Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim whose works include such Broadway hits as “A Little Night Music”, “Company” and “Follies”, talks about the origin of a song from his latest Broadway musical, “Pacific Overtures”. On camera with him are film critic Frank Rich and John Weidman author of “Pacific Overtures” as a straight play who expanded it to the musical book for the show. A highlight of the program is the performance of the song “Someone in a Tree.” with Sondheim at the piano sung by Mako, James Dybas, Geddie Watanbe and Mark Hsu Syers the men who sing it on the Broadway stage.
Category: Television
Poet-playwright-teacher, Kenneth Koch, author of “Wishes, Lies and Dreams,” an anthology of children’s poetry, shows how children can write poetry. He explains his teaching techniques and demonstrates the writing of poetry with a group of children utilizing the possibilities in a television studio.
A re-enactment of one of the biggest frauds of all time. In 1969, the Equity Funding Corporation of America lacked the facts to make an accurate profit forecast because of computer troubles. They made a guess – two million dollars too optimistic. So two young executives fed fictitious insurance polices in the computer – all prefixed “99” so that they could easily be cancelled when the temporary loan was paid off. But the temptation to escalate the fraud became irresistible.
Made on a wind-up Bolex camera, The Sound of Seeing announced the arrival of 21-year-old filmmaker Tony Williams. Based around a painter and a composer wandering the city (and beyond), the film meshes music and imagery to show the duo taking inspiration from their surroundings. The Sound of Seeing served early notice on Williams’ editing talents, his love of music, and his dislike of narration. It was also one of the first independently-made titles screened on Kiwi television. Composer/author Robin Maconie later wrote pioneering electronic music.
A portrait of Raymond Francombe, jobbing gardener and composer. Ray is a familiar figure around the centre of Bristol. What will not be known by most of those who pass him every day is that for years he has been composing sacred music – and, until this programme was made, he had never actually heard a note of it performed. In this film Derek Jones gets to know Ray, and attempts to have his music professionally assessed.
William Nicholson’s dramatization based on the true story of the race to solve the riddle of DNA. The film reveals how Crick and Watson’s success depended on personality, friendships, emotional conflict and enmity fuelled by wild guesses, some borrowing and sheer luck.
A dramatization of key episodes in the life of Sojourner Truth, a freed slave who was born in 1797 and died in 1883, and became one of the first fighters for the civil rights of the Negro. Actress Pauline Meyers plays Sojourner in this vivid topical profile.
A thoughtful discussion between German film director Marcel Ophuls and CBS News producer Perry Wolff about political and historical documentaries with special emphasis on Ophuls’ masterful four-and-a-half-hour film about the fall of France in World War II, “The Sorrow and the Pity,”. Clips from the award-winning documentary are shown.