Jazz singer and writer George Melly takes a nostalgic trip through front rooms and backstreets as he reminiscences about the influence of Dada and Surrealism on his early life.
Category: Television
Film director, theatre director, and opera director. The multi-talented Luchino Visconti is interviewed on this special to reflect upon his views on each of those art forms and he approaches each of them. Also features interviews with collaborators such as Vittorio de Sica, Leonardo Bernstein and Maria Callas.
After his snowmobile breaks down during a hunting trip, an Inuk hunter leaves his family in Cape Dorset and travels to Frobisher Bay to earn money for repairs. With the help of his cousin, he becomes a taxi driver, but his attempt to adapt to city life soon leads him into drinking and trouble.
This sweet, quiet film is set during World War I. It is the story of Amy, a proper, but lonely housewife whose husband is away at war. She finds solace in a friendship with a more worldly female photographer, only to have her entire world turned upside down when the friendship becomes genuine love and she is forced to choose. Groundbreaking for its powerful yet non-prurient portrayal of lesbian first love.
This program explores the film work of the painter, abstract artist, engineer, animator and film artist Oskar Fischinger, with many examples of his work. Writer William Möritz and Fischinger’s widow Elfriede discuss his work with film animator and historian John Canemaker.
This program presents excerpts from German plays written in the 1920s that illustrate tensions that contributed to the rise of Nazism. The plays are “Gas” by George Kaiser, “Hoopla! Such is Life!” by Ernst Toller, and “The Private Life of the Master Race” by Bertolt Brecht.
Englishman Bruce Harris took on more than he bargained for when he accepted the job of boss at a refuge for street children in Guatemala City. He has now become the not-so-local hero. This film documents his investigations into violent acts, including murder, against Guatemala’s street children by the national police. His pursuit of justice on behalf of these children is legendary but has placed him in a personally dangerous position.
Filmed study of Bunraku, the classical Japanese puppet art, which uses three-quarters life-sized figures, handled by black-clothed manipulators who remain in plain view of the audience, convention rendering them invisible. These scenes trace Bunraku from the making of the puppets and the way in which their limbs are articulated, to their costuming and reflections on their relationship to kabuki theater. It includes complete performances of traditional Bunraku plays. Commentary by the well-known authority on dance and Asian arts, Faubion Bowers.