Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself (Tom Bean & Luke Poling; 2012) USA

Reviewed by Grace Williamson at the Lobero, Santa Barbara International Film Festival

What do you smell in a food-less theater? On Thursday mornings,  wafts of old lady perfume filled the theater; little did I know I was in the last showing for a Kansas City convention of retired folk who enjoy good films.

P  recision; George Plimpton, a Do-It-Yourself Journalist, the first of his kind revolutionized the world through literature for all.  He was no average writer, he was our reality TV in every ones head.  He was very precise and particular about what he tackled in football or reaching for his goal in soccer or hockey.  His books were not targeted for one gender, race, or language.  Plimpton took the world in his pocket notebook and was notorious for trying lots of things he was not very good at.

L  ove, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  To have a life where you get the chance to try everything you have ever imagined sounds like a dream come true, but taking that to share it with the world made Plimpton mearly the body and anyone could be the mind or soul within this fearless man.  Plimpton had the opportunity to train and attempt playing sports with professional athletes, he was the original underdog, zero.

I  mportant, interesting, illuminating a life unknown to the average person.  This film portrayed Plimpton’s life as a sneak peak into a little part of someones secret dream, from playing sports in the major leagues to tight rope walking in the circus.

M  r. Everybody was another name for Plimpton in his heyday   He could be anyone and that made him so universally marketed, if he could do it, then so can you.  He was a big inspirational figure in the 1960’s, which unfortunately dwindled as he got older.  He turned to doing very rotten commercials about changing light bulbs with his catch phrase, “If I can do it, you can too.”  These fast transactions gave Plimpton temporary funds, but took away his seriousness as an author.

P  articipatory journalism, started out with The Paris Review, a collaboration of writers and he began interviewing them, something that just simply was not done.  Though incredibly talented Plimpton hit many bumps in the road including expulsion three months prior to graduating,  from a highly esteemed preparatory boys school where many of the buildings were named after his founding fathers.

”  T  here is a great difference between amateur and professional,”  Plimpton knew he was only temporarily part of the teams because at the end of the day he was an amateur.

O  pportunities, Plimpton became a spokes model for everything and anything because he wrote about his experiences, and shed light on topics that were unknown to many of his readers because this was a time without the technology we are so spoiled with daily.

N   Plimpton once said, “Never look down, once you do, you can’t see anything else.” I think that applies more to his life, he never looked down, but because of that he had a ring of optimism that in anything he did you could feel.

I think this film was portrayed extremely well, the audience seemed a little more enthusiastic and surprised about many of the different tasks Plimpton had experienced. But, I might have been one of the few who had experience with trapeze and various other ground shattering adventures, which interestingly enough made me feel a connection and inspiration from Plimpton.