It’s not often that I review a film with a title so long it challenges the constraints of this web site, but in the case of Jeff Zimbalist’s documentary about the American writer and ubiquitous talk show guest Norman Mailer, you need it all, including the parenthetical “a cautionary tale” because even the most ardent fan of Mailer’s writing is unlikely to recommend imitating his life.
Mailer lived quite a life, and there’s no question that he left his mark on American culture. Among other things, he co-founded The Village Voice, helped create New Journalism, wrote eleven books, and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, an Edward MacDowell Medal, and two National Book Awards. He also won a Golden Raspberry for Worst Director, allegedly head-butted Gore Vidal backstage during a taping of the Dick Cavett Show, ran a spectacularly unsuccessful campaign to the be mayor of New York City, and was convicted of assault after stabbing and nearly killing his second (out of six) wife, Adele Morales, and nearly killing her. For that little escapade, he spent 17 days under psychiatric observation in Bellevue and ultimately got a suspended sentence and served three years on probation after Morales declined to press charges, saying she wanted to protect their children.
How to Come Alive does a remarkable job capturing Mailer’s anarchic spirit—and I say remarkable because it’s constructed out of archival materials and interviews, like many absolutely conventional documentaries, and yet this one feels alive with the personality and life of its subject. Zimbalist is fortunate in his choice of subject, because there’s a lot of archival footage of Mailer (who died in 2007) available, and also plenty of people willing to be interviewed for this film, including Mailer family members as well as writers and other public figures. It’s all edited together expertly by Alannah Byrnes and fitted with an appropriate soundtrack courtesy of Jacques Brautbar.
The picture of Mailer that emerges in this film is that of a complex person who sought attention, courted controversy, and was full of contradictions, and didn’t see any of that as being particularly problematic. There’s no question that Mailer was full of himself to a remarkable degree, and got away with a lot thanks to being a white man and a celebrity. At the same time, he was often right about important matters in ways that people who confine themselves to expressing moderate and acceptable opinions will never be.
Take that ill-fated campaign for mayor in 1969, with Jimmy Breslin as his running mate: their platform was that New York City should secede from New York State and become the 51st state. It’s actually a good idea in economic terms, since the city is a huge economic donor to the state, and would also allow the city to set policies that are appropriate for a dense urban area rather than being hampered by the interference of legislators from suburban and rural areas. To take one example, it took heroic efforts to pass Sammy’s Law,* a common-sense measure allowing the city to set lower speed limits than normally allowed under state law, to improve safety in a region where a lot of people get around by walking and bicycling, and drivers are in the minority. | Sarah Boslaugh
* In case you’re wondering, the law’s name refers to a 12-year-old boy who was killed by a speeding driver near his home in Brooklyn, and whose mother campaigned for a decade to get the law passed. Mailer and Breslin wanted to go even further, banning private automobiles from Manhattan and increasing public transportation, which would substantially decrease air and noise pollution as well as improving safety for the vast majority of city residents.
How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer (a cautionary tale) is distributed on DVD by Kino Lorber. The only extra on the disc is the film’s trailer.
