Lost Islands of the Mind

Authors

  • Gerald R. Lucas Middle Georgia State University Author

Keywords:

Justin Bozung, Mailer’s films, Maidstone, Wild 90, Tough Guys Don’t Dance, existentialism

Abstract

Gerald R. Lucas reviews The Cinema of Norman Mailer: Film Is Like Death, edited by Justin Bozung (Bloomsbury Academic), a collection of nineteen essays, interviews, and memoirs, including two by Mailer, that argues for the importance of Mailer’s experimental filmmaking. Lucas traces the volume’s treatment of acting and action, existential risk, and the blurring of reality and artifice in Wild 90, Beyond the Law, Maidstone, and Tough Guys Don’t Dance, and recalls his students’ skeptical response to the films. He credits the collection with giving him a fuller, more contextualized understanding of Mailer as filmmaker.

Author Biography

  • Gerald R. Lucas, Middle Georgia State University

    Gerald R. Lucas is Professor of English at Middle Georgia State University and the editor of Project Mailer. He serves as Vice-President of the Norman Mailer Society, the Digital Editor of The Mailer Review, and the Society’s webmaster. Recently, Lucas acted as the editor for J. Michael Lennon and Donna Pedro Lennon’s expanded and updated Norman Mailer: Works and Days, and he created and maintains the digital Humanities project based on the same.

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Published

2017-10-26

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2017)

Section

Book Reviews

How to Cite

Lucas, Gerald R. “Lost Islands of the Mind”. The Mailer Review, vol. 11, no. 1, Oct. 2017, pp. 273–279, https://mailerreview.org/journal/article/view/631.