What

I'll be watching and reviewing Jason Robards Jr.'s films, plays and other recorded media, in no particular order. Along with my amateur critiques, I'll share context from direct personal memories I have of my dad and family, and bits I have gleaned as I search through family photographs and papers, the internet, books, and hopefully some direct interviews.
There will be photographs and home movies. Jason was friends with wonderful photographers like Jon Bryson, but he also loved to take photographs himself, and had a Super-8 camera. So many of the photographs will be POV (point-of-view) Jason.

There will be letters.

And there will be gleanings from transcripts from interviews in my dad's two attempts at writing a memoir, such as this memory from surviving a shipwreck while serving in the Navy in World War II:

I'll also be gleaning the internet for interviews and relevant information. Hopefully, eventually, I might get to talk with some of the folks who also knew my dad – family, friends, actors.
Jason Robards is in the title because he is an obvious focus given his notable career, but this is also about my mother, bits of me and my extended family, show business and fame, and what these works bring up for me in the time we live in now.
Jason Robards Jr. has acted in some of the most iconic plays and films of the 20th century. And he was truly a man of the 20th century, born in 1922, died in 2000, a survivor of the Great Depression and combat in World War II. As we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, our country, and our world, is grappling with the ways of the 20th century – perhaps the "American" century – that we've inherited.
So I think looking back at this 20th century American man, his life and his work, will be insightful about both his individual life but also our greater society, and how we have changed, or not, since then.
What it isn't
This isn't a celebrity tell-all, partially because that wasn't my dad's style. It's also not a film criticism resource, or a comprehensive biography. It's just me sharing thoughts and memories as I go through things, do my gleaning, and watch his recordings.
What is Gleaning?
Inspired by Agnes Varda. In her film The Gleaners and I, one of my all-time favorite films, Varda explores all kinds of gleaning, from the original gleaners, people who walked through fields after the official harvest and gathered the leavings, grains or vegetables or fruits through to artists and even herself as a documentary filmmaker, gleaning bits of life, images and sound.
So here, I am gleaning what remains of my dad's life and work.