Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen | |
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Directed by | John Mulholland |
Written by | John Mulholland |
Produced by | Richard Zampella |
Narrated by | Sam Waterston Len Cariou |
Cinematography | Alex Eaton |
Edited by | William Wells Elwaldo Baptiste |
Music by | Byron Janis |
Release date |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen is a 2013 documentary film about the 20-year friendship between writer Ernest Hemingway and film actor Gary Cooper. Written and directed by John Mulholland, [1] it is narrated by actor Sam Waterston with actor Len Cariou as the voice of writer Ernest Hemingway.
In researching Gary Cooper's friendship with Ernest Hemingway for an article in the Idaho Press-Tribune , [2] writer/director John Mulholland grew increasingly fascinated by their unlikely friendship. [3] The documentary, Cooper & Hemingway: True Gen, grew out of Mulholland's research for the article.
Prior to commencing production, Robert Osborne interviewed Mulholland on the documentary at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. [4]
Gary Cooper's daughter, Maria Cooper, discussed True Gen with the Idaho Mountain Express before a rough cut screening in Sun Valley: "Though Ernest Hemingway’s extraordinary life and career has been exhaustively covered (too often the tabloid-sensationalism of this coverage has over-shadowed his unrivaled literary legacy), less thoroughly examined has been his fascinating friendship with my father, Gary Cooper". [5]
The documentary was produced over a five-year period and features on-camera interviews with 30 subjects, including Jim Harrison, Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Elmore Leonard, Robert Stack, Budd Schulberg, Bill Blass, Patrick Hemingway, and George Plimpton.
While researching True Gen in Cuba, Mulholland spoke on Cuban radio in Havana. [6]
Prior to the film's release, Mulholland spoke about his Cooper and Hemingway documentary and its expected late 2013 release: "In the final analysis, what distinguishes the film is access—access to the colleagues and members of Ernest Hemingway’s and Gary Cooper’s inner circle that have never been assembled to discuss the lives of these two men, as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has never been seen."
On October 11, 2013, Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen had its theatrical premiere at The Quad Cinema in New York City. [7] The film is a feature-length documentary about the friendship between Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper. It was directed and written by John Mulholland and produced by Richard Zampella. [8]
Film critics hold diverse and wide-ranging opinions of the film.
The film was reviewed by The New York Times film critic Andy Webster on October 11, 2013 and was named an NY Times Critics’ Pic [9] by Manohla Dargis, A. O. Scott and Stephen Holden. Webster said the picture was proof that the work of these two men "endures and so does what they stood for". [10]
James Van Maanen, film critic for Trust Movies, called the film "a first class, dual celebrity bio-doc". [11]
Michael Nordine of the Village Voice said that the film was informative to a fault, [12] while Robert Abele of the Los Angeles Times said, "There's an intriguing investigation to be made of the unlikely bond between an easygoing, friendly Hollywood conservative and an intemperate, hard-drinking arts-and-letters liberal who chewed on heroic ideals for a living." [13]
In author and scholar Ron McFarland's 2014 book on Ernest Hemingway he writes: "True Gen, written and directed by John Mulholland, is exceptional, a NY Times Critics Pick, it opened in 2013 to considerable fanfare in NYC ..." [14]
Gary Cooper was an American actor known for his strong, quiet screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, as well as an Academy Honorary Award in 1961 for his career achievements. He was one of the top-10 film personalities for 23 consecutive years and one of the top money-making stars for 18 years. The American Film Institute (AFI) ranked Cooper at number 11 on its list of the 25 greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
Ketchum is a city in Blaine County, Idaho, United States. Located in the central part of the state, the population was 3,555 at the 2020 census, up from 2,689 in 2010. Located in the Wood River Valley, Ketchum is adjacent to Sun Valley and the communities share many resources: both sit in the same valley beneath Bald Mountain, with its skiing. The city also draws tourists to its fishing, hiking, trail riding, tennis, shopping, art galleries, and more. The airport for Ketchum, Friedman Memorial Airport, is approximately 15 miles (24 km) south in Hailey.
Margaux Louise Hemingway was an American fashion model and actress. The granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway, she gained independent fame as a supermodel in the 1970s, appearing on the covers of magazines including Cosmopolitan, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and Time. Her younger sister Mariel is a well-known Hollywood actress.
Mariel Hemingway is an American actress. She began acting at age 14 with a Golden Globe-nominated breakout role in Lipstick (1976), and she received Academy and BAFTA Award nominations for her performance in Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979).
Green Hills of Africa is a 1935 work of nonfiction by American writer Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's second work of nonfiction, Green Hills of Africa is an account of a month on safari he and his wife, Pauline Marie Pfeiffer, took in East Africa during December 1933. Green Hills of Africa is divided into four parts: "Pursuit and Conversation", "Pursuit Remembered", "Pursuit and Failure", and "Pursuit as Happiness", each of which plays a different role in the story.
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway is a 1993 American romantic drama film written by Steve Conrad and directed by Randa Haines, starring Richard Harris, Robert Duvall, Sandra Bullock, Shirley MacLaine, and Piper Laurie. The film is about two elderly men in Florida who form a friendship and the romantic relationships they have with the women in their respective lives. Wrestling Ernest Hemingway garnered mixed reviews from critics, praising the performances but criticized the overly melodramatic and sentimental direction of the plot. It was also a box-office bomb, grossing $278,720 against a $20 million budget.
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a British television series first aired by BBC in 1965, based on the 1940 novel by Ernest Hemingway. It stars John Ronane, Ann Bell, Julian Curry, Glynn Edwards and Joan Miller. The film was adapted for television by Giles Cooper, was produced by Douglas Allen, and was directed by Rex Tucker. It consisted of four 45-minute episodes, the first of which aired on 2 October 1965. The last episode aired 23 October 1965. According to the BBC archives none of the episodes of the film still exist.
Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man is a 1962 American adventure film directed by Martin Ritt based on Ernest Hemingway's semi-autobiographical character Nick Adams, and featuring Richard Beymer as Adams. A.E. Hotchner wrote the screenplay, originally calling the film Ernest Hemingway's "Young Man". The cast includes Diane Baker, Jessica Tandy, Ricardo Montalbán, Eli Wallach, Arthur Kennedy and Paul Newman. It was released in July 1962.
John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway was a Canadian-American fly fisherman, conservationist, and writer. He was the son of American novelist and Nobel Prize-laureate Ernest Hemingway.
A Farewell to Arms is a 1957 American epic war drama film directed by Charles Vidor. The screenplay by Ben Hecht, based in part on a 1930 play by Laurence Stallings, was the second feature-film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's 1929 semiautobiographical novel of the same name. It was the last film produced by David O. Selznick.
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.
Dree Louise Crisman Hemingway is an American fashion model and actress. She gained attention playing the lead in American director Sean Baker's feature Starlet (2012). She has since become known for her high-profile fashion campaigns and her extensive work in independent film.
Patrick Miller Hemingway is an American wildlife manager and writer who is novelist Ernest Hemingway's second son, and the first born to Hemingway's second wife Pauline Pfeiffer. During his childhood he travelled frequently with his parents, and then attended Harvard University, graduated in 1950, and shortly thereafter moved to East Africa where he lived for 25 years. In Tanzania, Patrick was a professional big-game hunter and for over a decade he owned a safari business. In the 1960s he was appointed by the United Nations to the Wildlife Management College in Tanzania as a teacher of conservation and wildlife. In the 1970s he moved to Montana where he managed the intellectual property of his father's estate. He edited his father's unpublished novel about a 1950s safari to Africa and published it with the title True at First Light (1999).
Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is a 2015 Canadian-American biographical film. It was written by Denne Bart Petitclerc, and directed by Bob Yari. The film is based on events from Ernest Hemingway's life in Havana, Cuba in the 1950s, and on a friendship that developed there between Hemingway and Petitclerc, who was then a young journalist. The film received generally unfavorable reviews.
John Mulholland is a film historian and an American writer and director, specializing in documentaries. He was born in New York City, where he still lives. Mulholland's most recent documentary is Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen, exploring the 20-year friendship between actor Gary Cooper and author Ernest Hemingway.
Birth of the Living Dead is a 2012 American documentary film directed by Rob Kuhns. It is about the 1968 horror film Night of the Living Dead and that film's legacy. It features interviews with Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero, Elvis Mitchell, Jason Zinoman, Larry Fessenden, Gale Anne Hurd, and Mark Harris.
Richard Zampella is an American film and multimedia producer who has collaborated with John Mulholland on three documentary films including Sergeant York of God & Country, Inside High Noon and Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen, narrated by Sam Waterston. Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen was reviewed by The New York Times film critic Andy Webster on October 11, 2013, and was named an NY Times Critics' Pick by Manohla Dargis, A. O. Scott and Stephen Holden. Webster said the picture was proof that the work of these two men "endures and so does what they stood for".
Fantastic Fungi is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Louie Schwartzberg. The film combines time-lapse cinematography, CGI, and interviews in an overview of the biology, environmental roles, and various uses of fungi. The film features interview segments with Paul Stamets and Michael Pollan, and is narrated by Brie Larson.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was an American television play broadcast in two parts on March 12 and March 19, 1959, as part of the CBS television series, Playhouse 90. It is a television adaptation of the 1940 novel by Ernest Hemingway. John Frankenheimer was the director. The cast included Jason Robards, Maria Schell, and Maureen Stapleton.
Hemingway is a documentary film on the life of Ernest Hemingway produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. It first aired on PBS in April 2021.