The Pleasures of Being Out of Step

‘Pleasures’ profiles legendary jazz critic and civil libertarian Nat Hentoff, whose pioneering career tracks the greatest cultural and political movements of the last 65 years. The film is about an idea as well as a man – the idea of free expression as the defining characteristic of the individual. Hentoff is a pioneering journalist who raised jazz as an art form and was present at the creation of ‘alternative’ journalism. ‘Pleasures’ wraps the themes of liberty and identity around a historical narrative that stretches from the Great Depression to the Patriot Act. With a mix of interviews, archival footage and music, it employs a complex non-linear structure to engage the audience in a life of independent ideas and the creation of an enduring voice.