. “Where you say you’re from?”
“Chicago,” Nick said.
“That’s a fine town,” the negro said. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Adams. Nick Adams.”
“He says he’s never been crazy, Bugs,” Ad said.
“He’s got a lot coming to him,” the negro said.

Oddly prescient.

 

[elkduds]

I've enjoyed the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick collaborations immensely. This one was narrower in scope and context than those that proceeded it, to its detriment. Hemingway's arc was as self-indulgent and tragic as many. Rock stars didn't invent that bad behavior. just perfected it. I was impressed w the less-sympathetic treatment of the author's agonizing mental decompensation and lifelong struggle against temptations to suicide. I found the program's readings of his writing to be greatly diluted in their impact by being snipped out of context. As good media does, it asked more questions than it answered. This one provided much less context for the subjects than their Jazz, Baseball, National Parks and Roosevelt documentaries, among others.

 

[noharleyyet]

I've enjoyed the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick collaborations immensely. This one was narrower in scope and context than those that proceeded it, to its detriment. Hemingway's arc was as self-indulgent and tragic as many. Rock stars didn't invent that bad behavior. just perfected it. I was impressed w the less-sympathetic treatment of the author's agonizing mental decompensation and lifelong struggle against temptations to suicide. I found the program's readings of his writing to be greatly diluted in their impact by being snipped out of context. As good media does, it asked more questions than it answered. This one provided much less context for the subjects than their Jazz, Baseball, National Parks and Roosevelt documentaries, among others.

Excellent duds.....or as we say in Mother Texas....yup

 

[RobertD]

Now I wanna know some of you guys' favorite works by Hemingway... I haven't read all of them, but FWTBT is my favorite of what I have read. I love his short stories and hunting essays as much as anything though.

 

[Jason73]

To think your own son won't talk to you. Must have been a heck of a guy.

 

[Harrier]

Now I wanna know some of you guys' favorite works by Hemingway... I haven't read all of them, but FWTBT is my favorite of what I have read. I love his short stories and hunting essays as much as anything though.

Novels: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea. Across the River and Into the Trees isn’t as horrible as everyone says (duck hunters will like the opening chapter).

Stories: The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (of course) but also read the Nick Adams stories (esp. Big Two-Hearted River), Soldier’s Home, and Fathers and Sons.

I loved The Strange Country, published in his posthumous Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.

 

[Otto Matic]

PBS Docuseries on Hemingway Covers-Up His Communist Connections

townhall.com

Interesting read?

 

[Otto Matic]

Seems I'm not the only one whose been able to locate the goals of the late 60's, earlie 70's

 

[Wildabeest]

Seems I'm not the only one whose been able to locate the goals of the late 60's, earlie 70's

If you’ll make the effort to understand world history vs. living in your bubble / echo chamber, you’d learn that from the early 1900’s through WWII and beyond, there was a global struggle between Fascism and Communism. Neither one good options, but if you’ll put yourself in the context of the times vs. being so judgmental in your modern and naive context, then maybe you can better understand and appreciate the difficulties. Given the past 4 years and recent changes, it seems that battle is still alive today. Stalin wasn’t right, but neither were Hitler, Musolini or Franco. I’ll stop there.

 

[rwc101]

The clowns at Townhall didn't watch the documentary. It did mention Hemingway agreed to pass information to the NKVD with the clarification that he didn't actually pass on any info which I guess they are construing as his "failure."

 

[Otto Matic]

"... If you’ll make the effort to understand world history vs. living in your bubble / echo chamber, ..."

Wow!
Way to be non combative.

 

[Otto Matic]

rwc101​

Well-known member​

The clowns at Townhall didn't watch the documentary.

"Clowns"?
Why? Because they have a conservative point of view?

 

[silasd]

The whole "was Papa a Communist?" debate is an interesting one.

Hemingway was part of a generation of writers that were all at least friendly to some socialist ideology, often as a reaction to firsthand experiences with fascism. The effect is more pronounced in writers from/in Europe during a certain period. In Hemingway's case, he was entrenched in the Spanish Civil War, acting more as a participant than an observer, and that shaped his political views for life. During that conflict, he was deeply sympathetic to the anti-Franco revolutionaries and even offered to or maybe did work as a spy for the USSR. (He may have also offered to or maybe did work for US intelligence later on as a spy as well.)

Much of his politics could be described as leftist or "antifascist," but his actual relationship with Castro is more complicated. One take on it is that he supported the revolution, but began to sour on Castro himself as time passed. I personally think this makes the most sense.

I have to take the above quote with a grain of salt. (Then again I try to take all quotes with a grain of salt.) Hemingway writes at length about Franco's firing squads in For Whom the Bell Tolls, in a way that doesn't square well with the image presented in the above quote. Hell, this was a guy who thought shooting a pronghorn in the fall after you'd patterned him in the summer was cowardly... can't imagine him sipping a cool one and watching dissidents get executed.

Thanks. Appreciate your well thought out post.

 

[longbow51]

That was indeed a very complex time. Spain was somewhat of a feudal system, with the very wealthy landowners and the peasants. Communism offered what they thought, at the time was a better life, with a "worker's paradise". Many fell for it, just as they did in Russia and elsewhere, only to realize, too late, that it was only trading one set of masters for another. The Catholic church sided with the old regime, because the communists were burning churches and killing priests, nuns, and monks. The old regime was not necessarily fascist, but was backed by Hitler and Mussolini, who saw it as a proxy war against communism. This is extensively discussed in FWTBT. Hemingway does not shy away from the atrocities committed by the communists, as related to him by the rebel leader Pilar, where normal folks, many of whom Pilar admitted were not fascists, were murdered by a gauntlet of the opposition, shot or beaten to death, and tossed over a cliff.

Bautista was a dictator who oppressed the masses. Based on his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, and later in WW II, where, let's not forget, we were allies with Russia, it's not surprising that EH thought maybe Che and Castro would be better. Turned out he was wrong, of course. They were better off with the Mob.

No one is saying that Hemingway was an honorable man, nor an icon to be admired for his politics. In a novel published posthumously, Islands In The Stream, he admits his foibles and regrets his past abuses, particularly the betrayal of his wives. He was, though, the best novelist we had seen for a long time, and maybe still is.

It's always dangerous to try to superimpose the rectrospectoscope. Lots of that going on the past year. Learn from the past, don't try to destroy it.

And, I think I'm finished with this thread