Anaïs Nin: Her Diary (1966)

Anais Nin, filmed at the point in her life when she was passing from being a bohemian writer to being a widely read figure taken up by a new generation, reads selections from volume one of her just (1966) published Diary. This diary eventually went into many volumes and through its brutal honesty made her something of a cult figure on college campuses and in the new "women's liberation" movement. Many photos from her personal collection illustrate her life and world. The key passages read here deal with her childhood, her decision to keep a diary as a never-ending letter to her absent father, Europe in the 1930's, Henry Miller and his friends, and her fascination for the Surrealist movement and for psychoanalysis.