Ken Burns’ Hemingway Documentary

[Schaaf]

Anybody catch last nights first episode?

 

[Hem]

Looking forward to seeing this.

 

[come2elmo]

No but thanks for the heads up!

 

[noharleyyet]

Burns has a good run on docs...will watch

 

[rtraverdavis]

Anybody catch last nights first episode?

I caught the second half. It’s what you’d expect from Burns on a guy as complicated and interesting as Hemingway. It’s really good. Hemingway actually lived the life I imagined I was living when I was drunk in my twenties.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Yes, I got on late.

What a tragic family. Brilliance and charisma handicapped by mental illness. I don't think I would have got on well with Hemingway.

I had to put up with Ken Burns for the better part of a week when I was working in Alaska. Left a very bad taste in my mouth. He is talented ... but also a flaming fathead asshole who can't handle his booze and treats women like shit. I can see how he might identify with Papa H. The guy who did the voice on documentaries was also along for the trip. A real gentleman.

 

[RobertD]

Hemingway is tricky to cover, especially in 2021. High hopes for this though. Burns does a good job with almost anything he endeavors to cover it seems. Dust bowl doc was really cool.

 

[406dn]

I have it taped,,so I'll get around to watching the entire thing. Last night, I was watching parts of it, along with the NCAA Basketball game. It was pretty easy to switch away from the game.

 

[Otto Matic]

Couldn't care less about Hemingway.
He was a Castro backer and was invited to attend a killing by firing squad of some Castro dissidents.
It's reported that he and Castro sat by a fire with drinks, watching the sunset and the shootings.

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.”

 

[Harrier]

I’m a big Hemingway fan, so I definitely made plans to watch the documentary. I was pleased with the attention it paid to his literature and how his life experiences shaped it, and not just the lurid, tabloid stuff. Looking forward to parts two and three.

 

[Harrier]

“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.”

This sounded to me like horseshit, so I decided to check it out. I have several scholarly biographies of Hemingway (Dearborn, Hendrickson, Lynn, Mort, Reynolds et al); none mention an incident anything like this. It’s fair to say that Hemingway sympathized with Castro, or at least preferred him to Batista, but the closest thing to the firing squad incident you cite was a claim by Castro when he was touring the U.S. that Hemingway believed political executions in Cuba were “a necessary phenomenon.” That claim was never verified, and of course Hemingway and his wife left for Idaho soon afterward.

So, maybe read a book instead of the Daily Caller.

 

[blueridge]

Much of his life was incredibly tragic. War, accidents, chronic pain, depression, alcoholism, and on and on and on. Like he got a town’s worth of misfortune. And generations on both sides of him in his immediate family had it too. Damn sad.

I went and paid my respects when I was in Ketchum.

 

[RobertD]

Couldn't care less about Hemingway.
He was a Castro backer and was invited to attend a killing by firing squad of some Castro dissidents.
It's reported that he and Castro sat by a fire with drinks, watching the sunset and the shootings.

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

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.

 

[RobertD]

This sounded to me like horseshit, so I decided to check it out. I have several scholarly biographies of Hemingway (Dearborn, Hendrickson, Lynn, Mort, Reynolds et al); none mention an incident anything like this. It’s fair to say that Hemingway sympathized with Castro, or at least preferred him to Batista, but the closest thing to the firing squad incident you cite was a claim by Castro when he was touring the U.S. that Hemingway believed political executions in Cuba were “a necessary phenomenon.” That claim was never verified, and of course Hemingway and his wife left for Idaho soon afterward.

So, maybe read a book instead of the Daily Caller.

You got to it before I did... haha.

 

[longbow51]

Great, even-handed documentary so far, typical for Burns, warts and all. And the "firing-squad with drinks" scenario I've never heard and I've studied Hemingway to some extent (more minors than anyone ever intended). Doubt it.

And the simple words on the Hemingway Memorial could describe many, if not most of us.

“BEST OF ALL HE LOVED the fall, the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods. Leaves floating on the trout streams and above the hills. The high blue windless skies, now he will be a part of them forever.”

 

[Otto Matic]

This sounded to me like horseshit, so I decided to check it out. I have several scholarly biographies of Hemingway (Dearborn, Hendrickson, Lynn, Mort, Reynolds et al); none mention an incident anything like this. It’s fair to say that Hemingway sympathized with Castro, or at least preferred him to Batista, but the closest thing to the firing squad incident you cite was a claim by Castro when he was touring the U.S. that Hemingway believed political executions in Cuba were “a necessary phenomenon.” That claim was never verified, and of course Hemingway and his wife left for Idaho soon afterward.

So, maybe read a book instead of the Daily Caller.

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.

 

[OntarioHunter]

This sounded to me like horseshit, so I decided to check it out. I have several scholarly biographies of Hemingway (Dearborn, Hendrickson, Lynn, Mort, Reynolds et al); none mention an incident anything like this. It’s fair to say that Hemingway sympathized with Castro, or at least preferred him to Batista, but the closest thing to the firing squad incident you cite was a claim by Castro when he was touring the U.S. that Hemingway believed political executions in Cuba were “a necessary phenomenon.” That claim was never verified, and of course Hemingway and his wife left for Idaho soon afterward.

So, maybe read a book instead of the Daily Caller.

Yeah, it is horseshit. Read Chapman's review of Fontova's book ("Rewriting Cuban History"). Typical of the misinformation crap found on Townhall website.

 

[longbow51]

You know, finished watching this, and not much was new to me. But, I do wonder if, in addition to depression, which is strongly familial, he did not have an element of chronic traumatic encephalopathy from his multiple concussions, which may have contributed to his anger issues. Look at the football guys who went from gentle with their families to abusive. Didn't have MRIs then so we'll never know.

 

[noharleyyet]

Watched epi 3 tonite. Will catch 1 and 2 when possible. Recommend.

 

[PrairieHunter]

I like how they show the truth about what was going on, even if it is not pretty.

Felt the same way about his piece on Theodore Roosevelt and Hank Williams Sr.