DDC’s premium production services are on display in a new documentary about the American literary icon Norman Mailer. Directed by the Emmy Award-winning filmmaker - and longtime DDC collaborator - Jeff Zimbalist, this intimate biography explores Mailer's complex persona through his thought-provoking philosophies about life.
‘How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer’ premiered to acclaim at the most recent DOC NYC festival, and has been nominated for Best Feature Documentary or Mini-Series at the 2023 International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards. The film is also scheduled for a theatrical run starting June 28th in New York, with additional dates available on the Zeitgeist Films website.
As part of the DDC production crew that supported Director of Photography Guy Livneh over three weeks of production during the spring of 2022, I’m personally proud of our contributions to this documentary that vividly captures Mailer’s complex life and legacy.
For the better part of the 20th century, Norman Mailer was a giant of pop culture—a figure whose own journey could easily be the basis for an extraordinary work of fiction. Propelled by his tremendous ego and contrarian spirit, Mailer’s ceaseless visibility in the public eye spanned six decades, marked by six tumultuous marriages, nine beloved children, eleven bestsellers, three arrests, and two Pulitzer Prizes. A prophet, hedonist, literary outlaw, and social provocateur, Mailer’s ideas about love, anger, fear, and courage resonate profoundly in today’s world.
The documentary features over a dozen interviews with members of Mailer's family, friends, fellow writers, and literary critics, revealing intimate and never-before-seen footage, outtakes, audio recordings, and interviews spanning his life. Mailer’s challenging persona is laid bare, flaws and all, portraying him not just as a literary figure but as a lover, fighter, and artist who pushed boundaries to their breaking point.
“Making a film about such a person seems nearly impossible in our nuance-averse climate. But Zimbalist hits on a great idea: arrange the film in terms of what Mailer’s friends, enemies and acquaintances believe his “rules for coming alive” might be. The author’s life and legacy can thus be traced throughout those rules, and his evolution as a person — a model for how to reimagine a standard documentary structure to accommodate a multifaceted subject... a study in how not to live, but also in how to come alive.”
- NY Times
As we eagerly await How to Come Alive’s broader release, we are proud to have been part of this film that strives to capture what made Norman Mailer a unique and indelible figure in American life.
We look forward to working with you on our next award-winning film!
