LitFilm 2024: Radical Wolfe Screening & Talkback with Dewey & McDonell

Documentary, dir. by Richard Dewey
U.S., 2023, 75 min

From a beat reporter at The Washington Post to an overnight sensation as the leader of the New Journalism movement, Tom Wolfe was at the forefront of reshaping how American stories are told. Recognizing the importance of overlooked subcultures and communities, Wolfe documented everything from rural stock car drivers to hippies in Haight Ashbury to the Apollo Astronauts, and his ability to bridge cultural and class divides while tackling stories central to American life was unique in fiction and non-fiction. With a distinctive and oft-imitated style all his own, Wolfe’s body of work includes some of the most memorable and culturally impactful stories of the 20th century like The Right Stuff, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and A Man in Full. Radical Wolfe is a deeply personal and illuminating look at the man inside the famous white suit, featuring conversations and interviews with those who knew him best, including Michael Lewis, Gay Talese, Lynn Nesbit, Terry McDonell, Tom Junod, Christopher Buckley, Niall Ferguson, and Alexandra Wolfe. This film will be followed by a conversation with director Richard Dewey in conversation with Terry McDonell.

Richard Dewey is a New York based writer and filmmaker. His first feature documentary, Burden, about the art world provocateur Chris Burden, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and was the special selection at Art Basel. It received a global theatrical release by Magnolia Pictures in May 2017. Rich’s writing has appeared in The Economist, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, and Modern Painters.

 

 

 

Terry McDonell is a writer, editor, and media executive with wide experience across numerous platforms. He top-edited thirteen magazines, including Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and Rolling Stone, among other prominent titles. Published widely as a journalist, he is also a novelist and has written and produced for film and television. His magazines and websites have won numerous awards, and he was inducted into the ASME Editors Hall of Fame in 2012. He is also the recipient of the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award, among other honors. More recently he co-founded The Literary Hub, and his memoir, The Accidental Life: An Editor’s notes on Writing and Writers, was published by Knopf, in 2016, and Vintage, in in 2017. His memoir, Irma: The Education of a Mother’s Son was published in 2023. McDonell is President Emeritus of the Board of The Paris Review Foundation, and served on the Board of Overseers of the Columbia Journalism Review. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a B.A. in Art.

All screenings are free but require reservations. Times subject to change. For the full LitFilm roster, go here.