Algren(2021)

Storyline

• Algren spotlights the hard-knock life and authentic creative legacy of one of the most underrated writers of the twentieth century, Nelson Algren. Algren's brutally honest portrayal of the American underclass and his hard-nosed lifestyle became his pathway to compassion. Through interviews with Algren contemporaries, experts, and "literary soulmates," as well as through the photography of Algren's friends, Art Shay and Stephen Deutch, the film tells his story. It celebrates his tremendous contribution to and influence on American letters, and pushes Algren, champion of the marginalized, out from the margins. — Michael Caplan Algren, Prophet of the Neon Wilderness, is a feature length documentary, which explores the life, loves and legacy of Nelson Algren, the first National Book Award author of The Man With a Golden Arm and A Walk on the Wild Side. By combining interviews of living artists, filmmakers, writers, and musicians, with original Algren audio, while melding both with the lauded Chicago photography of Art Shay, the real Algren comes into focus. The totality of the film creates both a celebration and vivid reinterpretation of the work of a writer whose full breath and influence is still, to this day, widely unheralded in 21st century America. — Anonymous