Starring JOHN HURT
Based on "THE INMAN DIARY" by ARTHUR CREW INMAN
Published by HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Literary Advisor DANIEL AARON
Co-Producers BRICKYARD FILMWORKS & MICHAEL McCARTHY
Produced by ANWEN REES-MYERS
Written, Produced & Directed by LORENZO DESTEFANO
(www.hypergraphiafilm.com)

HYPERGRAPHIA BROCHURE (CLICK TO ENLARGE)


"HYPERGRAPHIA " is a narrative feature recounting the true story of the notorious Boston eccentric and recluse Arthur Crew Inman (1895-1963) and of "THE INMAN DIARY" he created. Published by Harvard University Press, Inman's gargantuan diary is one of the great literary curiosities of our age, a sprawling memory piece of more than 17 million words. A black comedy of epic proportions, the screenplay is a tightly wound biographical journey with documentary elements drawn from the extensive Inman Collection at Harvard. Historical scenes evoking world events of the first half of the 20th century (stock footage, news headlines, period movie montages) will be integrated with events from the entire 68 years of Inman's life and a good deal of human history in between, - a sort of March of Time with Arthur Inman as self-appointed narrator.

Seldom leaving his apartment in Garrison Hall, the building where he has lived from 1919 until his death by suicide in 1963, Inman chronicles the flow of history through his fractured but highly intuitive lens, the only compass he possesses to navigate within this twilight zone of his own making. He is a man driven by a compulsive instinct to preserve and record time. He obsessively charts his own bizarre lifestyle and the lives of the more than 1000 characters stuffed into his Diary's 155 typewritten volumes. Scanning back and forth through time, Arthur traverses this hazardous terrain with an increasing level of anxiety. Long dead people in his life, great and small, come alive within the confines of apartment #604. The tension and dread brought on by these swelling memories and by his immense self-loathing conspire with the very real turmoil going on outside his windows - the destruction of the old Boston & Albany rail yards by the massive urban renewal project, The Prudential Center, threaten to drive him completely over the edge.

Intense dream imagery (Arthur's vivid nightmares and fantasies - composites of live action, stock footage, digital graphics & animation), will provide a highly visual and cinematic element to counter the many interior scenes required at Garrison Hall. The film will possess a highly adaptable structure that will give it a dynamic style within a disciplined, forward-moving narrative, free from the restrictions of the documentary form while still retaining the essential factual aspects, that all this is absolutely true. These people really existed. These events really happened.

In addition to focusing on Inman's extreme hypochondria and obsession with "this record of my days and nights behind plate glass", "HYPERGRAPHIA" investigates one of the most unusual marriages on record. EVELYN YATES stayed wedded to Arthur Inman for 40 years, truly the survival of the fittest. She remains, despite much torment, loyal and occasionally loving towards her distraught spouse. She even helps him procure young girls and other paid "talkers & readers" from newspaper ads, ("...to amuse an invalid author"), while carrying on her own 30-year affair with Arthur's favorite osteopath DR. CYRUS RUMFORD PIKE, a first-class healer and medical snake-in-the grass.

Arthur Inman is an oddly sympathetic creature despite his often harsh and controversial views. A world-class hypochondriac, his unending medical complaints, from photophobia [the fear of light] to bromide and mercury poisoning to a multitude of chronic osteopathic disasters, are a major theme of the film. His love/hate addiction to the legions of doctors who descend on him over the years has turned him into a man at the end of his moral rope. His early dreams of poetic immortality seem dubious at best. His world has become a curious admixture of KRAPP'S LAST TAPE and ALL IN THE FAMILY.

By December 5, 1963, Garrison Hall has become a fortress against the ravages of time and urban renewal. More terrified than ever of leaving his rooms, Arthur is haunted by the breakup of his marriage, the seeming futility of maintaining his diary, by the threat of nuclear oblivion. Confronted with the magnitude of his own folly, with modern life exploding all around him, Arthur Inman manages one final act of resistance before sinking deeper into the parallel universe of his diary.

Filmmaker Lorenzo DeStefano has been fascinated by Arthur Inman and The Inman Diary since first reading a book review. His play, "CAMERA OBSCURA", based on the diary, was first workshopped at Seattle Repertory Theatre and received its world premiere at London's Almeida Theatre, both productions helmed by the renowned English director Jonathan Miller.

A documentary film, "FROM A DARKENED ROOM-THE STRANGE LIFE & TIMES OF ARTHUR CREW INMAN", is currently in production.

"THE INMAN DIARIES", a chamber opera by Boston composer Thomas Oboe Lee, received its world premiere in Boston Sept 14, 2007 with the Intermezzo Opera Company.

A published biography of Arthur Inman is being developed.