Dreams with Sharp Teeth

You get a bit of everything here; looks at cranky Harlan, rants, and book excerpts. While it'd be nice to have some more in depth analysis of his work, his personality is just so big that it overpowers it all. Super entertaining movie.

If this little doc does nothing but make you curious enough about the work of Ellison to go out a read a few of his short stories, it will be worth your time. Imagine how curious you would be if Mark Twain were still alive and could be interviewed. Yeah, it's just like that. And Ellison writes as well as Twain did.

Actually, there are some parallels and stark contrasts between Sam Clemens and Ellison. Twain's _Tom Sawyer_ was the first novel written on a typewriter. Ellison has a typewriter, which he pecks on with two fingers, but never used a computer or word-processing program. Clemens and Twain were irascible and fearless when it came to declaiming what they believed to be true. Both were highly ethical, but cared little for religion. Both writers were prolific. Twain did _not_ have a Jewish mother. Oy. Both were spellbinding on the lecture circuit. Both of them will be read as long as the English language exists. If you have any interest in fantasy or fiction or science fiction, Ellison's genius and sharp wit are unsurpassed. Clemens is long gone, but thank God I lived to read --and see-- Ellison!

I had the privilege of watching this with two other people who saw Harlan Ellison with me at a now legendary appearance in the late 80's in Toronto, and we kept looking at each other and snickering. But even if you never saw him live, read any of his work, or had any familiarity with him at all, you can appreciate this documentary as being about a man WORTHY of a documentary. He's just that bloody entertaining.

The soundtrack - by Richard Thompson, the legendary Brit folkie - is amazing, by the way.

Some of the camera work is really amateurish, but most of the straight interview footage is well shot. The camera work and the parts that got left out of Ellison's bio - probably in deference to his storied litigiousness - are what knocked this down to 8 out of 10.

His initial 'interview' with Robin Williams is worth watching even if you can't spend the time on the rest of the movie. Within minutes we were all helplessly laughing.

If you're at all interested in SF, either literary or media, movies, have a love affair with the English language or just want to see what it's like to be a legendary, visionary, prolific, brilliant and uncompromising pain in the rear, see this film. I intend to watch it again as some of the dialogue went by so fast I missed it, and it was really, really funny.

DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH is a low-budget documentary about Ellison made by Erik Nelson that dates back to 1981, when Nelson interviewed Ellison for TV. Various friends and associates provide on-camera commentaries about Harlan Ellison's fiction, career, romances, personality, and how he affected their lives and world views. However, the majority of screen time is taken up by Ellison himself: reading passages from stories, telling jokes, relating childhood memories, showing us around his amazing house (nicknamed The Lost Aztec Temple of Mars), talking candidly about social issues and writing projects, or just bumming around Los Angeles. Even though there's about 60 clips of Ellison on YouTube, fans should grab DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH because it's a priceless distillation of the phenomenon that is Harlan Ellison, warts and all.

The only problem is that at 96 minutes, the documentary is too brief. Maybe that's a compliment? For example, the archive clips could have run a few minutes longer without tormenting people's bladders and taxing the film's editor. The US DVD includes snippets of story readings, footage of the premier in LA, and an extended chat with Neil Gaiman over pizza.

Harlan Ellison is hands down one of the most fascinating personalities of literature, and this documentary does him justice by just letting him talk about god (or his/her nonexistence) and the world. A lot of these monologues are rants, but they are so fascinating to listen to (and wildly entertaining) that you will enjoy this documentary greatly. I cannot judge how Ellison comes across in this film if you don't know his writing already, but one thing is sure: he doesn't care if you like him or not. In this age of political correctness, of hypocrisy, of dancing around important subjects out of fear of having any kind of stance or position Ellison is somebody you should listen to. Behind his facade of the angry old man spouting vulgarities is probably the most moral and ethical person you could ever meet on this planet. His views on subjects like intellectual property are enlightening and important, his critique of our superficial and anti-intellectual society is spot-on. As a film the parts that come across the weakest are some computer visualizations of Ellison's prose, but it's great to hear the man himself reciting excerpts from his stories. Neil Gaiman talks very sympathetically about his friend, as is Robin Williams (who comes across as endearingly vulnerable and warm-hearted, especially in hindsight of his suicide). Dan Simmons acknowledges that he owes his career to Ellison, as do many others. All in all a great an entertaining documentary that every budding writer should watch to learn one important lesson from the master himself: writing (and art) is not for sissies. You have to take a stance, and you should not be afraid of getting s***thrown at you. Ellison has gone through all that, and has remained true to himself all the way.