Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind Trailer #1 (2023) Documentary Movie HD
One of the country’s preeminent writers, Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 100 books, including Them, We Were the Mulvaneys, and Blonde. In this candid and revealing documentary, she provides insight into her life, creative process, and the events that have shaped her writings, including the 1967 Detroit Riot, the Chappaquiddick incident, and the tragic life of Marilyn Monroe. Featuring readings by Oscar winner Laura Dern.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 [ Silence ]
00:05 >> When you open a book, you can be anybody
00:07 and you can be different nationality and different sex
00:11 and have a different age and so it's like a magic portal
00:16 to another world, it's a window into another world.
00:20 So I still feel that way.
00:21 >> Now Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most phenomenal
00:24 and brilliant writers of our time.
00:26 >> Joyce Carol Oates has published over 100 books
00:29 since 1963.
00:31 >> She is obviously one of the most prolific writers there are.
00:35 >> The 2010 National Humanities Medal to Joyce Carol Oates
00:39 for her contributions to American Letters.
00:42 >> I have often felt that in a sense I'm a very neutral being
00:45 and that I have almost no personality.
00:50 As if I'm a neutral or a transparent medium
00:53 where this one thing comes by way of the medium
00:56 and to being a book or some writing.
00:59 So I always felt that I could tell stories
01:05 that other people were not telling.
01:06 I'm sort of looking at how some people are mistreated
01:10 and there is injustice, a social injustice in our society
01:15 and one has to write about that.
01:20 >> You described the process of writing a novel as obsession,
01:24 excitement, anxiety, then melancholy when done and fear
01:30 that nothing will ever mean that much again.
01:32 >> Probably I was just being a little funny.
01:35 You know I do miss some novels that I really put a lot
01:38 of my life into and when I think back on them I sort of wish
01:42 that I was writing them again or that I could go back
01:44 and inhabit that time in my life again.
01:47 [ Music ]
01:55 >> The use of language is all we have
01:58 to pit against death and silence.
02:01 [ Silence ]