Joe Goulds Secret (2000)

Around 1940 New Yorker staff writer Joe Mitchell meets Joe Gould a Greenwich Village character who cadges meals drinks and contributions to the Joe Gould Fund and who is writing a voluminous Oral History of the World a record of 20000 conversations hes overheard Mitchell is fascinated with this Harvard grad and writes a 1942 piece about him Professor Seagull bringing Gould some celebrity and an invitation to join the Greenwich Village Ravens a poetry club hes often crashed Goulds touchy querulous personality and his frequent dropping in on Mitchell for hours of chat lead to a breakup but the two Joes stay in touch until Goulds death and Mitchells unveiling of the secret