American Experience: Walt Whitman
by Mark Zwonitzer, Jamila Wignot
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Actor: Voice of Walt Whitman by Chris CooperDirector: Jamila Wignot, Mark Zwonitzer
Brand: PBS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Surround Sound, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: PBS
DVD Reviews of American Experience: Walt Whitman
DVD Review: all about some Walt!
Summary: 3 Stars
When I was in high school, English teachers would often equate Madea with the vamp in "Fatal Attraction." Equating something old with something new or current helps keep modern people's interest. This work uses that tactic by showing an 1800s New York and the current city. The work emphasizes Whitman's praise of Abraham Lincoln and this reminded me of how numerous voters have great hopes for a certain, living Senator from Illinois, if you know what I mean. Also, the word itself is emphasized here. One sees a lot of Whitman's handwriting. The narrator wouldn't just say, "A reviewer disliked the poems": there'd be a huge close-up on the word "beastly," for example.
In seeing photos from Whitman's grandfatherly senior years, or those photos in which he wears a cowboy-like hat, it is easy to note the poet's butchness. Please remember that later gay poets not only praised him for homoerotic verses, but specifically for MASCULINE, homoerotic verses. In this documentary, they show a photo in which Whitman looked quite femme. Sometimes, his eyebrows are perfectly arched and seem like they are meant to contrast with his light-colored eyes. One interviewee stated that Whitman sometimes wore pants designed for women. He was not 100% butch as some may assume.
One interviewee accurately stated that words to demarcate sexual orientation were invented in Germany when Whitman was a middle-aged man. Thus, this work often stated that the poet "liked young men," rather than stating Whitman "was gay." It places acts over an identity. Still, the word "heterosexual" was said twice and the word "homosexual" is never stated at all. Further, this documentary presents Whitman as if he were bisexual, more than gay. This could be true, but it could also be overstated. They quote a poem in which Whitman praises the looks of a woman, but they don't really suggest that he had many, or any, liaisons with women. As the work ends, the narrator states "Whitman never had a wife." Well, maybe that means something! Further, the work states that Whitman was involved with a man for three years who later left him to marry a woman. The narrator states that no photos of that man exist. However, it never names Whitman's other lovers. There is a photo of Whitman with Peter Doyle, a man assumed to be his lover in existence. They never show it. Again, this work may have been de-gayed a bit, even though it doesn't completely avoid the topic.
The American Experience typically wraps things up upon the subject's death, but there are two things that I still felt were missing. There are many modern references to Whitman and they never come up here. Remember when the Black femme gave the white, butch main character in "Two Girls in Love" a copy of "Leaves of Grass"? Whitman has been brought up on "The Simpsons" and "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." As much as this work tries to equate the past with the present, this aspect is absent. Further, while Whitman's sexual identity might not be pinned down, numerous gay authors have cited him as a mentor or idol. I can name Andre Gide, Langston Hughes, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Yukio Mishima, off the top of my head. Whitman's influence of poets who strongly identify as gay is never mentioned here.
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Description of American Experience: Walt Whitman
Studio: Pbs Release Date: 05/04/2009 Run time: 120 minutesBestsellers in DVD
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