The Doc. Film JOAN DIDION: The CENTER WILL NOT HOLD Directed by Her Nephew Actor Griffin Dunne

Joan Didion's amazing life and uncanny reporting, essays and literary style are the subject of this gripping documentary directed by her nephew, actor Griffin Dunne.  Dunne is especially adroit at drawing out his aunt's autobiographical raconteur.  As the diminutive Ms Didion sits to converse with her nephew, she is as much in command as a maestro of an orchestra.  Her arms are majestic in their continual movements and her candor is eloquent & fascinating.  As a young girl, her mother gave her notebooks for her to fill so she would amuse herself.   As a teen, her mother gave her Vogue & showed her the writing contests which she assured Joan she would win.  And assuredly, Joan not only won one of the contests and a job writing for Vogue,  she became one of the leading reporters of social movements and events of the 20th C.  This was an aberration for the mag. then and extremely rare today.   Joan honed her craft swiftly to maintain her job.  She went on from Vogue to write essays & cover topics that piqued interest.  She speaks freely of her lifelong marriage & partnership with writer John Dunne, her "protector" with a "hot head."  Each was the other's editor on everything the other wrote.  For the projects they worked on together their writing merged.  Home went from NYC to Malibu and back.  Griffin Dunne recalls the idyllic setting along the ocean where Joan & John worked & lived.  Their home became a mecca for family, friends & colleagues.  A young Harrison Ford was their contractor turned friend always consider himself the least intelligent person in the room.  The Malibu home was a haven for the connected couple.  Together they brought adopted daughter, Quintana, home from the hospital the day she was born.   "I remember bonding with her on the San Diego Freeway."  Joan talked about writing what became of interest to her: Haight/Ashbury in the 60's, rock & roll figures (Jim Morrison) and Linda Kasabian (Mason family member).  She also took the courageous stance to question the railroading of the 7 youths convicted in the Central Park rape case.  The archival footage of the 60's & 70's epoch in the doc. is vast and rivet Joan to the times.  But, it is Joan's transformative writing & eloquence that makes this extraordinary film so ardent and emotionally stirring.  In 2012 Obama presented Ms Didion with the Nat'l Medal of Art & Nat' Humanities Medal questioning why she hadn't received it sooner.  Dunne's biopic doc. of his much admired aunt allows us to comprehend Didion's intent "writing to figure out things." The essence of her writings empowers us to explore the depths of our own sorrows and what is meaningful in our lives.  Joan Didion is a remarkable woman & writer.  I'm moved by her transformative clarifications illuminating life's bountiful & ephemeral gifts.