I'm glad that someone finally made a proper documentary about Harlan Ellison; it's a wonder that someone so well acclaimed, so frequently published, so damned interesting, remains essentially a "cult" author. I don't mean it as an insult to Ellison, because I'm a fan. Anyone who is a fan knows the name immediately and can without pause rattle off a list of their favorite books, stories, essays, or scripts.
My favorite book is and probably always will be the first Ellison collection I ever read: Strange Wine.
And yet I suspect that, unlike Hunter S. Thompson, there is a swath of "hip" readers that don't know who Harlan Ellison is, who don't know his impact on science fiction or imaginative writing. For them, I hope Dreams with Sharp Teeth is an introduction, a gateway drug.
I'll give it this: Dreams with Sharp Teeth shows Harlan Ellison in his many facets - cantankerous old man, gadfly, advocate, genius (and I do not throw the word around lightly), procrastinator, lecturer, asshole, perfectionist. More importantly, it does so without favoring one over the other. There is no attempt to portray Ellison as anything other than he is, and if you are put off by what you see, he admits that he does not blame you.
What I appreciate about the documentary is how it follows a semi-linear structure, covering his career up through the 1980s, but it is punctuated and tends to digress along the way with interviews, appearances, lectures, signings, and home visits that seem to bounce all through his life. There are other interviews with friends and fans; folks like Battlestar Galactica helmer Ron Moore or A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson. Fellow writers like Peter David and Neil Gaiman pop up, and perhaps my favorite interviewee: Robin Williams. I had no idea they were friends, and despite a few side jokes, Williams is mostly focused on Ellison in the many ways he relates to him.
Since Sci-Fi Buzz went off the air and the Sci-Fi Channel ceased to be what it started as, I've missed the presence of Ellison on tv. He used to have a segment called "Harlan Ellison's Watching", which was for the Sci-Fi Channel what Andy Rooney is for 60 Minutes, albeit less self-parodic. Ellison's tangents, rants, or essays are as much a part of his appeal as his stories are, and the introductions to his collections are often pieces I go back to frequently. Alas, I'm not talking about the documentary itself. I've let my mind wander, as the film does to fine effect.
The other key component to Dreams with Sharp Teeth as the "readings", which a brief segments featuring Ellison in front of a green screen, with a background appropriate to the segment he's reading from. Reading is a bit of a misnomer, as he simply faces the camera and speaks directly from "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick Tock Man", "Spider Kiss", or the original version of "The City on the Edge of Forever" as though he's kept them memorized this whole time. Considering the subject, he probably has.
At any rate, I highly recommend this as a primer for people who have heard of Harlan Ellison in a fleeting manner but don't really know anything about him. It may be the best way to understand a person who appears to be many different things coexisting in one body, as difficult as it may be to believe at times. Then comes the hard part: finding Ellison's books. Good luck.
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