Eugene O’Neill: A Documentary Film (2006)

EUGENE O’NEILL tells the haunting story of the life and work of America’s greatest and only Nobel Prize-winning playwright–set within the context of the harrowing family dramas and personal upheavals that shaped him, and that he in turn struggled all his life to give form to in his art.  More than a biography of the greatest literary genius the American theater has produced, this American Experience production is a moving meditation on loss and redemption, family and memory, the inescapability of the past, and the cost of being an artist.

With never-before-seen archival motion picture footage of O’Neill himself and excerpts from his plays performed especially for the production by some of the most gifted actors working in theater today, including Al Pacino, Zoe Caldwell, Christopher Plummer, Liam Neeson and Robert Sean Leonard, in masterpieces O’Neill created only at the end of his career–The Iceman Cometh and Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

 

 

Production Stills

Credits

DIRECTED BY: Ric Burns

WRITTEN BY: Arthur Gelb & Barbara Gelb and Ric Burns

EDITED BY: Li-Shin Yu

PRODUCED BY: Marilyn Ness and Steve Rivo with Robin Espinola and Mary Recine

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Ric Burns and Donald Rosenfeld

NARRATED BY: Christopher Plummer

ACTORS AND VOICES:
Al Pacino
Zoe Caldwell
Christopher Plummer
Robert Sean Leonard
Callie Thorne
Vanessa Redgrave
Liam Neeson
Natasha Richardson
Jason Robards

SENIOR EDITORIAL CONSULTANT AND CREATIVE ADVISOR:  Judy Crichton

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Buddy Squires
Peter Nelson
Allen Moore

SERIES PRODUCER FOR AMERICAN EXPERIENCE:  Sharon Grimberg

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FOR AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: Mark Samels

AWARDS:

Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing
Writers Guild of America Nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Documentary