California Typewriter

In this magnificent filmic essay, director Doug Nichol explores the mythology attached to the typewriter, as cultural historians, collectors and various obsessives (including Tom Hanks, John Mayer, David McCullough and Sam Shepard) celebrate the physicality of the typewriter, both as object and means of summoning the creative spirit. It also movingly documents the struggles of California Typewriter, one of the last standing repair shops in America dedicated to keeping the aging machines clicking. A fascinating combination of history and emotional narrative plunges us into the mysterious, bittersweet moment in which a beloved technology faces extinction and delivers a thought-provoking meditation on the changing dynamic between humans and machines. (Works Film Group)