Paul Goodman Changed My Life (2011)

 

Directed by Jonathan Lee

This is a documentary about radical writer/teacher/ therapist Paul Goodman who is mostly known for his best selling book of 1960 called Growing Up Absurd. Actually mostly just forgotten in the 21st Century.

This documentary covers his life and career and his bold and unusual lifestyle.
He was a fatherless boy of New York City who became an intellectual and radical social credit. He was anti-military-industrial complex and regularly spoke out about that and was a participant in anti-war activities in the 1960s.

He wrote books and articles of social criticism as well as poetry, and fiction, novels and short stories.

The documentary interviews his daughter Susan from an early relationship, and his second wife Sally, he was never officially married to either of the two main women in his life although they were both long relationships with children. The relationship with Sally started in 1945 and ended with his death at age 60 in 1972. 

There is some discussion about his social environmental engineering ideas such as eliminating cars from Manhattan and a plan for a communal community. He had sort of anarcho-syndicalist ideas of political and civic structuralization in which power resides in the small that then associates with the larger association of other smalls. 

Sexually radical in that he was open about his bisexuality and cruising associated with it. He lost jobs because of this. It is disturbing that in spite of all that he had retained old school double standards with Sally. She is interviewed and says that she was not permitted by him to have outside sexual relationships and she, an old woman at the time of the interview, convincingly says it made her angry.   

These dudes. Makes me think of Zappa and Gail.
Since I am somewhat involved with outside sexual relationships myself, I judge this attitude harshly and franky don’t really understand how they can live with themselves acting free while their women are restrained, enslaved, or why the women stand by them through it all.

Very interesting documentary.