Features

November 7, 2006

Doc Illuminates NYC Literary Legend

Paris Review co-founder and cultural gadabout Harold L."Doc" Humes gets the doc treatment from daughter Immy

By Karen Kramer

Brimming with energy and charisma, Harold L. "Doc" Humes was a co-founder of The Paris Review, free-speech militant, nonstop talker, fierce intellectual, writer of two acclaimed novels, hashish smoker, jailhouse tutor and hip fixture in the culture scenes of Paris, London and Greenwich Village. He contrived a marvelous plan of making paper houses for Third World nations, produced and directed an underground film that mirrored the life of Don Quixote (titled Don Peyote), was monitored by the CIA and hung out with some of the great literary giants of the 1950s and '60s. By 1966 he had spent time in a mental institution and by the '70s had turned into a mad visionary genius.

"He was brilliant," said author Norman Mailer, describing H.L. Humes in Doc, a new documentary that opens this year's Margaret Mead Film Festival on Nov. 8. "He was the only person I ever met who was more vain, more arrogant than I was at that time."

Directed by his daughter, Immy Humes, and featuring interviews with Timothy Leary, George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, Paul Auster, Paul Mathiessen and others, Doc channels whole decades of American cultural history through its subject, revealing a personal yet unsentimental portrait of the man against the backdrop of his times. "I grew up with this huge mythology about him," said Immy Humes, whose parents divorced when she was young and whose famous father died in 1992. "As a little kid and all through my life there was this sort of legend about Doc. Often we didn't have the man but we had this legend. So that added to the embroidery -- his own absence added to it."

In attempting to understand this mythology, Humes felt compelled to tell his story -- not only as a way of understanding her own family dynamic, but also as a way to show his portrait to the world. Through an imaginative use of drawings, writing snippets, stills, home movies, interviews, archival footage of New York, Paris, and London and a vibrant jazz soundtrack, the filmmaker mixes elements as textured as the subject himself.

"Often I find that a good subject for a film is a person who you can't quite put your finger on," Humes said. "He was always someone I found impossible to explain to anyone who asked me anything about my father. To me, that's a good sign that there's something there. I wanted to make this film to explain him to the world."

Mead Film Festival co-director Elaine Charnov recognized its importance immediately. "It really places her father in the context of American social and political history in addition to having all of that unique family perspective," she told The Reeler. "She brought such texture to her family story so that it's not just a myopic view. Only she could have made that film, and that's what we look for in the Mead: the really unique projects."

A larger-than-life character who knew everyone on the intellectual literary scene at the time, Doc Humes also had a dark side to his personality that his daughter doesn't shy away from. He was often difficult to be around; in his later years, was in and out of mental institutions. Often his children wouldn't see him for long periods of time while he was away saving the world, starting other families or pursuing his creative life.

"Even as a little girl people would say, 'Oh, your father -- what a genius, what a wonderful man,' " Humes said. "And other people would be groaning, 'Oh, what a pain in the ass. How can you deal with such a father?' So in that way I started getting reflections back from the world. People just talked about him as some sort of mythological creature."

Yet by the time Humes got the idea to do the film, her father was already in a hospice. She did one interview with him and then put the footage away, not looking at it for a long time, feeling too inhibited about what she had started to do. Finally she proceeded in what she calls a crab-like way, filming a little at a time, seeking the archival footage, gathering interviews with her father's many friends, famous and non-famous alike. When she received some seed money from a family friend to travel to Paris and interview George Plimpton (another co-founder of The Paris Review), the project began to take off. Humes went to London and Italy during the same trip, retracing Doc's steps and interviewing members of his second family.

Although one might assume the reason Humes took so long to complete the film is because she is so close to the subject, she denies this. "It would have been hard for anyone because he is a difficult subject, because he's so hard to pin down," Humes said. "Also he did so many different things and his character is sort of complex."

David Amram, a composer who was a friend of Doc Humes' and who will join the filmmaker in a discussion after the screening, agreed. "He didn't fit into any political category, but he was very concerned about justice for people at a time when it didn't really seem to be a priority," he said. "Like Kerouac, a lot of these people are now being appreciated for the first time, and there's a much larger sense of the work."

To the filmmaker's credit, she achieves a piece that is not only a portrait of her father but also gives viewers a glimpse into a figure that belongs to the culture at large. "My hope was that by telling this particular story -- his own drama, which I find interesting and moving and complicated -- it also is telling a larger history."



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Comments (7)

hi immy: wonderful,wonderful evening. we all felt on the drive back that we were fortunate to attend a never to be forgotten event. so very special.
i have asked dana to forward to you the remembrances i have of doc.
it is interesting to see how many predictions this so-called madman made that have come true. more to come. i'd bet on it.
in the year that doc spent with us in hamilton, ma i never saw one outburst, in fact he could keep his temper in an argument far better then i. the kids loved him. doc was a teacher for us all. yes, he sported the latter day howard hughes haircut, but what came out of his mouth was reasonable,low keyed, original, and more often than mot, mind boggling. he had this gift that allowed him to see what others of us could not. creative today is a lost word. with doc it meant totally original thinking. that wes his great great gift. that is what put him above the biggest thinkers at harvard at the time, in my opinion.
thank you, thank you, thank you again, immy. let's keep in touch.
all fond wishes, clint
ps: did the nyt review?

I knew Doc from his days hanging out at Columbia University. Now I live in Denver. Is there any way for us folks out in the hinterlands to see this film?

I was a fraternity brother of Doc at MIT, and have the same question as Jim Kruger above--I live in Raleigh, and would hope the film shows up in the Triangle area--perhaps at Duke or UNC Chapel Hill. Also I could share a couple of anecdotes about Doc from days in Boston.
RDD

Immy: I knew Doc Humes at MIT in the 1940s. He was a Theta Chi and I was a Phi Gam. On many occasions, Doc would drop over to the Phi Gam house when we were having a large house party, plop himself on the piano bench, place his glass of beer on the piano and play to his heart's content. I always looked forward to seeing him on those occasions. As I recall, he was a likable, quiet, unassuming guy whom I considered a friend. I do not remember his ever with a date.

best regards,
George Vitt
MIT Class of 1949

I roomed with Humes in the Theta Chi house at MIT. He entertained a Radcliff girl there overnight. As a fraternity officer, I was hauled before a panel of MIT officials to explain how this was allowed to happen. Shortly afterward, we were kicked off the MIT campus. By submitting to having a male housemother in residence, we were readmitted to MIT's favor.

Met Doc during May '68 riots in Paris. He was staying at a hotel on la rue Gregoire de Tours -- holding court just a few steps from the Cafe de Bucci, my usuual wattering hole. Saw him with some frequency on into June, when I got busted at dawn on the Pont Neuf. Doc, a few days after that, got busted too. Never had a chance to speak with him again (we were both too spooked) but ran into an old acquaintance of his, John "the-Boneshaker," in Tangier in 1971, and he said "Doc" was, as he put it, "Still cooking."
Doc left an indelible impression on anyone who would lend an ear. One struggled to understand the exact terms of engagement (were we gripped by his erudition, by his persona, or by method?), but there can be no such effect with out a monumental cause. And Doc was certainly that!
Where can I lay hands on Immy's documentary on her remarkable dad?

Hi, Immy, I am hoping you remember me from the old Fieldston days. This is your old friend Jessica (Wechsler). Be in touch if you get this message!

can't wait to hear from you.

j

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