Philip Roth, arguably America’s greatest living novelist, turns 80 on March 19. In 1959, his collection of short stories, Goodbye, Columbus, put him on the map, and 10 years later his hilarious, ribald best-seller, Portnoy’s Complaint, gave rise to the first of many Roth-related controversies in which Judaism, sex, the role of women, and the parent-child relationship would take center stage. In candid interviews, the Pulitzer Prize-winner discusses his distinctly unliterary upbringing in Newark, NJ, his admiration for Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud, and how Zuckerman may or may not be his alter-ego. Nathan Englander, Mia Farrow, Jonathan Franzen, and Martin Garbus are among those who talk about the man and his writing. Franzen in particular praises Roth for “how brave he must have been to have methodically offended everybody and to have exposed parts of himself no one had ever exposed before.”
You May Also Like
Sue Silverman feels ‘neglected’ in bed by her hard-working husband Andrew and serially seduces men to ‘meaningless’ motel sex, even Rick Hudson, a contractor and fellow fund-raiser. After being swept into bed at work by French architecture writer Laurent Dekker, Sue seeks help from Dr. Robert Gardener, who discovers a childhood root cause. Andrew is no longer interested by the time she’s ready for addict clinic, and temptation lurks even there.
A portrait of the brilliant, extravagant Kristina of Sweden, queen from age six, who fights the conservative forces that are against her ideas to modernize Sweden and who have no tolerance for her awakening sexuality.
Driven by extensive archive material and interviews with those who know her, this is the astonishing story of how a triple outsider – a woman, a scientist, and an East German – became the de facto leader of the “Free World”, told for the first time for an international audience.
Brash boxer Cassius Clay burst into the American consciousness in the early 1960s, just ahead of the Civil Rights movement. His transformation into the spiritually enlightened heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali is legendary, but this religious awakening also led to a bitter legal battle with the U.S. government after he refused to serve in the Vietnam War. This film reveals the perfect storm of race, religion and politics that shaped one of the most recognizable figures in sports history.
The true life-story of Sara Góralnik, a 13 year-old Polish Jew whose entire family was killed by Nazis in September of 1942. After a grueling escape to the Ukrainian countryside, Sara steals her Christian best friend’s identity and finds refuge in a small village, where she is taken in by a farmer and his young wife. She soon discovers the dark secrets of her employers’ marriage, compounding the greatest secret she must strive to protect, her true identity.
Dashrath Manjhi was a poor man from the lowest of the low castes, living in a remote village cut off from the world by a rocky mountain range. Life for him was a daily struggle for survival. He loved his wife, Phaguniya, beyond belief. One day, while climbing the mountain to bring him food, his wife slipped, fell and died. Overwhelmed by grief, Dashrath decided to carve out a path through the mountain, so that no one else would suffer his fate. For 22 years, all by himself, with just a hammer and a chisel, he hammered away at the rocks, till the path was carved out from the mountain.
Paradise Found is a biography about the painter Paul Gauguin. Focusing on his personal conflict between citizen life and his family life and the art scene in Frane. In an incredible imagery montage Gauguin manages to make a successful living in the South Pacific, while being in opposition to France.
The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
The story of Doug Sahm, the wild man musicians’ musician and unsung hero of Texas music. A country music child prodigy and teenage rhythm & blues dynamo who caused a riot at his San Antonio high school, Sahm emerged as an international rock star leading the Sir Douglas Quintet. He landed in San Francisco just in time for the Summer of Love in 1967. He returned to Texas as the cowboy hippie rocker who built a burgeoning music scene in Austin in before forming the Tex-Mex supergroup The Texas Tornados. A kinetic, quirky character with a solid sense of place as well as an innate wanderlust, Doug Sahm’s story is the story of Texas music.
An animated meditation/memoir by a survivor of the largest earthquake ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere, the great Alaska Earthquake of 1964.
From the Pacific Northwest to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, this is the inspiring true story of four tenacious men who risk everything to conquer the world records of motorcycle land speed racing. Their extraordinary journey will remind you how perseverance against all odds can send the most unlikely men roaring into glory.
