Sep 11, 2020 - Politics & Policy

"Hemingway" documentary coming to PBS

Ernest Hemingway on the fishing boat Anita, circa 1929. Courtesy of Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, via PBS
Ernest Hemingway on the fishing boat Anita, circa 1929. Courtesy of Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, via PBS

Ernest Hemingway — one of the greatest American writers, and among the first to live and work at the treacherous nexus of art and celebrity — is the subject of a three-part, six-hour documentary series directed by award-winning filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, coming to prime time on PBS, April 5 to 7.

What they're saying: PBS says in a release that the filmmakers "were granted unusually open access to the treasure trove of Hemingway’s manuscripts, correspondence, scrapbooks and photographs housed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston":

  • "[T]he series features an all-star cast of actors bringing Hemingway (voiced by Jeff Daniels), his friends and family vividly to life. Through letters to and from his four wives — voiced by Meryl Streep, Keri Russell, Mary Louise Parker and Patricia Clarkson — the film reveals Hemingway at his most romantic and his most vulnerable, grappling at times with insecurity, anxiety and existential loneliness."

See a trailer.

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