Peace of Mind: A Paul Williams Anthology

Edited by Paul Cronin

An unclassified dossier. A volatile archive. An incantation made of celluloid, ink and memory. An artifact hewn from the forgotten annals of a shadowed past. An unfiltered transmission from the liminal spaces between fact and myth. Brace yourself, dear reader, for this secret ledger.

Packed with an eclectic assemblage of images, documents and texts, drawn from the margins of history, from locked vaults and forgotten reels, the mesmerizing Peace of Mind is a kaleidoscopic companion piece, a visual complement, the counterpoint to the lovingly crafted words of Paul Williams’ memoir Harvard, Hollywood, Hitmen, and Holy Men. Following a parallel path to that book but from an outsider’s point of view, find here a plethora of interview fragments, photos and archival material. All new. Never-before-seen. A secret history revealed. A frenzied pathway into the uncanny. An unfolding, layered excavation of identity. History in a pulsating straight line. Not merely a book: an invitation to transmutation, an underground history of a multifaceted filmmaker whose work remains a cipher, a provocation, a challenge. The tapestry of Peace of Mind awaits your discovery and interpretation.

The extraordinary life lived by my body with a second-rate mind: when I sit down to write, I think too fast and know too much and too little about too many systems of thought. One of my summa cum laude Harvard roommates, Howard Gardner, declared I was not the smartest in the suite in any area of knowledge but was second smartest in the most areas. I excused myself with the internal self-justification and celebration that though I would never have a leading thought, I would be able to understand more than any of them. I celebrated this notion in later life thinking of myself as a thoughtful cubist, a multiple model economist, a photographer, a psychologist, a director, a hustler, and, after 1974, a thoughtless man who would make no difference.

Paul Williams

Here for an essay by Paul Cronin about Paul Williams originally published in the Spring 2023 issue of Cineaste.

Paul Williams is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His work include Out of It (1969), The Revolutionary (1970), Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972) and The November Men (1995). His memoir, Harvard, Hollywood, Hitmen, and Holy Men, was published in 2023.

^{Peace of Mind: A Paul Williams Anthology (2025)
Paperback ISBN 978-1-942782-71-7 400pp 7×10 inches, with colour images}