Hemingway episode 1

Hemingway episode 1

Hemingway episode 1: The great American writer, and the brilliant, charismatic and complicated man behind the myth. A host of stars read his work in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s definitive portrait.


 

 



Ernest Hemingway is considered to be one of the great American writers, with his work remaining influential around the world. This documentary series paints an intimate picture of Hemingway the writer, whilst also penetrating the myths surrounding him to reveal a deeply troubled, controversial and ultimately tragic figure.

The series combines a close study of the biographical events of the author’s life, with excerpts from his writings and the controversies in both his personal life and work. It features readings by actors including Jeff Daniels, Meryl Streep, Keri Russell and Patricia Clarkson alongside interviews with acclaimed writers and biographers including Edna O’Brien, Tobias Wolff, Abraham Verghese and Mary Dearborn.

In the first episode, Ernest Hemingway enjoys an idyllic childhood in Oak Park, Illinois. Yearning for adventure, he volunteers for the Red Cross during World War I. After the war, Hemingway marries Hadley Richardson, moves to Paris and begins his life as a writer.

Hemingway episode 1

Ernest Miller Hemingway 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, while his adventurous lifestyle and his public image brought him admiration from later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. He published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction works. Three of his novels, four short-story collections, and three nonfiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.

Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he was a reporter for a few months for The Kansas City Star before leaving for the Italian Front to enlist as an ambulance driver in World War I. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms (1929).

In 1921, Hemingway married Hadley Richardson, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s’ “Lost Generation” expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926. He divorced Richardson in 1927. He married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), which he covered as a journalist and which was the basis for his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris.

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