A companion site for C-SPAN's special television series
Created by Cable.   Offered as a Public Service.
About    C-SPAN Video Library    Watch    Book Club    Search    Shop

   Video Archives

   Portrait Gallery

   Classroom

   Cable Affiliates

   Home




Ernest Hemingway
Program Video Clip List
Clip # Start Time End Time Description
1 0:00.0 0:24.0 Rare footage of Hemingway aboard a ship off the coast of Key West, FL
2 0:46.0 01:27.1 One should study Hemingway because of his wide variety of experiences, writings, and travels; he was a citizen of the world.
3 01:27.2 02:32.3 Came to Key West in 1928 with his second wife, Pauline, after having been living in Paris
4 02:32.4 04:01.8 Key West geographically; most southern point in the United States and only 90 miles from Cuba; Hemingway was drawn to the Gulf Stream, which forms a wall between Key West and Cuba; drawn to the Latino blend of culture as well
Watch | Back to Lesson
5 04:01.8 05:19.5 The Sun Also Rises was ranked the 45th most influential book by the Modern Library list of books at the end of the century; for Hemingway most influential was his first novel, a collection of short stories called In Our Time.
6 06:34.0 07:41.0 People who enjoyed Hemingway's works were people in his own age-group, the late 20's; compared to the 60's generation
7 07:46.0 08:48.3 Served in WWII as an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross; could not serve in the Army because he had very poor eye-sight; was wounded badly by a mortar and suffered two bullet wounds; his novel A Farewell to Arms was largely based on his experiences during the war.
8 08:48.3 09:19.0 Came back to the U.S. from WWII to continue his work as a journalist but soon left for Europe
9 09:51.3 11:18.5 Explanation of the term "The Lost Generation"; probably coined by Gertrude Stein
10 11:24.8 13:02.2 Did Hemingway write "A Man's Credo"? Probably something an editor wrote using many quotes from Hemingway; he had many quotes that foreshadowed his suicide
11 13:08.0 15:20.1 Rumors that Hemingway was involved in a dual; he was, in fact, involved in one after a challenge to his masculinity, but no other known ones; Hemingway has a mythic persona, which leads to many untrue stories about him
12 15:20.2 16:20.2 Voice of Hemingway discussing the many places he has written; visuals of Hemingway
13 16:23.7 17:36.8 Hemingway's travels and adventures were prolific in his writing in that many of his works were based of them; he took the reader on a journey with him.
14 17:42.5 18:29.3 Hemingway's relationship with Malcolm Cowley; he was a critic of the Lost Generation and Hemingway was interested by what he had to say about what it takes to be a good writer
15 18:38.0 19:47.2 Hemingway's family and upbringing were a big influence for him to start writing; his mother was very supportive of the arts and he had wonderful teachers in high school; knew he wanted to make writing his career upon graduating high school and forewent college to become a reporter
Watch | Back to Lesson
16 19:47.3 21:53.8 Hemingway's influence among the Lost Generation; the Lost Generation consisted of such writers as Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and e.e. cummings; Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald
17 22:04.8 23:22.5 Martha Gelhorn was Hemingway's third wife out of four; they met in a bar in Key West; Hemingway had three children, one with his first wife and two with his second wife.
18 23:38.8 24:47.7 The relationship between Hemingway and Fitzgerald
19 24:59.2 27:03.2 P.J. O'Rourke, a contemporary American writer, criticizes Hemingway's works; claims Hemingway had no sense of humor and that he did not follow the rule of "Show don't tell"
Watch | Back to Lesson
20 27:03.4 30:00.5 Defense of Hemingway against the attacks made by O'Rourke; Hemingway's depiction of women in his works
21 30:04.1 31:18.5 The influence of Hemingway's mother on him; she was one of his first mentors; she taught him to be a professional.
Watch | Back to Lesson
22 31:23.5 32:55.3 The Snows of Kilimanjaro is more a story about what it means to be a writer than about the nature of dying
23 32:59.5 34:00.3 Hemingway discusses the label "The Lost Generation" in his memoir A Moveable Feast
24 34:11.2 36:01.1 A tour of the Hemingway house; he enjoyed some of the finer things of life as seen by the items in his home; the attraction to Key West, the solitude and the fishing
25 36:01.2 37:11.6 The culture of Key West in the 1930's; it was a broke town but Hemingway was well-off and he married a rich woman so it did not matter
26 37:26.9 40:40.5 Hemingway's writing vs. Fitzgerald's writing; Fitzgerald focused on the 1920's and the American dream; Hemingway focused on American terrain; they learned from each other
27 40:40.5 42:33.1 Synopsis of the life and career of Ernest Hemingway
Watch | Back to Lesson
28 42:38.1 44:34.7 His relationship with Sara and Gerald Murphy; Hemingway met the two in Europe and he blames Gerald Murphy for the break-up of his marriage to Hadley, his first wife.
29 44:49.0 46:08.8 Hemingway wrote a play called "The Fifth Column"; it was staged a number of times but never very successfully.
30 46:11.5 50:00.9 Hemingway's suicide; he suffered from bipolarism that was inherited; his father committed suicide and two of his siblings did as well; his physical illnesses contributed to his decision to commit suicide; his first attempt coincided with the Bay of Pigs invasion; the importance of his home in Cuba
31 50:13.1 51:23.2 Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway; Hemingway saw Pound as a literary mentor and that was more influential than any personal relationship they had
Watch | Back to Lesson
32 51:23.3 52:48.5 Mariel Hemingway discusses her grandfather's suicide
33 52:48.7 54:34.6 How the American public reacted to Hemingway's death in 1961; similar to the death of Marilyn Monroe
34 54:34.8 55:48.5 Truman also had a home in Key West but there was not much interaction between him and Hemingway.
35 56:31.8 57:23.8 Hemingway became an icon in American culture and that contributed to his depression; he could not separate his larger-than-life status from his job of being a writer
36 57:24.0 01:00:04 The film The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber; footage of Hemingway with his cats; his home in Ketcham, Idaho was left to the Nature Conservancy of Idaho and is therefore not open to the public.
37 01:00:05 01:00:34 Hemingway imitated Teddy Roosevelt in his African safaris
38 01:00:35 01:02:05 Hemingway's writing habits; he woke up early to write to avoid the heat and to get some peace and quiet; Hemingway was an alcoholic but he claimed he never wrote while he was drunk
39 01:02:23 01:04:08 Hemingway's relationship with his first wife, Hadley; he regretted leaving her
40 01:04:28 01:06:45 Hemingway was as popular in his time as Mark Twain was in his time; Hemingway is still relevant and taught in many classrooms today
41 01:06:45 01:07:21 Hemingway's cats; more of a re-creation of what his home in Cuba was like; did not have that many at his Key West home
42 01:07:23 01:10:35 Voice of Hemingway responding to his critics; he was particularly sensative to criticism
43 01:10:40 01:12:28 Hemingway asked his mother for the gun his father used to kill himself that his grandfather had owned; Hemingway shot himself with a shotgun
44 01:12:33 01:14:12 His wife, Hadley, had lost a briefcase with all of Hemingway's manuscripts in it on a train in Europe.
45 01:14:12 01:16:38 The Lost Generation typically refers to the era of the 1920's; they were expatriates who left America behind in order to find it; the political happenings of Europe were particularly relevant to Hemingway because he was there as a journalist
46 01:16:42 01:19:15 Hemingway did not write a lot about Cuban-American relations because he lived in Cuba and did not want to stir the pot or do anything to affect his citizenship or status; archival footage of Cuba during the 1950's;
47 01:19:47 01:23:03 Visuals of Hemingway's home; In the original form of The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Hemingway made a snide comment about F. Scott Fitzgerald that was later edited out; even after Fitzgerald's death there was still competition between the two of them; A Clean, Well-Lighted Place was what Hemingway considered his best short story; very existentialist and related to Hemingway's own feelings of despair
48 01:23:04 01:23:37 Hemingway is the second-most translated author in English after Agatha Christie; an exerpt from Michael Reynold's biography of Hemingway
49 01:23:41 01:25:39 Hemingway's Michigan connection; he spent his summers in Michigan as a boy; much of the forestry in Michigan was destroyed in the early 1900's and that shows up in some of Hemingway's works
Watch | Back to Lesson
50 01:25:42 01:27:45 Biographies of Hemingway; Carlos Baker's, Michael Reynold's biographies are exceptional; the Meyer's biography is not as good because it is not sympathetic to Hemingway and seems to have an agenda
51 01:31:22 01:33:27 Hemingway only wrote two introductions to other people's books; was one of America's first big personalities, appearing on magazine covers and making public appearances; his books were about the trap of masculinity but his persona was about playing that.
Watch | Back to Lesson
52 01:33:27 01:33:49 He got the nickname "Papa" from his first son and it stuck; he was very generous and a great teacher to others
53 01:34:03 01:35:48 Hemingway wrote a scathing criticism of James Jones and his work From Here to Eternity, written about WWII
54 01:36:02 01:37:06 Hemingway's Oak Park connection
55 01:37:33 01:38:21 About The Hemingway Review and the Hemingway Society
56 01:38:24 01:40:13 Hemingway's fourth wife Mary; footage of Mary; Hemingway's papers now housed at the Kennedy Library
57 01:40:30 01:43:10 Hemingway had an outstanding memory; the electric shock therapy Hemingway underwent when he was ill destroyed a lot of his memory and was probably another factor in his suicide.
58 01:43:15 01:44:46 Mariel Hemingway talking about Ernest as a parent
59 01:46:47 01:46:58 His depiction of women and Jews in his book The Sun Also Rises; he wrote in "natural" language, how people actually spoke in the time
Watch | Back to Lesson
60 01:47:19 01:50:04 Footage of Hemingway on safari; Hemingway was interested in race relations but did not write a lot about it; his use of racial slurs in his books are just a reflection of the times he was living in
61 01:50:25 01:51:50 Tour of the Hemingway home; Ernest Hemingway and the story of his swimming pool
62 01:51:51 01:52:41 Landmarks at the Hemingway home; the urinal that the cats drink out of is quite popular
63 01:52:46 01:54:41 Hemingway's relationship with John Steinbeck; they only met once in New York; For Whom the Bell Tolls is more of a traditional novel compared to his others; was not a historical work even though it did deal with the Spanish Civil War
64 01:55:13 01:57:45 Hemingway's sexuality; he was dressed in dresses, as all boys were, until the age of 2 for the purposes of potty training; the 1920's were very experimental sexually and that shows up in his books, but there was no evidence that Hemingway was a practicing homosexual; he was interested in the idea of gender role reversal however
65 01:57:58 01:59:14 Ernest Hemingway talking about writing during the Spanish Civil War
66 01:59:15 02:02:38 Summary/ conclusions; Hemingway is one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century and he shows up everywhere, even today; influential writer mostly due to his contribution to style; art transcends time
67 02:02:56 02:03:39 Footage of Hemingway on his boat

I   II   III   IV   V   VI   VII   VIII

C-SPAN.org    Book TV.org    Booknotes.org    Capitol Hearings.org
American Presidents.org    C-SPAN Alert!    Contact Us