Burns & Novick's Hemingway

I'm probably not the only person educated by the American Public School system, who read the work of Ernest Hemingway voluntarily. During the summer between my high school graduation and my freshman year of college, I made it a point to read some books that—I thought—I'd need some knowledge of before starting my degree in English. One of those books was The Old Man and the Sea. 

My brother had actually read the book in high school and hated it (a common result when you're forced to read books you don't want to and then intellectualize about them). I never had. In fact, I'd never read any Hemingway up to that point. But, I had an idea of who he was, like a lot of people.

Once I finished the book (it took me only one long car ride to get through it), I decided to do some research about its author. My first stop: an episode of A&E Biography titled Ernest Hemingway: Wrestling with Life. That led me to other documentaries, biographies, and of course, the works by the man himself.

The impression I got of Hemingway—that is of the man behind the byline—was of someone as complicated as a cubist painting; a gifted reporter; a great and dedicated artist; a charming and witty drinking buddy; a multi-talented outdoorsman; a person with great insight into the human condition; and a man haunted by demons and insecurities that could, along with all his good qualities, make him a cruel, mean, disloyal, and belligerent son of a bitch, especially towards those closest to him.

Ken Burns and Lyn Novick's documentary Hemingway, reinforces that impression, but also offers a great deal more clarity as to why Hemingway was who he was.

Like Burns' past work (my favorite documentaries by him are his two-parter on Mark Twain and his 7-part series on The Roosevelts), Hemingway does what documentary TV can do better than any other medium: provide ample room for to explore its subject. 6 hours of programing allows a documentarian like Burns to get into the nitty-gritty details of a subject as opposed to glossing over swatches of their life which, on paper, aren't important.

Much of the first episode (titled A Writer) focuses on Hemingway's early life. Graham Greene famously wrote, "Childhood is the writer's bank balance." 

It casts a great light on just how formative his upbringing in Oak Park was. His father shaped him as an outdoorsmen; his mother shaped his artistic ambitions. One could also argue (from a Freudian perspective), that the problematic relationship Hemingway had with the opposite sex throughout his life were all rooted with the conflict and, later, contempt he had for his mother, whom he clearly considered domineering.

More importantly to him, artistically, however was his WWI experience. 

It's commonly accepted among scholars that Hemingway's War experience inspired his second novel, A Farewell to Arms. It also heavily informed many of his early stories, especially "A Soldier's Home," "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and "Big Two-Hearted River Part II." In those latter two stories, in fact, the war is merely hinted at, not directly mentioned, keeping in line with Hemingway's famed Iceberg Theory of omission.

What most people maybe didn't take into account until now was how mentally and emotionally scarring his near-death experience as a Red Cross ambulance driver was for him. The demons that dogged him throughout his life—the self-doubt that made him a disciplined writer, the insecurity that made him a womanizer, hard drinker, and adventurer, the depression that, in the end, killed him—began when he was blown up. 

From viewing that, it becomes clear that Hemingway was a "high functioning" (hate that phrase) victim of, what Doctors of the era might've called, shell shock and what we now call PTSD. From that first explosion to every subsequent headwound he received throughout his life, the brain damage accrued and his mental state declined.

Unfortunately, at the time, mental illness was something that had such a great weight of shame attached to it that he couldn't talk about it and nobody could really treat him. Hemingway's long-term mental health, in other words, was as much a victim of the First World War as all the soldiers who died. 

However, that only explains; it doesn't excuse. 

Another admirable trait of Burns' documentaries is that he never succumbs to the temptation of the "hagiographic." He never tries to gloss over his subject's flaws nor does he make any excuses for them. He simply allows them to be themselves, warts and all. 

And Hemingway had plenty of warts.

His mistreatment of his wives; his less than stellar treatment of his children (especially as they grew older); and his ingratitude and disloyalty to his friends and mentors—there's plenty of stuff there to hate.

Possibly the most disgusting moment in his life (featured in the third episode The Blank Page), is when Hemingway writes a scathing letter to his publishers after being asked to write a blurb for James Jones' novel From Here to Eternity. Not only did Hemingway not like it, which he makes abundantly clear in the prose (read by actor Jeff Daniels), but he tears into the book with a savageness that only a truly bitter, angry, frustrated, and insecure man would. He even goes so far as to wish that Jones would take his own life; additionally, for good measure, he tosses in several racial epithets, just to ensure the clarity of his hatred of the book and its author.

It's easily Hemingway's poorest moment, professionally, and shows just what a true motherfucker he could be. His demons were triggered and this was his response, unfortunately.

But that was Hemingway; a complicated, mess of man. A great artist and a complicated human being.

That, however, is the best thing about Burns and Novick's series. It gives you the totality of this human being. Not just the highlights, but the lowlights too. It doesn't airbrush away the ugliness and leave only the beauty. These 3 episodes (6 whole hours of excellent television), give you a truly nuanced picture of a person. For Burns and Novick to bring out this film, at this time, when our world is so divided, so binary, so lacking in leaving room for nuance is refreshing. 

It's a reminder of not just a great writer, who undoubtedly was a massive influence on anglophone and world literature, but it also serves as a reminder of the human condition. People are complicated. Everyone can do both good and bad. A great artist can also, at times, be a monster. We need more people to remember that, and films like this help us to do that.