From Dickinson, With Love

Poet Emily Dickinson, pigeonholed as the strange recluse since her death, takes you on a journey through the seasons of her life amid 1800s New England.

Hundreds of scholars and biographers have tried to explain the life and work of Emily Dickinson, but the famously reclusive poet remains an enigma. In LOADED GUN: Life, and Death, and Dickinson, stumped filmmaker Jim Wolpaw uses a decidedly unorthodox approach to create a documentary about the writer whose beautiful, haunting and cryptic poetry has never quite squared with her reputation as a sensitive spinster. Wolpaw's efforts to illuminate this ethereal subject - more than 150 years after her death - yield some hilariously frustrating results.

A journey through Emily Dickinson's tortured life of psycho sexual frenzy or a satire of short films

Explore Emily Dickinson's vivacious, irreverent side that was covered up for years — most notably her lifelong romantic relationship with another woman.

The story of American poet Emily Dickinson from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive, unrecognized artist.

Portrait of 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson based on her poems, letters and notes. This is a taped broadcast of a live one-woman performance.

This installment of the Great Women Writers series celebrates American poet Emily Dickinson's works by reciting passages against the backdrop of rare archival photographs and authentic period imagery. Though she wrote more than 2,500 poems during her lifetime - verses that reveal singular talent and complexity - Dickinson (1830-1886) chose to publish only seven, making her one of the most reclusive American writers of all time.

Though Emily Dickinson spent almost all her life in Amherst, Massachusetts, her poems represent a broad range of imaginative experience. They are rich in feeling, wide in their knowledge of nature, books, and geography, and expansive in their vision. Dickinson’s training in science suggests a source for her skill in accurate observation, whether of plants and animals or the workings of her own mind. The greatest effect of her scientific studies, though, is in her experimental attitude about life’s great issues.

Blues and folk singer Karen Dalton was a prominent figure in 1960s New York. Idolized by Bob Dylan and Nick Cave, Karen discarded the traditional trappings of success and led an unconventional life until her early death. Since most images of Karen have been lost or destroyed, the film uses Karen's dulcet melodies and interviews with loved ones to build a rich portrait of this singular woman and her hauntingly beautiful voice.

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related series of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the fourth of the six films, "The Pursuit of Happiness," filmmaker Robert Zemeckis delves into the history of America's relationship with mind-altering substances over the past 100 years, presenting interviews with historians and professionals in the drug treatment field, interspersed with a treasure trove of film and television clips depicting the highs and lows of smoking, drinking and drugging in the 20th century