Well, HPL himself used the phrase "biologically inferior scum of southern Europe and Western Asia", while the following comes from his essay "Bolshevism" (
The Conservative, July 1919):
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The most alarming tendency observable in this age is a growing disregard for the established forces of law and order. Whether or not stimulated by the noxious example of the almost sub-human Russian rabble, the less intelligent element throughout the world seems animated by a singular viciousness, and exhibits symptoms like those of a herd on the verge of stampeding.
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-- Collected Essays 5: Philosophy, Autobiography & Miscellany, p. 37
However, you also raise an interesting point about his being an "'ever-shaping' personality" (nice phrase, that)... this is something which appears to be one of the themes of a book I've just started reading: Robert H. Waugh's
The Monster in the Mirror: Looking for H. P. Lovecraft. It's a book I've been meaning to get around to for some time, but only now have managed to dip into. At any rate, among the man other things which this rather large book (302 pp. of small print, including bibliography and index) of Lovecraftian criticism deals with, this idea of Lovecraft's contradicting himself and his not necessarily being consistent is one -- though at the same time, Waugh notes his anti-Semitism:
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When I began these essays I did not foresee the extent to which Lovecraft's anti-Semitism informs his fiction, although his anti-Semitism is patent in his letters; in the light of these essays we cn no say with full conviction that although very few of his stories are anti-Semitic almost all of them are constructed from anti-Semitic materials.
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-- The Monster in the Mirror, p. 9
So far, it is a fascinating and quite challenging work -- something I've come to expect from Waugh's essays that I've read -- and I would recommend it to anyone interested in a deeper look into Lovecraft's fiction.
At any rate, these things are worth investigating, as they give fascinating insights into a very fascinating, complex man. And (to return to the topic of the thread) while such a short documentary cannot possibly do such a subject justice, given the constraints the filmmakers were working under, they did a remarkable job. For those who are interested in Lovecraft the man (including the origins and background behind some of his works), but who lack the inclination or resources to seek out all these other source materials, I definitely recommend this effort. It doesn't flinch from the negative aspects of Lovecraft's personality, but neither does it overstress them, and the result is a balanced and enoyable look at a man who, as I have noted elsewhere, Colin Wilson once called "one of the most interesting minds of his generation".
(And, should anyone be interested, here is a review from Amazon on the book mentioned above):
http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Mirror...owViewpoints=1