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1-45 of 45
- Profile of one of the world's most popular motion picture stars, told through interviews with some of the artists who worked with him, family, friends, and excerpts from many of his films and television appearances.
- The work of photographer Diane Arbus as explained by her daughter, friends, critics, and in her own words as recorded in her journals. Illustrated with many of her photographs. Mary Clare Costello, narrator Themes: Arbus' quirky go-it-alone approach. Her attraction to the bizarre, people on the fringes of society: sexual deviants, odd types, the extremes, styles in questionable taste, poses and situations that inspire irony or wonder. Where most people would look away she photographed.
- Scripted documentary on the career of the creative team Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein: Interviews with members of their families, and with theater and film professionals who worked with them, actors as well as directors Reuben Mamoulian, Josh Logan, Robert Wise and choreographer Agnes de Mille. Excerpts from stage, film and television productions of their works, including "Oklahoma!", "South Pacific", "Carousel", "The King and I', "Flower Drum Song", "The Sound of Music", etc.
- Author-critic Anthony Burgess explores in a free-wheeling way perspectives of James Joyce's great experimental novel "Finnegans Wake". He is in the unusual setting of an Irish pub, utilizing a variety of props to illustrate his points. Burgess, erudite and ironic, brings in photographs, history and even sings a song from the book -- the "Ballad of Persse O'Reilly." All this with Burgess leaning on the big wooden bar of the pub. Internationally known author Burgess ("A Clockwork Orange", "ReJoyce", etc.) has always been fascinated by "Finnegans Wake", its idiosyncratic language, its enormously complicated structure, and its attempt to address those most universal human questions of life, death, sex, mind, and mankind's fall and resurrection.
- Musical biography of Fats Waller. Ken Prymus, and the actors and actresses from 1980 off-Broadway production of "Ain't Misbehavin'", in a portrait of Fats Waller, his life and the music he wrote or made popular. With rare "soundies" film and photographs. Selections performed include "T'aint Nobody's Business", "Ain't Misbehaving", "What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue?", "The Joint's Jumpin'", "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Your Feet's Too Big."
- Three distinguished theater producer-directors recapture the heady days of the famous Group Theater and discuss its origins, successes, failures, and eventual decline. Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg and Bobby Lewis - all actively involved in American theater production, as well as criticism and history - were among the young pioneers who gave life to one of the country's great experiments in the theater during the 1930s. Clurman and Strasberg, with Cheryl Crawford, were the Group's original founders. Many photographs from the period recall their efforts and collaborators, which included Elia Kazan, Stella Adler, Clifford Odets, Franchot Tone and John Garfield. The Group Theater was active from 1931 to 1940. It came in with the Depression and went out with the World War. It was intended as a forum for plays that would make a political difference in a world that seemed to be sliding backwards. It was intended as a new start in the choosing, casting and presentation of plays. It was a way of exploring acting techniques and of forging a cohesive group of talent that would work together and stay together. And it was intended to be socially conscious and have an effect on American society. To some extent it achieved all these aims. But as Mr. Clurman points out at the end of this vital discussion, its also labored against itself by not having a thoroughly thought out program and the finances to keep it going. Among the Group Theater's most memorable successes were "Awake and Sing" (1935), "Waiting for Lefty" (1935), "Johnny Johnson" (1936), "Golden Boy" (1937), and "My Heart's in the Highlands" (1937). The Group Theater was the first to present the work of Clifford Odets and Marc Blitzstein. Mr. Clurman has written about The Group Theater in his book "The Fervent Years."
- Overview of the life and art of sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Interview of Noguchi, film of many of his sculptures, designs, stage sets, fountains, public spaces, drawings, etc. Filmed in his studio in Long Island City, NY. With scenes of the artist at work and reflecting on his aesthetics. He is interviewed by Faubion Bowers, well-known writer on the arts. Noguchi at 70 talks about art, space, awareness of gravity, balance, the influence of Japan on his work, early influences (Brancusi, Gorki), playgrounds, Martha Graham sets, sheet metal, the IBM Headquarters in Armonk, NY. Other themes and film segments: New York City work, Osaka fountains, in the Alps working where Michelangelo mined his stone, environments in Paris, gardens ("time is either friendly or it destroys...; all returns to earth"), the nature of sculpture ( "it is reflected light"), paper lanterns, in Japan learning from nature and natural mediums, apparent contradiction between nature and the modern world: "Industrialized civilization requires industrial tools... machines instead of hands."
- Documentary about kendo, the senior martial arts form, in which contestants use bamboo staves as dueling weapons. Includes scenes filmed in practice studios, competitions, the Budokan -- Tokyo's main exhibition hall. Also includes demonstrations of many other martial arts forms, and of art and film that illustrate the importance of disciplined fighting in Japanese culture.
- The celebrated African-American author and long-time expatriate Chester Himes discusses his life and work with the young poet-author-political activist Nikki Giovanni. Himes also relates an illustrated memoir of Harlem in the 20's and 30's that he wrote especially for this interview. It features many personal photographs that trace his life and many archive pictures of the times. Himes has had an "underground" following for years for his "surreal" detective fiction and his best known work "Cotton Comes to Harlem." Here he reminisces about the Harlem he knew so well before World War Two, and about America's racial situation which finally drove him into his long exile in Europe. He and Giovanni also discuss the art of fiction and the role of the black writer in America today.
- Wide ranging exploration of the ideas of architect Paolo Soleri. With Paolo Soleri, architect, philosopher; Stewart Udall (former Secretary of Interior and head of an environmental consulting firm); Kenneth Gibson, Mayor of Newark, N.J.; Alvin Toffler, author ("Future Shock", etc.); scientist/future-thinker Arthur C. Clarke ("2001: A Space Odyssey", etc.); Moshe Safdie, architect ("Habitat"); Prof. John Gallahue (Columbia Univ., New York City.) and others. An illustrated series of interviews about Paolo Soleri's ideas. Themes: architecture, the future of urban centers, the Earth's ability to sustain itself under the increasing load of human population, the interaction of art and utility, the future of ideas we take for granted,( such as progress and technology), and the changing nature of man himself. Stewart Udall is on-camera host and voice-over narrator. Soleri is seen in dialog with a wide range of persons whose concerns and expertise intersect his own ideas. A great deal of film and photographs illustrate the themes discussed. The main theme discussed in this footage: cities are the man made landscape and are essential to the continuation of civilization; but new cities must evolve in response to a changing world; they must be integrated places, built up into three dimensions, not out endlessly across the landscape..
- Film director Hitchcock discusses his life and career in long talks with Pia Lindstrom (newscaster and daughter of Hitchcock star Ingrid Berman) and with film historian William Everson. Excerpts from several films illustrate these interviews. Discussion topics include: what is fear?, method acting vs. film acting, the difference between the usual "Who Done It" mystery and what he considers to be real suspense. His choice of leading ladies and why (Bergman, Baxter, Kelly, Marie Saint, Leigh, etc.).
- George Dunning -artist, illustrator, film animator - explains his work, draws, tours his studio in England showing how film animation is produced from hand-drawn cells. Many examples of his pictures and films, including "The Flying Man", "Damon the Mower," and the Beatles animated film "The Yellow Submarine". Topics: Techniques that transform drawings and paintings into film --exposure sheets, levels where characters should appear, "peg" animation. Dunning shows how he achieved sequential drawings for "Damon the Mower." His acknowledged debt to Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren.
- Profile of the great film director D.W. Griffith. Ron Mottram, professor of cinema history and director of the Griffith retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (1975) interviews silent film stars Blanche Sweet and Lillian Gish about their careers and working with Griffith. Illustrated with many film clips and photographs. Film excerpts include portions of "Way Down East" (1920), "Intolerance" (1916), "True Heart Susie" (1919) and "Birth of a Nation." Ms. Gish reminisces about the long hours, dangerous situations, and the presentation of character without recourse to spoken dialogue. Film excerpts include portions of "Death's Marathon", "The Painted Lady", "Feud in the Kentucky Hills", "A Corner in Wheat", "The Informer", "Country Doctor", all made in the early years when Griffith worked for the Biograph company, 1908-1913. Ms. Sweet starred in many of these films and reminisces about the method of shooting in those days. These films and dozens of others were often turned out two or three a week, shown briefly, and then never seen again. Some of these films include the first "pans", "zooms" or "close ups" ever used. Griffith invented as he went along.
- Profile of film director Richard Lester, who speaks of his career, from early work in commercials to the experimental "Running, Jumping, Standing Still Film" with Peter Sellers and The Goon Show cast, through features: the Beatles' film "A Hard Day's Night", "The Knack and How to Get It", "How I Won the War", "The Bed Sitting Room", "The Three Musketeers", "The Four Musketeers." Clips from all these works. Lester talks of "the benevolent dictatorship of being a director", his commitment to the subject of his films, his anti-war message, his desire to widen the understanding of the audience.
- Perspectives on poetess Anna Akhmatova, the celebrated Russian poet who bridged Tsarist and Revolutionary Russia, was adored and called "the soul of her time," and who suffered desperately under Stalin's disfavor. Irene Moore, a founder of the American Stanislavsky Theatre, recites Akhmatova's poetry in Russian. Samuel Driver, professor (Brown Univ.), Irene Kirk, professor (Univ. of Connecticut.) who have written about Akhmatova, reminisce about her life and times. Narrated by critic Faubion Bowers. With many photographs of Akhmatova and her world. Themes: Akhmatova, partly because of her vanity and her sufferings, partly because of the American feelings about the Stalin era, and mainly because her poetry weaves so many purely Russian idioms and contexts together, is usually inaccessible in translation to Americans. The academics here are passionate to change that. Driver is the author of a new book on the poet, and Kirk was one of the last Americans to see her alive and hopes to convey something of her importance to the Russians.
- Painter-draftsman-filmmaker-printmaker Alexander Alexeieff, with his wife and co-worker Claire Parker, discuss the use of their "pin-board" technique for illustration and film animation. With excerpts from their films, a demonstration of the pin-board, and film made on location in Paris about the reception of their art.
- Primer on the meaning, techniques and background of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Keir Dullea, who starred in the film as astronaut Bowman, narrates on camera and over many excerpts from the film.
- The APA ("Association of Producing Artists") rehearses and discusses scenes from Ibsen's "The Wild Duck".
- "Life" Magazine photographer-photojournalist W. Eugene Smith and his Japanese wife Aileen talk with photo magazine editor James Hughes and writer William Pierce and show many of the famous pictures Smith took which established the scandal in Minamata, Japan. Fish poisoning caused by chemical dumping by the Chiso Factory caused mysterious diseases, birth deformities, and serious physiological defects in large numbers of villagers who lived by the sea and ate the fish. Chiso and the Japanese government tried to deny the facts and stop an investigation. The Smiths persevered and brought the story to worldwide notice. After many difficulties the victims were compensated. Smith himself was severely beaten in one of the demonstrations that turned violent. Smith's Minamata photographs established a new standard for photojournalism.
- Filmmakers Costa-Gavras and Marcel Ophuls discuss the nature of films with a sharp political edge, with clips from Costa-Gavras' films. Two internationally known directors who have made a specialty of films with an outspoken political edge discuss the values and methods in the genre, and the problems they have faced. Costa-Gavras was best known for "Z" and "State of Siege", and Ophuls for "The Sorrow and The Pity" and "Sense of Loss" when this conversation -- illustrated with film clips -- was produced. Costa-Gavras' film "Special Section" had just been released. Costa-Gavras' films, though based on real facts and issues, are scripted and professionally acted. Ophuls' work is documentary in style. They address such themes as the difference between "objective" and "subjective" truth, and their personal motives for choosing this form of film art.
- History of "The March of Time" newsreel series, which, before television, covered the news for motion picture audiences 1935 to 1951. Interviews with creative team of producer, director, editors. Many excerpts from the newsreel series. With: Louis De Rochemont, producer. Maury Wiseman, film editor. Jack Glen, director. Lothar Wolff, editor. (All creative personnel on "The March of Time.") Interview subjects cover reporting styles, logistical difficulties with 35 mm. cameras and big lights, the use of reenactments, the difference between the "truth of yesterday and the truth of today and how truth in film is perishable." Reflections on technical details for a "natural look", no zooms or panning, flat lighting, wide angle lens and distortion; and "The March of Time's" influence on today's television journalism. With many excerpts from "The March of Times".
- Two paintings owned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City) are compared. They are called "masterpieces" by museum Director Philippe De Montebello. One: Rembrandt's self-portrait of 1660. Two: Velazquez' portrait of Juan De Pareja. This half hour contains two separate short films.