In researching Gary Cooper's friendship with Ernest Hemingway for an article in the Idaho Press-Tribune,[2] writer/director John Mulholland grew increasingly fascinated by their unlikely friendship.[3] The documentary, Cooper & Hemingway: True Gen, grew out of Mulholland's research for the article.
Gary Cooper's daughter, Maria Cooper, discussed True Gen with the Idaho Mountain Express before a rough cut screening in Sun Valley: "Though Ernest Hemingway’s extraordinary life and career has been exhaustively covered (too often the tabloid-sensationalism of this coverage has over-shadowed his unrivaled literary legacy), less thoroughly examined has been his fascinating friendship with my father, Gary Cooper".[5]
While researching True Gen in Cuba, Mulholland spoke on Cuban radio in Havana.[6]
Prior to the film's release, Mulholland spoke about his Cooper and Hemingway documentary and its expected late 2013 release: "In the final analysis, what distinguishes the film is access—access to the colleagues and members of Ernest Hemingway’s and Gary Cooper’s inner circle that have never been assembled to discuss the lives of these two men, as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has never been seen."
On October 11, 2013, Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen had its theatrical premiere at The Quad Cinema in New York City.[7] The film is a feature-length documentary about the friendship between Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper. It was directed and written by John Mulholland and produced by Richard Zampella.[8]
Audience and critical reception
Film critics hold diverse and wide-ranging opinions of the film.
James Van Maanen, film critic for Trust Movies, called the film "a first class, dual celebrity bio-doc".[11]
Michael Nordine of the Village Voice said that the film was informative to a fault,[12] while Robert Abele of the Los Angeles Times said, "There's an intriguing investigation to be made of the unlikely bond between an easygoing, friendly Hollywood conservative and an intemperate, hard-drinking arts-and-letters liberal who chewed on heroic ideals for a living."[13]
In author and scholar Ron McFarland's 2014 book on Ernest Hemingway he writes: "True Gen, written and directed by John Mulholland, is exceptional, a NY Times Critics Pick, it opened in 2013 to considerable fanfare in NYC ..."[14]
