Lovecraft Documentary
For all the Lovecraft fans out there, this is an excellent documentary on the life and work of H.P.Lovecraft, with interviews to numerous authors and directors (who — mostly — say meaningful and interesting stuff about Lovecraft’s work). Actually, it is a great introduction for all those that have heard nothing or close to nothing about the recluse of Providence and have no time (or interest) to read all of his work.
I watched it yesterday evening and made me realize how much my teenage years (let me thank my brother for this, who, for my 11th birthday, gave me Lovecraft complete works) and my subsequent intellectual interests, have been influenced by his work (and the work of others early 20th century sci-fi and fantasy writers: one name on all others W.H.Hodgson). As I observed before, it is uncanny how Lovecraft can be said to be the veritable literary godfather of certain sectors of the current philosophical scene (even if, for my taste, one should always be careful of importing into intellectual discourse only some of Lovecraft’s suggestions rather than Lovecraft’s overgrown style or feverish exaltation of awe-some phenomena. All concepts are some epoch’s metaphors, ok, but I dislike hasty ‘conceptifications’ of metaphors, which often achieve great stylistic impact but dubious cognitive value, and do not produce any significant advance in the field of knowledge they are embedded into).
I embed a trailer, but the whole movie can be seen here.
Fabio Cunctator
Just rented this biography a few weeks ago myself. Well done — a nice survey of his influences and impact. S.T. Joshi seems like Lovecraft’s default archivist, but there are obviously more wide-ranging perspectives too. Not bad, particularly on Lovecraft’s more recent impact. I even liked the choice of art in the movie.