'My Psychedelic Love Story': Release date, plot, trailer and all you need to know about Showtime documentary on Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary is often known as the "Father of the Psychedelic Movement" in the United States. He pioneered the study of psychedelic drugs while he was a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, working on the Harvard Psilocybin Project from 1960 to 1962. At the time, LSD and psilocybin were still legal in the country.
Leary’s experiments were highly controversial and he was dismissed from Harvard in 1963. He also ran into many troubles with the law while he was alive because of his association with psychedelics and other drugs. Cultural conservatives saw Leary as a corrosive influence on society — then-President Richard Nixon called him “the most dangerous man in America” — while many researchers felt that Leary delegitimized the serious study of psychedelic drugs.
After arrests in 1965 and 1968 for possession of marijuana and a prolonged legal battle, Leary was incarcerated in 1970. Later, he became an informant for the FBI in order to shorten his prison sentence and he entered the witness protection program upon his release in 1976, prompting his friends, Allen Ginsberg, Ram Dass and his son, Jack Leary to denounce him.
It is believed that his then-girlfriend, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, had a role in his becoming an informant. A new documentary from Showtime, 'My Psychedelic Love Story' sheds light on the relationship and Leary becoming a "narc". Read on to know more details about the documentary.
Release date
'My Psychedelic Love Story' will premiere on Showtime on Sunday, November 29, at 9/8c.
Plot
'My Psychedelic Love Story' is a psychedelic head trip crossed with a possible CIA conspiracy wrapped in a fascinating love story told by Joanna Harcourt-Smith about her time with Timothy Leary. In the documentary, Errol Morris and Harcourt-Smith will reexamine this chaotic period of her life and explore the dark side of the Leary saga: his period of exile, reimprisonment and subsequent cooperation with authorities.
Told through the lens of Swiss-born, Paris-raised free spirit Harcourt-Smith, 'My Psychedelic Love Story' examines the twists and turns that led Leary, the High Priest of LSD, to seemingly sell out the millions he urged to "turn on, tune in and drop out" and become a narc in 1974. At the heart of the story is the woman Leary described as his "perfect love."
Was she a government pawn, a Mata Hari, or simply a beautiful, young, intelligent woman on the trip of a lifetime? Through a series of candid interviews, Morris and Harcourt-Smith reexamine this chaotic period, resulting in a singular snapshot of the early 1970s cultural landscape — and its profound impact on the trajectory of one woman's life.
Producers/Director
'My Psychedelic Love Story' is produced for Showtime by Fourth Floor Productions and Moxie Pictures. In addition to directing, Errol Morris serves as producer, along with Robert Fernandez and Steven Hathaway.
Trailer
If you like this, you will love these:
'Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary'
'Return Engagement'
'Neurons to Nirvana'
'Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics'
'A New Understanding: Science Of Psilocybin'
