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Jack
London in front of the skeleton of what was to become the Stark |
Who was Jack London? Most people know Jack through his
wolf novels -- "Call of the Wild," and "White
Fang" -- or Jack, the adventurer, who trod the
rough paths of the Klondike in search of gold and adventure.
But there's a lot more to the story, and as the famed
literary critic, Alfred Kazin, once remarked,
"The greatest story Jack London
ever wrote
is the story he lived."
John Griffith London (1876-1916) was
one of the most influential writers of his era. His
name became a byword for rugged individualism and
romantic adventure and his private life was front
page copy for every major newspaper in the country.
In the decade preceding WWI he dominated the public's
imagination -- and the literary marketplace -- as
few authors have done, before or since. For 17 years
he wrote more than 1,000 words a day. Though much
of his work is out of print, it did prove to be enormously
influential among several generations of American
writers, from Eugene O'Neill to Norman Mailer. London's
influence extended beyond the borders of the United
States, drawing admirers as diverse as George Orwell
and Leon Trotsky.
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At the peak of his career he was the
highest paid writer in the world. He was also amazingly
prolific, writing fifty books, two-hundred short stories
and four-hundred published non-fiction pieces on a
wide variety of subjects -- all in the relatively
short span of just twenty years. And he wrote on subjects
as different as: agronomy, architecture, astral projection,
boating, ecology, gold hunting, hoboing, love, penal
reform, prizefighting, socialism and warfare. But
it was the sea that beckoned to London and he set
about building a boat of his own design, seeking out
adventure throughout the South Seas, together with
his soul-mate, Charmian Kitteredge. And it is this
fabulous trip, which London memorialized in VOYAGE
OF THE SNARK, that provides the basis for this feature-length
documentary.
Pacific Street has been researching
the Jack London story for almost ten years, accumulating
a sizable collection of old movies (many in Public
Domain); still photographs (PSF has a vintage collection
of more than 400 stills, many taken by Jack himself);
and relevant interviews (both audio and video). One
interview which PSF conducted with the late artist
and radical, Alfred Levitt, described in detail a
meeting with Jack, in New York, shortly before the
novelist’s death in 1916. Levitt himself died,
at age 105, in 2000.
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