Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowryby John Kramer, Donald Brittain (1976, approx. 99 minutes)This feature-length Oscar-nominated documentary focuses on Malcolm Lowry, author of one of the major novels of the 20th century, "Under the Volcano." Shot on location in four countries, this fascinating film combines photographs, readings by Richard Burton from the novel, and interviews with the people who loved and hated the man who won the battle with the novel but lost the fight with demons and drink.
And what he wanted then, ah then (he had turned right without looking at the sign and was following the path along the wire fence), what he wanted then, he thought, casting one yearning glance at the plains - and at this moment he could have sworn that a figure, the details of whose dress he did not have time to make out before it departed, but apparently in some kind of mourning, had been standing, head bowed in deepest anguish, near the centre of the public garden - what you want then, Geoffrey Firmin, if only as an anecdote against such routine hallucinations, is, why it is, nothing less than to drink; to drink, indeed, all day, just as the clouds once more bid you, and yet not quite; again it is more subtle than this; you do not wish merely to drink, but to drink in a particular place in a particular town.
--from Under the Volcano
