Anti autobiography of miss

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The Best ‘Anti-Memoirs’

I suggested ‘anti-memoirs’ as your theme because I saw it used in connection with your new book, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. It makes me think of André Malraux’s Antimémoires, from 1967, where he begins by asking, “What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets.’ What does anti-memoir mean to you?

There are certain things people expect from reading a memoir and those often are not the same things I expect when I read an anti-memoir. I’m making a general statement here, but I think readers – perhaps especially in America – tend to expect a narrative arc, which to me is quite a vague term for something which goes more or less smoothly from A to B. And on the way from A to B you have – and, again, I’m generalizing – to find something new. There has to be some element of change; there has to be a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ – an epiphany. But to me, all these things are artificial. Life is lived in a much messier way. Our experience of life is messier than an arc with a before and after. I hesitate to call my book a memoir because it doesn’t fit that mould.

Anti-memoirs are books that – to borrow a phrase from Crabcakes by James Alan McPherson – work to ‘de-self’ the writer. Anti-memoirs, for me, are about de-sel

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Summary

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a 1974 film adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name that was written by Ernest J. Gaines. The film offers a view into the history and experience of Black people from 1860 to 1962 through the eyes of Jane Pittman. A then 50-year-old Cicely Tyson portrayed the lead character from the age of 23 to 110 a role for which she became the first Black person to win a lead actress Emmy Award. (Sidenote: If you thought Ms. Tyson was slaying in her 90s check out the film to see an example of her slaying from back in the day playing a character half her age.)

Media

YouTube Video

Podcast Episode

Show Notes

I loved Cicely Tyson and liked The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman but I want to go ahead and get the things I disliked out the way. Most of my issues with the film were related to visual production. To begin with, I am not the biggest fan of movies from the 1970s because some of the acting can be over the top. I felt that was the case to a degree with some of the supporting and minor actors in the movie. Also, most films from that decade have a certain look and color that I find off-putting.

Made for television, the movie’s makeup and effects were probably considered cutting edge in the 1970s but aren’t very impressi