"Hemingway" by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

Last night I watched the first episode of this fine work by the astonishing Ken Burns and his co-producer of recent times, Lynn Novick.

Hemingway

Directed by Ken Burns

Lynn Novick

Narrated by Peter Coyote

How could any documentary serries about this giant of early twentieth century American literature be less than engrossing? I'm hooked on it and must view the other two episodes very soon despite the pressing need to keep up with the Olympics in these grim times.

But the grim times we face are as nothing compared with what Hemingway lived through in WW1, and with what films by Ken Burns and his various teams have documented over the years since I first saw his immense series "The Civil War" (1990).

So I write this piece as a tribute to both Hemingway, great writer, remarkable person, contentious figure... and Ken Burns, magnificent prolific documentarist.

What a contribution Burns has made to my life. Here's a list of his credits from Wikipedia since1981:

• Brooklyn Bridge (1981)^[a]
• The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984)^[a]
• The Statue of Liberty (1985)^[a]
• Huey Long (1985)^[a]
• The Congress (1988)^[a]
• Thomas Hart Benton (1988)^[a]
• The Civil War (1990; 9 episodes)^[a]
• Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1992)
• Baseball (1994; 9 episodes – updated with The Tenth Inning in 2010, with Lynn Novick)
• Thomas Jefferson (1997)
• Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery (1997)
• Frank Lloyd Wright (1998, with Lynn Novick)^[54]
• Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony (1999)^[55]
• Jazz (2001; 10 episodes)^[56]
• Mark Twain (2001)
• Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip (2003)^[57]
• Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2005)^[58]
• The War (2007, with Lynn Novick; 7 episodes)
• The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009; 6 episodes)
• Prohibition (2011, with Lynn Novick; 3 episodes)^[59]
• The Dust Bowl (2012; 4 episodes)^[60]
• The Central Park Five (2012, with Sarah Burns and David McMahon)^[61]
• Yosemite: A Gathering of Spirit (2013)^[62]
• The Address (2014)^[63]
• The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (2014; 7 episodes)^[61][64]
• Jackie Robinson (2016, with Sarah Burns and David McMahon; 2 episodes)^[65]
• Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War (2016, with Artemis Joukowsky)^[66]
• The Vietnam War (2017, with Lynn Novick; 10 episodes)^[67]
• The Mayo Clinic: Faith – Hope – Science (2018, with Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers)
• Country Music (2019, 8 episodes)^[68]
• Hemingway (2021, with Lynn Novick; 3 episodes)^[69]

Of course I have only seen a few of these titles...  

"The Civil War",

 "Jazz", 

"Lewis and Clark",  

"Mark Twain", 

"The Dust Bowl", 

"The Vietnam War", 

and now the first part of "Hemingway".

 

What is consisent in all of these series is the intensity and dedication to detail which Burns and his team bring to each one. I never feel they are skimming or short-changing the viewer by careless research or failing to address difficult issues. They always make a huge effort to be "even handed" rather than coming down on one side against the other in any situation, most notably in "The Vietnam War". What a piece of work, devasting to view, too horrific to contemplate, and yet this team had to live with its horrors for years while producing it.

There are some similarities between how Burns has approached the lives of Hemingway and Mark Twain. Of course each of these giants lived lives which drew reactions from all sides. It's clear that for Burns they are heroes of his despite any criticisms which may be levelled, and are levelled against them. These portraits are 'warts and all', they never gloss over, there's no air-brush technique employed here.

Then there's Hemingway himself. I have not read any of his work since about 1970, but prior to that I read "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Old Man and the Sea". I have also read some short stories and snatches of his other novels, all a long time ago when I read a lot more than I do now... sadly.

I loved his writing. I don't need to add any comments to the huge list of accolades he has received since the very beginning of his literary career. He is a giant of American literature, a master of style. I have many other heroes from those days when I was a serious reader, voracious, alas no longer, very lazy these days.

What is it about this America? What is this nation which is so great and so shabby at the same time? An incredibly divided and conflicted country which can produce the worst atrocities and the greatest writers and an astonishing range of music. Profoundly modern and yet caught up in an historical quagmire of their own making? Reaching for the stars while at the same time destroying the Earth?

All of these are very human anomalies but much more conspicuous than in most other nations. And out of all this mess of contradiction they produce writers like  James Fennimore Cooper, E.A Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Raymond Chandler, Dash Hammett.... so many others, the list is just too long.

I just cannot keep up with them all. Is it possible that what makes them great is the very great contradiction posed by the extremes they encounter in their nation, just trying to make sense of it all? Just trying to come to terms with it?

Just as many of the documentaries by Ken Burns and his various teams over the years have tried valiantly to come to terms with the enormity of American history and culture. Such a rich tradition of investigation and telling it like it is.

And let's not forget:

Pennybaker/Leacock

The Maysles Brothers

Frederick Wiseman

Errol Morris

Michael Murphy

And so many others whose names I can hardly keep up with.

To end this little rave, I have mentioned to my friend Bill Mousoulis how much I loved a work about Marlon Brando called

"Listen To me Marlon"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listen_to_Me_Marlon

The Village Voice calls it "a masterpiece"^[9] and David Edelstein lists it as "the greatest, most searching documentary of an actor ever put on film."^[10] According to Vanity Fair, it "is a compelling documentary about Marlon Brando compiled entirely from private audio tapes the actor recorded at home, in business meetings, during hypnosis, in therapy, and during press interviews."^[11]

Variety writes Brando's "complexity is limned as well as a documentary possibly could manage... Made with the full cooperation of the Brando estate, the pic is a superbly crafted collage whose soundtrack is as complexly textured as the curation and editing of visual elements."^[12] As Rolling Stone magazine summed it up, "You want Brando Confidential? Fine, you've got it."^[13]

If you have not seen this fine work please consider! It's available via Prime Amazon for those who can keep up with everything.

Over and out!

pt

 

From my friend Ade Bruch, a response to the Aeon post on 2b pencils

 PT,   

I loved the gift from Aeon but here are the pencils I use...

I wrote to Ade... 

Sad to see you letting the side down Ade... all these modern contraptions, make life easy and such.

A very great Australian once said life wasnt meant to be easy, and he made sure it wasn't! His successors are doing a good job of making it much worse.

He responded thus:

I am a fountain pen man and love the smell of ink. 

Am I forgiven? I remember taking offence when Malcolm said that…it may not be easy but it ought to be fair.

cheers Ade

To which I replied:

Well, I also like drawings done in ink but never fell under the sway of its odour!

Yes, it was offensive, especially coming from someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But you may have noticed Adrian, politicians are very slow learners. 

There are many in his party today who are just like him.

Anyway, I'm glad to know you are an egalitarian.

Next thing you know this arrived in my mail:

Jack Ziegler

What more can I say?

Thanks Adrian, it's a beauty!

PT

"Two Wonders Of The Ancient World"

The Colossus of Rhodes and The Pharos

In 1987 there was a story in a local newspaper about a woman who claimed to have discovered the site of “The Colossus of Rhodes”, a giant statue which vanished from sight about 2,200 years ago.

In this article from “The Sun” (Jan 2,1987) journalist Rick Burnett writes that Mrs. Anne Dankbaar of Adelaide claims to have located “the lost wonder of the world”, and that a search for the statue based upon her directions is said to have been successful.

The article also comments that the University of Adelaide says she has “very significant paranormal powers” and has used these psychic powers to find three large pieces of the 2000 year old bronze statue.

I’m so pleased I kept that page of that newspaper from 1987 because it raises many questions relating to the past: the recording of the events under the banner of “HISTORY”... vagaries in the historical record (including the disappearance of very large object such as the Colossus), inaccuracies of recording and interpreting history, the flimsy connection between primary historical records and history as mythology, also the power that news media has in our modern world, the power to distort any old story which comes along (such as the one I have quoted) and then, of course, the mystery of how psychics can unearth missing objects and missing people when nobody else can do so.

The long and the short of this is that the newspaper account led me to revise my misty memories of the Colossus and the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”.

Please forgive me dear reader, I don’t wish to add a single word on the Pyramids! Yes, they are all wonders, for sure, but they’ve been extremely well covered and don’t need any further comment from me. They get a lot of attention, there’s actually a sort of “Pyramid Industry” dedicated to everything pyramidal.

So that leaves “6 Wonders of the Ancient World”. 

Well, let’s remove four of these from the list, not because they are not important but because I have not researched them very much and they have not occupied my mind like the remaining two: “The Colossus of Rhodes” and “The Lighthouse of Alexandria”.

These last two wonders were erected to serve as beacons for sailing ships of their day. The Lighthouse of Alexandria was built about 280 BC when the kingdom  of Alexander the Great was divided among his generals. In the carve up of Alexander’s empire Ptolemy got Egypt and construction of the lighthouse commenced in his reign. It was completed by his son Ptolemy II, “Philadelphus”.

From Wikipedia:

For many centuries it was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world. The lighthouse was partially cracked and damaged by earthquakes in 796 AD and also in 951, followed by structural collapse in the earthquake of 956, and then again in 1303 and 1323, and finally it became an abandoned ruin. 

The Colossus of Rhodes was erected in a similar period between 292-280 BC, standing at the entrance to the harbour of Rhodes. The architect was Chares of Lindos. As it was destroyed by earthquake in 226 BC it only remained upright for 54 years after its completion. Significant damage was also done to large portions of the city, including the harbour and commercial buildings which were destroyed.

The statue snapped at the knees and fell onto the land. Ptolemy III offered to pay for the reconstruction of the statue but the Rhodians declined to rebuild it, believing the oracle of Delphi’s warning that to move it would bring misfortune upon the city.

Clearly there should be many more records available concerning the Lighthouse of Alexandria. As it survived for about 1200 years it would have been visited by many more visitors who might have written historical observations about it, including their own interpretations of its history. We can only hope that any such records would have been accurate.

On the other hand, as the lifespan of the Colossus was only 54 years it would have received far fewer visitors so you would expect records and descriptions by “eye-witnesses” to be rare. In fact this is the case:

Strabo (c. 64 BCE - 24 CE) in his Geography (14.2.5) said the statue 

snapped at the knees and then lay forlorn and untouched because the 

locals believed the great oracle of Delphi’s prediction that to 

move it would bring misfortune on the city. 

Whatever else Strabo wrote about it was recorded almost 200 years after the statue fell. Are there any extant accounts from other people who were alive while it was standing? I don’t think so.

The project would not be finished until c. 280 BCE, and as the 1st-century CE Roman writer Pliny the Elder noted, it cost 300 talents and took at least 12 years to complete the bronze figure which stood some 70 cubits or 33 metres (108 ft) high.  

Please note that Pliny the Elder died at Pompeii in 79 AD after Vesuvius erupted! So whatever he might have picked up and written about the Colossus was written approximately 250 years after it had collapsed.

Pliny says the Colossus was 70 cubits or 33 metres (108 ft) high:

 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/colossus-of-rhodes

Compare this with the Statue of Liberty: from ground level to torch: 93 meters.

Height of the copper statue to torch: 46 meters 

If we exclude the height of the base of each of these statues, the Colossus was approx ⅔ rd the height of the Liberty. Each of these two statues held a torch aloft which would have served as a beacon for sailors, similar in purpose to the fire which was burning at the top of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Lighthouse at Alexandria was built about 280 BC and served as a functioning lighthouse for many years. About 250 years after its completion Julius Caesar was involved in warfare in the vicinity of the lighthouse and the Great Library of Alexandria. 

At its apex was a mirror which reflected sunlight during the day; a fire was lit at night. Let’s compare the Colossus and the Pharos side-by-side for height.

Colossus: 33m high, Pharos estimated between 103 and 118 m high  

Pedestal: 15m high

Total height 58m

Arab writers' descriptions of the lighthouse are consistent despite it undergoing several repairs after earthquake damage. Given heights vary only fifteen percent from c. 103 to 118 m (338 to 387 ft), on a 30 by 30 m (98 by 98 ft) square base.[1]

As you can see from these estimates the tip of the Colossus was only about half the height of the Pharos. Now let’s compare these with the Statue of Liberty: 

The height of the copper statue to base to the torch, 46 meters 

From ground level to the torch, 93 meters.

Of the three the Pharos was taller than Liberty by 10 - 25 m.

The Colossus was much smaller (2/3rds) but in some ways was the more ambitious attempt.

The Final days of The Colossus:

Around 654 CE, according to the Byzantine historian Theophanes (c. 758 - c. 817 CE), when Rhodes was occupied by the Muslims of the Umayyad Caliphate, a Jewish merchant from the city of Edessa in upper Mesopotamia bought the bronze wreckage of the Colossus to melt down and reuse the metal, transporting it to the East using 900 camels.

To put all these thoughts into perspective, let’s take the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy, a colossus of our time which may take humans to Mars if Elon has his way, and he probably will...

Okay dear reader, as you can see this essay is not even close to completion, it really is just a sort of sketch for an essay, a much larger essay which I’ll never get to finish.

“What can we ever really know about something from the past?” 

If we say we know there was once a statue called “The Colossus of Rhodes” built at the entrance to Rhodes harbour in the ancient world of say 200 BC, how accurate is our knowledge of this historical event?

We find more accurate details such as records describing the PHAROS over a much longer timespan. We know a great deal more about the Pharos than about the Colossus, although there are some conflicting details in the accounts.

As you can see, I can’t help myself when it comes to stories of the paranormal and Mrs. Anne Dankbaar’s claim to have found the resting place of the Colossus, also the shabby journalism which reported her claim.

pt

Extra notes I found along the way...

Julius Caesar, in his Civil Wars (Part III, 111–112), describes the Pharos and its strategic importance. Gaining control of the lighthouse helped him subdue Ptolemy XIII's armies (48 BC):

Now because of the narrowness of the strait there can be no access by ship to the harbour without the consent of those who hold the Pharos. In view of this, Caesar took the precaution of landing his troops while the enemy was preoccupied with fighting, seized the Pharos and posted a garrison there. The result was that safe access was secured for his corn supplies and reinforcements.

— Caesar, b.civ. 3.112 ??;

 

The fullest description of the lighthouse comes from Arab traveler Abou Haggag Youssef Ibn Mohammed el-Balawi el-Andaloussi, who visited Alexandria in 1166 AD.[14] Balawi provided description and measurement of the interior of the lighthouse's rectangular shaft. The inner ramp was described as roofed with masonry at 7 shibr (189 cm, 6.2 ft) noted as to allow two horsemen to pass at once. In clockwise rotation, the ramp held four stories with eighteen, fourteen, and seventeen rooms on the second, third, and fourth floors, respectively. Balawai accounted the base of the lighthouse to be 45 ba (30 m, 100 ft) long on each side with connecting ramp 600 dhira (300 m, 984 ft) long by 20 dhira (10 m, 32 ft) wide. The octangle section is accounted at 24 ba (16.4 m, 54 ft) in width, and the diameter of the cylindrical section is accounted at 12.73 ba (8.7 m, 28.5 ft). The apex of the lighthouse's oratory was measured with diameter 6.4 ba (4.3 m 20.9 ft).[15]

The Arab authors indicate that the lighthouse was constructed from large blocks of light-coloured stone. The tower was made up of three tapering tiers: a lower square section with a central core; a middle octagonal section; and, at the top, a circular section.[citation needed] 

Al-Masudi wrote in the 10th century that the seaward-facing side featured an inscription dedicated to Zeus.[16] 

Geographer Al-Idrisi visited the lighthouse in 1154 and noted openings in the walls throughout the rectangular shaft with lead used as a filling agent in between the masonry blocks at the base. He reckoned the total height of the lighthouse to be 300 dhira rashashl (162 m).[15]