Herman Melville: Damned in Paradise

Washington, D.C. The Film Company / Public Broadcasting Service [PBS], 1985. Original Press Kit for the 1985 documentary. With a transcript of the program, and a 32-page companion guide featuring facts about Herman Melville's life and work, articles on Melville, and a selected bibliography.

This documentary tracks the personal and intellectual adventures of Herman Melville. Narrated by John Huston, the film includes readings and commentary by F. Murray Abraham, Robert Penn Warren, Alfred Kazan, and other notable writers and critics.

Arthur Unger, with The Christian Science Monitor, reviewed the film in 1985:

"Directed, written, produced, and photographed mostly by Robert Squier, a unique and dedicated artist himself. Mr. Squier has accomplished an inspired film about a writer and his writing which manages to combine the song of poetry and the zing of adventure with the shock of psychological recognition... not merely a labor of love; it is a probing and incisive study of how a man and his work interact with the environment, physical and emotional. Utilizing real locations, top literary scholars, and a delicate sense of time and place with a minimal amount of reenactment, Mr. Squier's film records the paradoxes in Melville's life, his sense of hopelessness, his disgust with brutality, his agonizing search for religion, his intellectual resolve, his determination to survive personal disasters."not afraid of deep questions.''

Companion guide (32 pages), transcript (36 pages), and promotional letter from the publishers, advertising a videocassette of the film (rental $75, purchase $350), house in a dark green folder with silver titles and blind-stamped design. Near Fine overall.

[Book #135071]