PBS BIO IS MASTERFUL--Darn
those writers, who write about literary figures long dead as if they were still
alive. Easy pickings to bash someone who
died in 1967 as someone “not keeping up with the times.” Off to the woodshed, hack.
A biography
either has legs of authenticity or it doesn’t.
Don’t judge the subject if there failings by the biographer.
Recently,
PBS ran “The Day Carl Sandburg Died,” [9-24-12] as part of its erudite American
Masters series. As a bio it was near
perfect. Unless you spent, decades in
library stacks studying Sandberg’s works, the PBS bio heaped insight upon
insight into Sandburg’s life. It was
huge. Archival film made Penelope
Niven’s bio majestic and yes even, fresh.
Niven did her homework and provided comments by critics and detractors
alike. Even naysayer for hire Gore Vidal
had his say.
Critics of
the PBS effort have rushed to call Sandburg, the person boring. As if it were incurable. Here’s an example of one reviewer: “…(Maybe
he [Sandburg] would seem more engagingly human if he’d done a more thorough job
of messing up his personal life. It worked for Woody Guthrie.)…”
So, a
measure of American poets is reduced to how much they drink and womanize?
Yes, I’m
old fashioned. Grandkids will be the
first to tell you. But, for the life of
me, why do mainstream critics feel the need to visit the back alleys of the
personal lives of artists to make a point.
Let’s stick to addressing the works
of our iconic national artists. What’s
wrong with examining Sandburg’s greatest works and learning from them?
Image: PBS.org
Thank you, PBS for posting the entire
episode: http://video.pbs.org/video/2280767465
SUNDAY REVIEW—A new online literary review
appearing exclusively on Pillar to Post (www.tomshess.blogspot.com).
No comments:
Post a Comment