Produced by the BBC, Joan Miró: Theatre of Dreams profiles the Spanish painter known for his childlike exuberance and playful abstract images. Ironically, his colorful pieces were often inspired by painful wartime experiences — specifically, the harshness of Franco’s regime. Written and narrated by Miró’s longtime friend Roland Penrose, the documentary features conversations between the two. Miro, who belonged to the surrealist school, often began paintings by marking the canvas with a splotch or a stain, which later transformed into a bird, a pretzel-shaped man, or a crooked star. At 85, Miró was still working.
Tag: 1970s
TV adaptation of Bruce Jay Friedman’s off-Broadway play. Tandy, Merideth and assorted others unexpectedly wake up in a steambath with no easy exit. After spending some time there, it becomes clear that the steambath is a sort of Afterlife, where indifferent souls come to tell their stories to God who happens to be the attendant picking up the towels.
Described by Meredith Monk as a “memorial piece for a world at war” and an “opera in three movements,” Quarry is a typically difficult-to-classify multimedia piece by Monk, combining dance, song, film, and theatrical performance. Set during World War II, Quarry is told from the expressionistic perspective of a sickly child (played by Monk), whose idyllic domestic life becomes increasingly distorted and terrifying as news of the world enters her home and reshapes her imagination.
Krzysztof Kieślowski unmasks the prototype of the informer and opportunist (in a totalitarian society) exclusively from the latter’s own perspective. Even the commentary is by the ambivalent protagonist. Kieślowski later kept the film under lock and key in order not to harm his protagonist.
Two scheming ne’er-do-wells find a lost nuclear weapon in the ocean near Los Angeles. They decide to light-heartedly try to blackmail the city by asking for money from each citizen, which arouses the local authorities’ attention.
Follows contemporary American poet James Dickey on a three week lecture tour. Reveals the actual thoughts and feelings of the poet through his conversations and poetry readings.
Ondine and Sally Dixon “star” as ecstatic 19th-century lovers in Roger Jacoby’s first home-processed film. Nickelodeon imagery, school children of Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Botanical Conservatory.