Paul Goodman Changed My Life
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space Thalia Film Sundays |
  |
2011. USA. Jonathan Lee. Color/B&W. 89 min.
"The time is surely right for a Goodman revival. There are aspects of contemporary life that he anticipated and influenced - the gay rights movement, most notably - and others that are sorely in need of his wisdom.... Mr. Lee's film, in addition to making a persuasive (if partial) case for its subject's importance, also has a great story to tell, of a 20th-century life that was at once exemplary and idiosyncratic.... it has a passionate, almost prophetic sense of the impact that a writer and thinker can have on his times and the future." - A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Three Stars! Paul Goodman Changed My Life is a documentary about a man who changed mine." - Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
"The Occupy Wall Streeters could pick up a lot from Goodman's articulate demand for solutions." - Ty Burr, BOSTON GLOBE
"REVELATORY.... Perhaps it's a tribute to the breadth of Goodman's life that even after 90 minutes, it feels as if we've just scratched the surface. B+." - Sam Adams, THE ONION A.V. CLUB
"The most influential 20th-century thinker you've probably never heard of.... As bluntly humanist and free-ranging as its subject.... There's more of a need for Paul Goodmans than ever." - Mark Holcomb, THE VILLAGE VOICE
"Fascinating." - Richard B. Woodward, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
"The documentary will reawaken interest in a fascinating, multifaceted figure... Philosopher, poet, sociologist,pacifist, psychologist, writer, anarchist, open bisexual and spokesperson for a generation, Paul Goodman ranked among the most influential thinkers in the latter half of the 20th century." - Ronnie Scheib, VARIETY
Paul Goodman Changed My Life immerses you in an era of high intellect (that heady, cocktail-glass juncture that Mad Men has so effectively exploited) when New York was peaking culturally and artistically; when ideas, and the people who propounded them, seemed to punch in at a higher weight class than they do now. Using a treasure trove of archival multimedia-selections from Goodman's poetry (read by Garrison Keillor and Edmund White); quotes from Susan Sontag, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Noam Chomsky; plentiful footage of Goodman himself; plus interviews with his family, peers and activists-director/producer Jonathan Lee and producer/editor Kimberly Reed (Prodigal Sons) have woven together a rich portrait of an intellectual heavyweight whose ideas are long overdue for rediscovery.
GROWING UP ABSURD will be available as an e-book on December 3, 2011. Buy it for the Kindle or the Nook.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
