This film biography of one of America’s greatest playwrights is an extremely personal, subjective, and candid one, and with good reason. The director is Rebecca Miller, who happens to be the daughter of the author of
Death of a Salesman — and who, like others in the family, delighted in conversing with and quizzing Arthur Miller, as cameras and tape recorders rolled, throughout his life. There’s a scene in
Salesman where one of the characters, the young boss who demotes and degrades poor Willy Loman, goes on and on about the beauty of these newfangled wire recorders, where you can have the maid record the radio while you’re out, and you can listen to Jack Benny when you get back home. Yes, it was meant to be a spoiled and snooty perspective — but it also predated, by more than a generation or two, the great allure of VCRs, TiVos, and other forms of time-shift recording devices. And here, we find out, Miller was himself a huge early adopter of new technologies.
For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.