Charleen
Charleen is an observational
documentary film directed and shot by
Ross McElwee, about his friend and former poetry teacher, Charleen Swansea. McElwee follows Charleen over a month in her life in
North Carolina, where she still teaches poetry, engages in interracial flirtation (to the titillation of her students), and prepares to sell a personal letter from
Ezra Pound in which Pound bemoans Charleen's impending
marriage.
McElwee shot the film as part of his graduate thesis at MIT, where he studied under Richard Leacock and Edward Pincus. The film is 59 minutes long.