Of interest to Samuel R. Delany fans
I sent Fred Barney Taylor, director of The Polymath, a link to my review yesterday and he has replied with some comments on the film's structure. Reproduced here with his permission.
A note on the "scarcity" of science fiction material:
The whole thrust of the film is that Chip is indeed, a "Polymath," with many sides to both himself and his writing. To this end I tried to include one, and one only, example of four writing genres.
Atlantis was used as an example of "Literature." The Motion of Light in Water was used as an exemplar of "Autobiography," and Times Square Red, Times Square Blue covered non-fiction. Dhalgren, the longest sequence in the film, was the obvious choice for "Science Fiction," especially because it related so well to other elements of Chip's work.
Chip does talk about his early science fiction writing in the first "hospital" sequence, and there are images of sci-fi book covers towards the back end of the film.
An extremely difficult part about making The Polymath was the choice of what to leave in and what to leave out. Chip has enough interesting material for several films and the time limitation imposed by the documentary form made these decision especially difficult.
Hence the bonus disc, where there is a long segment about his entry into the science fiction field as a young man and another segment on the "definition" of the genre of science fiction.
Another important aspect is that The Polymath was not intended as a standard historical biography that covered his life in chronological order, but rather an attempt to provide a cinematic experience that somehow suggested the depth and complexity of both the man and his writing.
I hope this is helpful.
A note on the "scarcity" of science fiction material:
The whole thrust of the film is that Chip is indeed, a "Polymath," with many sides to both himself and his writing. To this end I tried to include one, and one only, example of four writing genres.
Atlantis was used as an example of "Literature." The Motion of Light in Water was used as an exemplar of "Autobiography," and Times Square Red, Times Square Blue covered non-fiction. Dhalgren, the longest sequence in the film, was the obvious choice for "Science Fiction," especially because it related so well to other elements of Chip's work.
Chip does talk about his early science fiction writing in the first "hospital" sequence, and there are images of sci-fi book covers towards the back end of the film.
An extremely difficult part about making The Polymath was the choice of what to leave in and what to leave out. Chip has enough interesting material for several films and the time limitation imposed by the documentary form made these decision especially difficult.
Hence the bonus disc, where there is a long segment about his entry into the science fiction field as a young man and another segment on the "definition" of the genre of science fiction.
Another important aspect is that The Polymath was not intended as a standard historical biography that covered his life in chronological order, but rather an attempt to provide a cinematic experience that somehow suggested the depth and complexity of both the man and his writing.
I hope this is helpful.