Although I'm still not convinced that I'd like to end up in Paterson, N.J., there are a few stops Algren suggested that I'd like to try on the way to San Francisco (including San Francisco where I haven't been lately). I'd suggest stopping in Mongolia along the way and riding overland on horseback.

Apparently a lot of Peruvians found Paterson a good place to go according to the online history I just read, or maybe the Peruvians got lost on their way to SF.

Perhaps there is something about smaller cities that we who live in big cities overlook and it's nice that someone decided to share the video on YouTube.

hi mr. ebert. this is great. would have been amazing to be there. but fyi, it's actually shot on video not film. if you want to see some similar quality video, a new technology at the time, check out william eggleston's black and white party films from the south called "stranded in canton". his color photography is a big influence on filmmakers like harry savides and sofia coppola.

http://www.egglestontrust.com

stranded in canton is in the videos section.

Ebert: You're kidding. I'm going to add that info.

thanks for your blog and your reviews. i'm a big fan.

This made me grin and tear up a bit, Roger. I'm only 44 and I was 10 in 1975 but this reminds me so much of that time in the good ways instead of the bad.

Ebert: They're so quintessentially themselves there.

I did not recognize Studs Terkel at all. I'd never seen him when he was younger. He came and spoke at one of my college history classes. He was an amazing man.

Roger, thanks so much for posting this. I'm sorry, but viewing it made me a little depressed. It's my understanding that Nelson always had a love-hate relationship with the city and felt very unappreciated, not only by the corporate/political powers, but also by the cultural elite. When he talks about the fact (and I believe it was a fact) that none of his books were in the library, I could feel the hurt coming through, even though he tried to play it off as kidding.

Also I'm sure Studs had nothing but love for Nelson, but at the time of this discussion (interview), Studs was at the height of his success. He had the radio show, and "Working" was garnering wonderful reviews. He had become a true national celebrity. While I don't suggest any rivalry between them, it's not hard to imagine that Studs' success induced a certain amount of envy in Nelson.

Nelson always had money problems, and at this point he was pretty much down and out. The true answer to the question "Why Paterson?" may have been that it was a cheaper place to live. I seem to recall a story that Kurt Vonnegut offered to help him out in some way.

Of course you knew them, I didn't, but I just wanted to give you an outside observer's perspective.

Love you, love your blog.

Roger--this was shot by the wonderful Tom Weinberg, formerly of WTTW, and now the purveyor of great Chicago film and video, via his web site, Mediaburn.org.

By the way, Roger, I'm at work on an Algren documentary (which has never been done--outrageous!), and Tom is giving me access to this and several other Algren clips. Check out montrosepictures.com for more information. Best regards.

Ebert: Art Shay took invaulable photographs about Algren. That one of the couple behind Nelson, kissing in the doorway! I just tweeted your trailer.

I'm sure you've seen this. Nelson and Studs in fine form.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/but-why-patterson.html

Roger--just wanted to let you know that Johnny Depp is supposedly going to play Nelson Algren with his longtime girlfriend playing Simone de Beauvior--http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/celebrity/news/daily-gossip/100225-johnny-depp-to-star-with-lover-vane.aspx.

That would be great for the Algren story getting out to the world...in addition to our documentary, of course. Now if I could only interview Depp for the doc...

Best regards, Roger and thanks a ton for the honesty you gave for the Esquire article.

Michael

Ebert: As you just saw, he'll need to look more disheveled.

I grew up in Chicago, born in Wicker Park, lived at North and Damen and along Milwaukee Avenue for three decades before moving to California in '79. I had been a Studs fan on WFMT (Carl Haas, too) from my early High School years; still read everything Studs I can get my hands on.

Sometime in '72, I was sitting in a restaurant at Clark and Devon (can't remember the name, but they also had one at the Kennedy at North Ave...), having a quick lunch in between client calls. Big, plush booths with very high backs.

A couple were seated behind me about 5 minutes after I arrived. I couldn't miss that voice. It was Studs and a lady who he was simply having a conversation with. I don't remember what they talked about, but it was trivial and vital, both at once. I was riveted. Hated to pay my check and leave!

I don't remember the topics covered, but will never forget the voice.

A lot more disheveled--but if anyone can do it, Depp can.

Thanks for reposting this. Missed it before. What a joy. Got the old imagination going. Now if only Scorsese could incorporate both story lines, we might have Depp's Algren giving pointers to DiCaprio's Sinatra on "The Man with the Golden Arm" while Studs laughs and jokes in the background. Maybe throw in DeNiro as Jilly Rizzo for good measure. But who could capture Studs? Not a clue.

Roger--would you mind emailing me at the above address? I'm going out to Los Angeles to interview some Algren fans and old friends. We're in touch with Clancy Sigal, whose script will likely be the basis of the Depp film, and Christie Hefner has given me some Playboy contacts, as well. We are also looking to get a hold of Philip Kaufman, who shot two films in Chicago in the 1960s, and William Friedkin, who used to play cards with him. Anyone else come to mind?

Thanks--just so you know, we shot several great interviews in NY in January, including Bruce Jay Friedman, who used to have Algren over to his house in Fire Island in the 1970s and had some very funny stories. Best regards.

Michael

Paterson, as mentioned in the video, is a once-great textile-producing city which - according to the phenomenal, eponymous book of poetry by William Carlos Williams, produced the coat Thomas Jefferson wore to his inauguration.

My family is from Paterson and has since left the city. I spent time there as a child as recently as the early 90s. It has always fascinated me, so I have no trouble seeing in it what Algren saw.

These two are some of my favorite figures from the twentieth century. Thank you for sharing.

Wildly fine.

A cross between interview and performance art.

Just what the internets and their tubes can really bring to life.

And also what the voice of his radio, books and group conversations (what others would call speeches) was all about - community.

Thank you so much for posting this. I've only recently started reading Mr. Algren and it's great to see how the guy was. The inclusion of Mr. Terkel is a definite bonus. Just makes me want to move to Chicago even more once we're done in Philadelphia.

Great video. Thanks for posting!

It reminds me that I need to visit Chicago at some point. It also reminds me that there are two more authors whose works I need to read.

Paterson, on the other hand.... :-)

Paterson was the site of a notorious worker's strike in 1913. A version of the story was portrayed in Warren Beatty's Reds, wherein John Reed (Beatty) is covering the story as a journalist and Big Bill Haywood, of IWW fame, is talking to strikers about the Wobblies and worker rights.

In real life, Reed also was involved in Madison Square Garden pageant, showing a larger audience the story of what happened in Paterson.

Maybe Algren's rebellious nature led him to Paterson and it's IWW ghosts?

I've always wondered what kind of person adds a note on the end of a posting over a year old.... But at the risk of wasting everyone's time, I have to give a couple shout outs about Nelson Algren.

In a 1962 "author's preface" to Never Come Morning (written in 1942), Algren writes of his experience as a soldier in World War II: "That I have not made Pfc by 1945 was due not so much to lack of opportunities as to feeling myself unprepared for large responsibility." That's Nelson Algren.

And even though I already owned two copies of The Man with a Golden Arm, I had to buy the Seven Stories Publisher's 50th Anniversary critical edition, which includes about 100 pages of essays and personal remembrances. Two of the essays particularly stand out.

When Mr. Algren died in 1981, Mike Royko wrote a very moving obituary, beginning with Mr. Royko's own first discovery of Nelson Algren's writing. Mr. Royko was a soldier, stationed in Korea. His tentmate tossed Mr. Royko a paperback book "about Chicago." Royko looked at the cover, and was offended: a blurb described the book about a "slum" in Chicago. That's no slum, Royko quotes himself as saying, that's MY neighborhood.

But the blurb was wrong; Algren not only caught Royko's neighborhood, but also the ire of Chicago's Polish-American Societies. Those groups widely denounced Algren as a "Nazi Sympathizer," based on both Algren's portrayal of some Poles as not very nice people--and Algren's characters' frequent use of the word "polack:" "I guess they would have preferred that [Algren] write a novel about a Polish dentist who changed his name and moved from the old neighborhood to a suburb as soon as he made enough money," was Royko's reply.

The Royko essay is also included in One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko (University of Chicago Press, 1999).

The other essay that stands out is by Kurt Vonnegut, and also takes place at the time of Mr. Algren's death. Salman Rushdie had come to visit the Vonneguts, shortly after Rushdie's Midnight's Children had been published. In particular, Rushdie wanted to meet a writer named Nelson Algren, because Rushdie was especially impressed with the review Algren wrote about Rushdie's new book. Vonnegut was delighted, because Vonnegut knew and liked Algren, and Algren only lived a few miles away. Unfortunately, Algren died of a heart attack the day before.

In Vonnegut's view, Algren's greatest strength as a writer was to break with Dickens and George Bernard Shaw, and show that poor people were not noble rich people who just had some bad breaks: "[Algren] broke new ground by depicting persons said to be dehumanized by poverty and ignorance and injustice as being genuinely dehumanized, and dehumanized quite permanently . . . Algren said, in effect, 'Hey--an awful lot of these people your hearts are bleeding for are really mean and stupid. That's just a fact. Did you know that?'"

If you haven't read any of Mr. Algren's books, his collection of short stories, The Neon Wilderness, is a great place to start (Royko says that was his favorite of Algren's books). The Man with the Golden Arm, which deservedly won the first National Book Award, is beautifully written--but dense. Algren loves to go into great detail, all in an effort to give you the exact, correct evocative feeling Algren is looking for. Algren is the opposite of Vonnegut, in that sense: Vonnegut's talent is making his writing deceptively simple, while Algren makes his writing deceptively complex.

But none of Nelson Algren's stories will ever be made into a feel good LifeTime Movie Network film. Bad things happen to pretty much everyone, much like in Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn.

I should have read Arnie Bernstein's post before I wrote mine...

Another reason for Algren to be attracted to Patterson was Algren (apparently) was also a big boxing fan. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was from Patterson, and Algren's 1983 novel, The Devil's Stocking, was inspired by Mr. Carter's life story.

Hey Roger--is it true you were there when Algren through a drink at Kup and hit him in the head? I have a tape of Algren telling that story! Also, we started our Kickstarter campaign to help us finish the Algren doc--http://kck.st/lLDG9e.

Ebert: You're kidding. Why haven't I ever heard that story?