Tom McCamus (1998 Life of Paul Bowles)
Excerpts from Zeitgeist Films 1998: Tom McCamus | Let It Come Down The Life of Paul Bowles
Let it come down The Life of PAUL BOWLES
A FILM BY Jennifer Baichwal PRODUCED BY Nick de Pencier Jennifer Baichwal
CANADA • 1998 • 16MM • COLOR • 73 MINS A ZEITGEIST FILMS RELEASE
WITH in order of appearance
Paul Bowles
William Burroughs
Phillip Ramey
Jonathan Sheffer
Ned Rorem
Gustavo Romero
Marguerite McBey
Joe McPhillips
David Herbert
Mohammed Mrabet
Mohammed Choukri
Allen Ginsberg
Amina Bakalia (Cherifa)
MUSIC BY Paul Bowles performed by The Eos Orchestra with Moroccan music by various artists
READINGS BY Tom McCamus
Let it come down THE LIFE OF PAUL BOWLES
Against a backdrop of the exotic landscape of North Africa, the enigma of iconoclastic writer Paul Bowles (author of The Sheltering Sky) begins to unravel. Interviews with the reclusive Bowles, who speaks with unprecedented candor about his work and his controversial private life, are intercut with the conflicting views of his detractors and supporters. Highlights include exclusive footage of the last meeting of Bowles, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg in New York; footage of Bowles translating Moroccan storyteller Mohammed Mrabet; the first and only film appearance of Cherifa, Jane Bowles’ lover, who is rumoured to have poisoned Jane to death; detailed treatment of Bowles’ work as a composer and coverage of the 1995 Eos festival of his music at Lincoln Center, for which Bowles made his first trip to New York in 35 years; Bowles giving, for the record, his final opinion of Bertolucci’s 1990 film version of The Sheltering Sky; and readings of Bowles’ work by celebrated Canadian actor Tom McCamus.
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Tom McCamus is a celebrated stage and screen actor. He won a Genie Award for Best Actor for David Wellington’s I Love a Man in Uniform and a Best Actor nomination for his role-reprised from the Stratford Festival-in Long Day’s Journey Into Night. He also won a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter. He has spent many seasons at the Shaw Festival and the Stratford Festival, in numerous notable roles.
© Zeitgeist Films
Excerpt from New York Times 4/28/99
FILM REVIEW; Casting Nihilistic Pearls From His Lofty Perch
April 28, 1999 By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Let It Come Down: the Life of Paul Bowles (1998)
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The documentary, which opens today at the Film Forum, is interspersed with grim little slivers from Mr. Bowles's fiction read by the Canadian actor Tom McCamus, often accompanied by gorgeous shots of the arid desert landscape around Tangier where Mr. Bowles has lived for most of the last 50 years.
© New York Times
Excerpt from Variety 12/12/99: Tom McCamus
Review: ‘Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles’
December 12, 1999 | 11:00PM PT Brendan Kelly
Canuck thesp Tom McCamus adds to the atmosphere with readings from numerous Bowles works.
© Variety