The Quarantine Stream: ‘Hemingway’ Strives to Deconstruct the Self-Created Myth of Ernest Hemingway
Posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2021 by Chris Evangelista
(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a series where the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
The Movie: Hemingway
Where You Can Stream It: PBS
The Pitch: A six-hour, three-part documentary from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that explores the life and work of Ernest Hemingway.
Why It’s Essential Quarantine Viewing: Ernest Hemingway is a literary giant. With his terse, minimalist prose he changed the face of American writing, influencing countless writers for years to come. His contribution to the printed page cannot be ignored. But for all his greatness he was also a deeply flawed man – someone who built up his own self-image of a man’s man who liked to fight, drink, and hunt. Despite being inflicted by the horrors of World War I, he reveled in bloodshed. And despite his rigid writing schedule, he created a life of chaos – a life of constant movement, where he would burn through wives, endure multiple head injuries, and ultimately die by suicide.
