TJFF 2014: Nat Hentoff and the Pleasures of Being Out of Step
Journalist David L. Lewis began his documentary on noted jazz an Civil Rights journalist Nat Hentoff around 2007, eventually filming his subject for both a documentary film and oral history book.
Best known for his extensive liner notes to numerous classic jazz LPs – Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain, for example – and a jazz critic & astute interviewer, Hentoff has also championed the disenfranchised and the oppressed in publications such as the Village Voice, and enjoyed fierce discourses with critics in any venue.
The film, The Pleasures of Being Out of Step, recently screened at the 2014 Toronto Jewish Film Festival and began its theatrical run at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema this past weekend. Featuring a wealth of stills, rare performance footage by jazz greats, and numerous archival news pieces of his activism in print, it’s a sometimes anarchically structured doc that nevertheless is heavy on facts and interviews – new and archival – and worth a peek.
Coming next: Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose on Blu from Twilight Time + related docs screened at the 2014 TJFF.
Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com
Category: EDITOR'S BLOG
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