A film about Arthur Miller is a film about the 20th century. The 1920s in New York, America's role in the Second World War, the American dream in the form of Marilyn Monroe, the illusion of Hollywood, the theatre world of Broadway, the hunt for communists in the MacCarthy era, premieres of Miller's plays.
His most famous play, Death of a Salesman, is considered a "watershed" of American theatre. Miller's art was to put his finger in the wounds of America. With his plays he wanted to create a connection between the political and the personal. His plays were criticised because he held up a mirror to America and celebrated because people left the theatre deeply touched.

On the one hand, he makes himself an advocate for the little people, was an avowed Marxist who was always more attracted to the failed than the successful. Yet he was also susceptible to the glamour and the flash. His marriage to Marylin Monroe increased his public profile enormously. The legendary McCarthy Committee also wanted to profit from the playwright's sudden celebrity and summoned him. The fact that he did not cooperate with the Committee on Un-American Activities makes him a heroic figure. But it was not this that made the headlines, but his impending marriage to Hollywood diva Marilyn Monroe.
The image the world has of Arthur Miller to this day is that of a left-wing moralist who married the most exciting woman in Hollywood. But Arthur Miller lived a life of the century. He is more than the diva's controversial third husband. Arthur Miller is America's conscience. One who believed you could change the world with theatre. This year he would have been 100 years old.

The film shows the life and work of Arthur Miller in archive footage. Companions such as Dustin Hoffman, Volker Schlöndorff and his sister Joan Copeland have their say.

First broadcast: Saturday, 17 October 2015, 10.25 p.m. on 3sat