Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were young colleagues on the Harvard faculty in the early 1960s when they collaborated on experiments using consciousness-expanding psychedelic drugs—particularly psilocybin, an ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms. Both were dismissed from Harvard in 1963, and their paths diverged: Leary became notorious for promoting the use of LSD (and served a prison sentence), while Alpert experienced a spiritual awakening under the influence of a Hindu guru in India, adopted the name Ram Dass, and wrote a popular book on yoga and meditation. Narrated by Robert Redford, filmmaker Gay Dillingham's documentary offers biographical sketches of both men, drawing on a wide range of archival materials and interviews with colleagues and friends, but is most notable for its excerpts from conversations between the two subjects that the filmmaker arranged after Leary's 1995 announcement that he was suffering from inoperable cancer. Inevitably, their discussion ultimately centers on the attitude one should adopt toward approaching death. Dass suffered a major stroke in 1997 (less than a year after Leary's death), which was not fatal but left him impaired. Although Dying to Know is rather haphazardly constructed, it does offer an intriguing joint portrait of two men who sought, each in his own way, to embrace the whole of existence. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)