American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film (2006)

The author of such innovative works as "The Iceman Cometh" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night" Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eugene O Neill wrote 20 long plays in fewer than 25 years. Much of his writing was influenced by his troubled childhood and relationships. This AMERICAN EXPERIENCE production by award-winning director Ric Burns tells O'Neill's turbulent story from his childhood to his painful death at the age of 65.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 841887050531 Manufacturer No: 705053 Product Description

American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film

American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film

Utterly moving, well made documentary about America's first and greatest playwright. Written by Barbara and Arthur Gelb, the difinitive biographers of O'Neill. Narrated by Christopher Plummer (none finer)and both the Gelbs - with tour-de-force acting from excerpts of O'Neill's works by Al Pacino, Jason Robards, Zoe Caldwell, Liam Neeson, Robert Sean Leonard, Vanessa Redgrave. Additional narration by no less than two of the former Deans of the Yale School of Drama (arguably the finest in the country): Robert Brustien and the late Lloyd Richards. As an acting major at the Yale School of Drama(66), I had the privilege to peruse a few pages of O'Neill's original manuscripts. (O'Neill's works are housed in the Yale Bieneke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.) February 28, 2008

American Experience - Eugene O'Neill

Built around the idea of what it costs in emotional and psychological terms to be an artist, Ric Burns's captivating docu-portrait is disquieting rather than celebratory, and ultimately quite moving. O'Neill's cathartic personal struggles, like those of so many creative minds, fed into plays like "A Long Day's Journey Into Night" and "The Iceman Cometh," but exacted a hefty toll on the man himself. Kushner and theater director Brustein highlight what made O'Neill's unrelentingly savage moral vision so effective--and his technique unmatched--while Pacino, Redgrave, and Zoe Caldwell demonstrate why the finest actors always sought to interpret his works. July 18, 2007

The Pangs of Creation

It has been said that great conflict makes for great drama. The life of Eugene O'Neill is living proof of this fact. His was a life of physical, emotional, and spiritual anguish, and yet he is arguably the greatest American playwright, an artist whose work still speaks to us today. As a matter of fact, it was the very torments that he lived through that fed his genius. His Muse was his pain, and this is what this film explores in detail.

The man that we encounter in this documentary is not one who was crushed by his trials, but rather, he was a survivor, who used his experiences to create some of the greatest works of dramatic literature to ever grace a stage. He was a man who was truly dedicated to his art, and this film gives us a chance to realize and appreciate exactly what that means.

Narrated by Christopher Plummer, and drawing on interviews with playwrights and actors of today, we are given a chance to see what made Eugene O'Neill the man that he was, and to appreciate just what he has done for the American stage. It is the portrait of a tortured soul, who at the same time was a great artist. January 10, 2007

Irish in America

A wonderful presentation of O'Neill and his work. It is remarkable for someone to produce his masterpieces after he had already been awarded his Nobel prize. O'Neill was obviously an extremely complex and complicated genius of the theatre. I would quibble a bit that more could have been presented about O'Neill's relationships with wives and children. January 9, 2007

Carlotta O'Neill's cruelty

I enjoyed the Burns documentary about O'Neill a great deal, but his portraying of Carlotta was dismayingly flawed. She was increasingly horrific to O'Neill as years went on. I assume Burns was blinkered to this by the Gelbs who, in their works on O"Neill, also ignore Carlotta's near-savagery. For a detailed description of her conduct, see the book WHAT IS AN EDITOR? SAXE COMMINS AT WORK, written by Dorothy Commins. Saxe Commins was O'Neill's editor at Random House, and he saw the awful side of Carlotta up close. March 29, 2006

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