Tennessee Williams: A Portrait in Laughter and Lamentation

by Harry Rasky

This is a story of the making of a friendship and a film. In the process, there emerges a dynamic, vibrant portrait of the man who is widely recognized as America's greatest playwright. When Harry Rasky, one of the most prolific and innovative documentary filmmakers, persuaded Tennessee Williams to become a subject of a film, Rasky stated in the opening narrative, In a sense this is a memory play about Tennessee Williams. What he once called the past, the present and the perhaps. Rasky recognized that he would have to find where William's head was. This is the story of how he went about doing just that, replete with all the laughter and lamentations that were experienced by them both in the process.

Genres: Nonfiction

148 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Rick Patterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harry Rasky, a considerable artist in his own right, manages to pull off a deft magic trick with this memoir of Tennessee Williams. By claiming to not understand the playwright, by scrupulously recording much of what passed between them in their relationship, by putting himself in the frame as often as not, Rasky convinces us that he does, in fact (and in love), get Williams very very well indeed.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't biography or a memoir, the title calls it a portrait and I think that's accurate--a portait of Williams late in his life, still striving, still trying. Rasky made a documentary about Tennessee Williams and this book relates their interactions during the filming and for the rest of Williams' life. It's a good book for fans of Williams' and I am one of those.

[Isaac Timm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of a friendship, no scandal or dirt, just a good conversation between a film maker and a playwright/poet

[Velvetink]

$1.50 Salvos