Showtime Documentary Films has picked up a new feature documentary from Oscar-winning Fog of War director Errol Morris about Timothy Leary, the high priest of LSD, to premiere later this year.
The project, with the working title A Film by Errol Morris, questions why Leary became an FBI narc in 1974 and, in a first look trailer unveiled late Tuesday on YouTube, introduces Joanna Harcourt-Smith, with whom Leary had a long-term relationship.
“This is a dream project. I’m always looking for alternative ways into a story. You never want to go through the front door. Or even the back door. Much better to find an attic window that has been left ajar. Joanna Harcourt-Smith, who had a love affair with Timothy Leary, wrote a book detailing how they met, how they fell in love, how they took drugs together, how he ended up in prison,” Morris said in a statement.
The film about Leary — famous for telling young people to “turn on, tune in, drop out” and inviting the wrath of President Richard Nixon — is inspired by Harcourt-Smith’s memoir, Tripping the Bardo With Timothy Leary: My Psychedelic Love Story.
Morris’ Oscar- and Emmy-winning director credits include A Brief History of Time, Standard Operating Procedure, The Thin Blue Line and Gates of Heaven.
His Timothy Leary project is being produced for Showtime by Fourth Floor Productions and Moxie Pictures. Morris is an executive producer, while Robert Fernandez and Steven Hathaway are producers.
