Before the word ‘cool’ was part of the American vernacular James Dean defined it. Rebel Without a Cause was the antidote to the clean-cut, cardigan wearing teenager of the ’50s, and became an icon to all those who opposed the establishment. With the help of archival photographs mixed with rare screen and wardrobe tests, this video shows a private side of the Hollywood legend who died far too young. Highlights include home movies and interviews with such famed actors as Julie Harris, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo, Rip Torn, Eli Wallach, Rod Steiger, Beverly Long and Joanne Woodward.
Tag: 1980s
Filmmaker Joram ten Brink owes his existence to a letter flung from a train bound for the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz over 70 years ago. The letter to his grandparents from their 16 year old son, Leo, who was murdered soon afterwards, was written in Dutch under the eyes of Nazi guards. Yet hidden in the text was a single Yiddish word, “weyiverig”, meaning: “HIDE YOURSELVES!” It was enough to persuade the Jewish ten Brink family to flee and set in motion a rescue to compare with the inspiring story of Anne Frank.
Virgil is a young man of 16, without complex, ready to devour the life. He is at the turning point when we go from adolescence to adulthood, where he must face the future, love. It does not happen without clashes (with his father in particular), without tenderness (with the Arquebus, the grandmother) and without trouble, facing Clara, a young woman older than him with whom he falls in love. But Virgil’s goal is above all to go through life so as to never regret anything.
The fundamental questions of human life about guilt, repentance, and redemption are addressed in the two-fold documentary essay delving into the grief of the women from Sliven Prison who give birth to their children behind bars. Binka Zhelyaskova anatomizes a deep collective trauma through the unique stories of her heroines. The film wasn’t screened in the theaters until 1989, following a series of changes in the country’s social milieu.
In this experimental play, first produced in 1928, Eugene O’Neill bares the inner souls of his characters by having them speak their thoughts as well as their dialog. Nins Leeds, the daughter of an Ivy League professor, is devastated by the loss of her fiance in World War I. Ignoring the unconditional love of the novelist Charlie Marsden, she rebounds by marrying an amiable fool, Sam Evans, in the hope that a child will give meaning to the marriage. Nina is thus devastated when she learns a secret know only to Sam’s mother- insanity runs in the family and could be inherited by any child of Sam’s…
A runaway cat-loving girl begins a love triangle with a reckless older man and a young biker in high school. The film follows their subsequent chaotic relationships.
On a dirty grey street in Berlin, a crowd gathers round an eccentric old woman who is performing a strip-tease. Dragged off to a psychiatric hospital, she demands cocaine instead of thorazine, tries to seduce everyone in sight, and insists that she is the legendary dancer Anita Berber, darling of the decadent ’20s. Suddenly, in true Wizard of Oz style, the film departs from monochrome reality into the colour-drenched world of the woman’s fantasies, a wildly exaggerated evocation of Weimar Berlin filmed in full-blown expressionist style.
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.