Norman Corwin and Daniel Johnston in Hollywood

Press Release:

Beverly Hills, CA — A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin, which won the 2005 Academy Award® for Documentary Short Subject, and The Devil and Daniel Johnston will be screened on November 1 at 7 p.m. as the next installment in the 25th Annual Contemporary Documentary Series, presented by the Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Free and open to the public, the screening will take place at the Academy's Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.

Though almost a forgotten figure today, Norman Corwin was the "poet laureate of radio drama" during WWII, whose stirring war-themed radio plays helped sell America on the justness of defeating the Nazis. A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin features testimonies from Walter Cronkite, Robert Altman, Norman Lear and Studs Terkel as well as excerpts from Corwin's radio show, all of which confirm how a single 1945 radio broadcast could have captured 60 million listeners — more than half the nation. The film was directed by Eric Simonson and produced by Simonson and with Corinne Marrinan. Marrinan will be present at the screening to take questions from the audience.

Daniel Johnston is an artist whose shows and underground tapes of original songs regularly sell out. He is also a manic-depressive whose life — medicated with and without the help of prescriptions — has been filmed by himself and others for more than 20 years. Produced by Henry S. Rosenthal and directed by Jeff Feuerzeig, The Devil and Daniel Johnston examines the line between creativity and madness and reveals a life of accomplishment, achievement and sorrow. Feuerzeig will be present at the screening to take questions from the audience.

Admission to all screenings in the Academy/UCLA Contemporary Documentary Series is free. The Linwood Dunn Theater is located at the Academy's Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study, 1313 North Vine Street, in Hollywood, at the northwest corner of Fountain Avenue and Vine Street. Parking is available behind the building through the entrance on Homewood Avenue, one block north of Fountain. For more information, call (310) 247-3600 or (310) 206-FILM.

Photo: © A.M.P.A.S.