With the second season of Stranger Things dropping in a few weeks and moody emo Cole Sprouse returning to moody emo series Riverdale, there’s a lot to look forward to on Netflix this month. In particular, what’s billed as “the first and only documentary about Joan Didion,” The Center Will Not Hold, released on the 27 October.
Director Griffin Dunne, who also happens to be the beloved writer’s nephew, began raising money for the film all the way back in 2014 on Kickstarter, where thousands of fans quickly pledged over $220,000 to bring it to life. Originally conceived on Kickstarter as We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live, the new documentary is made with Joan herself, using her own words.
“I always found that if I examine something, it’s less scary,” says Joan in a voiceover, as the trailer shows her in all her 70s glory: huge sunglasses, bobbed hair, and fierce, unafraid, unlike-anything-else writing. Moving from her childhood and the 60s and 70s when Joan became a cultural icon in her own right, to her later years, the film also focuses on her loss of her husband and daughter, and how she learned to deal with grief.
The documentary premieres on Netflix on 27 October, so you only have to wait another 15 days until then. That’s only 360 hours, so I guess that’s fine. That’s only 21,600 minutes. Enough time to reread The White Album.