Plimpton! (1 Viewer)

[Bob Magaw]

An 83 minute doc. and latest entry from the outstanding PBS American Masters series. I knew of him from Paper Lion, but had no idea how sprawling his body of work was, which he called Participatory Journalism (it no doubt helped that he was frequently on assignment for Sports Illustrated). He boxed Archie Moore, pitched to Willie Mays in an All Star game (and got him to pop up), was a goalie for the Rangers. Plimpton also co-founded (and was I think the publisher and chief editor for decades, until his death) the prestigious literary quarterly, the Paris Review, and befriended the notoriously reticent Hemingway to get a rare interview. He was a friend of JFK and Bobby Kennedy, and also one of the people that tackled and disarmed Sirhan Sirhan after he assasinated Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Pasadena (I think Rams Fearsome Foursome great Rosey Grier was also there). While he never wrote or talked about it in public after, they play a recording of his police interview.

Interesting character, who in a way got to live many lives, he had a voracious, protean appetite for different professional experiences, though it caused some critics to label him a dilettante. Paper Lion was a publishing sensation and best-seller - he seemed to have an "Everyman" appeal even in faIlure for so many that had imagined what it would be like to be a professional athlete. Somewhat enigmatically, he was incredibly gregarious and loved meeting new people and parties to a fault, yet some family members talked about how he was difficult to get to know closely.

Plimpton tried hard to convey to outsiders a sense of the intricacies, codes and nuances of each unique profession with every assignment/experience, but some unsympathetic critics thought/felt that in the end, they tended to be variations of stories about... himself (and therefore while the initial impetus of participatory journalism might have been interesting and valid within its stated aims and circumscribed turf, it eventually became stale, formulaic, too limited and constraining as a vehicle, and that he became imprisoned stylistically).

Highly recommended (especially if you are a fan of sports or sports journalism).

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/george-plimpton/film-plimpton-starring-george-plimpton-as-himself/2946/

 

[Jeff Vader]

I always loved his classic April Fool's gag, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch.

It's a must read.

 

[Bob Magaw]

Thanks, I'll check that out.

I've never read Paper Lion, but it was called at the time (by the WSJ, I think), the best book on football ever written. The "novel" was an expanded version of a two part story that appeared in consecutive weeks of Sports Illustrated in September of 1964 (below).

Zero of the Lions (9-7-64)

http://si.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1076329/index.htm

'hut-two-three...ugh!' (9-14-64)

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1076352/index.htm?eref=sircrc

Plimpton was also hailed by Tom Wolfe as being in the vanguard of a new kind of journalism/literature, a nonfiction novel, as it were (which Wolfe himself was included in, with works like Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and The Right Stuff). Also, through his literary taste and editorial sensibility, he reportedly practically invented a new genre of a Platonic ideal, stylized kind of interview which became very influential. Below are simultaneous examples of both his interview and writing skills, on the subject of the nonfiction novel form, discussing In Cold Blood with author Truman Capote.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/28/home/capote-interview.html

 

[Christo]

Love Paper Lion