While travelling through the countryside, a young man named Ivan is drawn to an isolated castle feared by the local villagers. There he encounters Sibila, a mysterious young widow, and becomes captivated by her as well as by the strange music echoing through the castle. But as he grows increasingly entangled in her world, he begins to realize that the place harbors a dark secret.
Prison discharges Hans into the inhospitable freedom of a cold Munich winter. As a stranger, he strays through familiar streets and bars and tries unsuccessfully to contact old friends. Eventually he takes a plane to a friend in Berlin, fleeing from invisible enemies, on the way to an indeterminate destination.
A send-up of the bawdy life of Romantic composer/piano virtuoso Franz Liszt, with ubiquitous phallic imagery and a good portion of the film devoted to Liszt’s “friendship” with fellow composer Richard Wagner. The film begins during the time when Franz would give piano performance to a crowd of shrieking teenage fans while maintaining affairs with his (multiple!) mistresses. He eventually seeks Princess Carolyne of St. Petersburg (at her invitation), elopes, and, after their marriage is forbidden by the Pope, he embraces the monastic life as an abbé.
In southern France, in a quaint little town, the mayor, who also owns a castle with some cattle, is in the wine cellar with some other people–the pharmacist, the veterinary, and some of his employees. As they are drinking wine, they hear a terrible noise and the heat’s getting higher and higher. They don’t realize what’s happening: when they come out of the cellar, they realize that everything has burned, and all the buildings are destroyed.
In German-occupied Poland in 1943, a writer and a mysterious new acquaintance travel to a country estate, hoping to escape the hardships of wartime Warsaw. Amid the seemingly peaceful surroundings, the two men become absorbed in a disturbing game of manipulation, attempting to bring two young people together while the violence and moral uncertainties of the war linger just beyond their secluded refuge.
The world is a blazing atomic hell. Civilisation is dying in agony… What do you do? …THROW A PARTY! The Third World War has happened. Bombs are dropping everywhere, even Elwood, Melbourne, Australia. In the ruins that follow, three survivors find a bomb shelter. Only to find that the survivors in there are having a party.
Fictionalized portrait of one of history’s great literary couples: Stein & Toklas. Summer 1930s France, Alice tends to ailing Gertrude; they visit Fernande Olivier, Guillaume Apollinaire, others; and Hemingway pops in.
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.
