Michael Maglaras                    James Marcus

(Images Courtesy of 217 Films)

Filmmaker Michael Maglaras, whose new “essay in film,” Ralph Waldo Emerson: Give All to Love is in the final stages of completion, will hold a “conversation” with author and editor James Marcus. Give All to Love, filmed in and around Concord, including, over two days, at the Emerson House, will provide a new and deeply personal perspective on Emerson, his writing, his life, and his importance to contemporary life. This film’s premiere will be in the Goodwin Forum at the Library on September 30, 2023.

James Marcus, featured in Give All to Love, will release his new book, Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson, March 2024, published by Princeton University Press. In this new evaluation of the importance of Emerson, we will get a modern writer’s perspective and a deeply personal reflection on how Emerson’s writing has mattered to a great contemporary writer speaking with the voice of our time.

These two leading thinkers and artistic visionaries will engage in a lively conversation about Emerson’s continuing impact on contemporary life. At the end of the conversation, they will welcome audience questions.

About Michael Maglaras  

Filmmaker Michael Maglaras, founder of 217 Films, is the only living filmmaker in  America who has been honored with six individual film premieres at the National Gallery
in Washington, D.C. A filmmaker dedicated to telling the story of America’s cultural heritage and creative excellence, Maglaras and his executive producer and artistic partner Terri Templeton
have been celebrating America for more than 18 years through their creative film work dedicated to telling the artistic and cultural story of our country. About their film O Brother Man: The Art and Life of Lynd Ward the Journal of American History called it “a beautiful introduction to Ward and his work…unforgettable.” About the first-ever documentary film about the great painter Marsden Hartley Visible Silence the words used by the Naples Daily News were “elegiac and insightful” and by the Georgia Museum of Art “this film is, simply put, a beautiful film.” About Maglaras’s performance in his film Cleophas and His Own (based on a story by Marsden Hartley) Peggy Parsons of the National Gallery in Washington wrote “virtuoso filmmaking…this film holds the viewer spellbound from start to finish!” Michael Maglaras has pioneered the concept of an “essay in film” – a special sort of filmmaking and storytelling, incorporating visual imagery, story-like narrative detail, and deep personal involvement with the subject. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Give All to Love, 217 Films’ latest project, will have its world premiere on September 30, 2023 in Concord, Massachusetts.

About James Marcus

James Marcus' Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson will be published by Princeton University Press in March 2024. His other books include
Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot-Com Juggernaut and seven translations from the Italian, including Giacomo Casanova’s The Duel. He is the former
editor of Harper’s Magazine. He has contributed to The New Yorker, The Times Literary Supplement, The Atlantic, The American Scholar, VQR, The Guardian, The Nation,
and Best American Essays. He also edited and introduced Second Read: Writers Look Back at Classic Works of Reportage.

This event is made possible by the generous support of the Concord Free Public Library Corporation,
a charitable organization funded solely through private philanthropy.
Support the Corporation’s work.