PBS
In the 1920s, Zelda Fitzgerald said of Ernest Hemingway, “Nobody is as male as all that.” Fitzgerald saw right through the hypermasculine persona Hemingway cultivated: the gun-toting, hard-drinking, deep sea-fishing, big game-hunting, bullfighting, street-brawling, womanizing facade that lingers to this day. What this ossified mythology obscures is the real Hemingway, who we see illuminated from cradle to grave in
Hemingway, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s new three-part documentary, airing on PBS April 5th-7th. Viewed through Burns and Novick’s revelatory lens, Hemingway emerges as a troubled and tragic figure, insecure about his masculinity and privately fascinated with gender fluidity, who produced some of the most miraculous work in the American canon.