Henry Miller Movies

Henry Miller (1891-1980) was a writer whose works were banned for many years in the U.S. for being pornographic. The most famous of these were The Tropic of Cancer and The Tropic of Capricorn. When they were finally made available, many considered them to be of the same superior caliber as the works of D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, who suffered under a similar prohibition. Though they have since fallen out of fashion, his works are part of an important moment in American intellectual history. This documentary film recounts Miller's life, including his writing days in Paris in the '20s and '30s, when he knew everyone there who was to be known. Much of the tale is told by Miller himself. One highlight of the documentary is a reading by the author from one of his own texts. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A footloose American author drinks in the joys of the Bohemian life in this screen adaptation of the autobiographical novel by Henry Miller. Joey (Paul Valjean) is an aspiring writer from the United States who is living in Clichy, a small town near Paris, France, with his friend Carl (Wayne Rodda), a schoolteacher. Joey and Carl share a passionate enthusiasm for women, and in Chichy, a place where he can sense lust in the breeze, Joey can revel in his obsessions with both sex and the written word, with his only obstacle being scaring up the money for a square meal. During his days in Clichy, Joey becomes involved with easygoing Bohemian Nys (Ulla Lemvigh-Müller) and melancholy streetwalker Mara (Avi Sagild), while Carl becomes obsessed with Christine (Susanne Krage), an eccentric teenage runaway who seems to live in a world of her own. Stille Dage i Clichy was shot on-location in Clichy, in many of the locations Miller described in his book; oddly enough, another Miller adaptation, Tropic of Cancer, was being shot by different filmmakers in Paris at the same time. Like many of Miller's best-known books, Stille Dage i Clichy ran afoul of censors in the United States, and prints were seized by federal officials when the film was first imported to America, though obscenity charges were eventually overturned in federal courts. Country Joe McDonald, of the pioneering psychedelic rock band Country Joe and the Fish, wrote and performed several songs for the film's soundtrack. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi