The project about the Harvard scientist turned 1960s counterculture celebrity will debut later this year.
Showtime Documentary Films has picked up a new feature documentary from the 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-time 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 & Moxie Pictures. Morris is an executive producer, while Robert Fernandez and Steven Hathaway are producing.
