Phoenix emerged in the 1980s as one of the most exciting contemporary groups in Britain, made up of five young black men who were introduced to dance while at school in one of the poorest parts of Leeds. Their extraordinary story is told in documentary film and in a work called The Forming of the Phoenix. The programme’s finale is a performance of Edward Lynch’s Nightlife at the Flamingo, which fuses jazz steps with Phoenix’s own eclectic style.
David Bailey
Photographer David Bailey made his name in the early 1960s when his pictures, his image and his lifestyle epitomised ‘Swinging London’. More recently he has turned to film-making. In this programme, he talks in interview and is seen behind the camera as well as in front of it. The full range of his work is explored and there are contributions from some of his famous subjects, including Jean Shrimpton, Marie Helvin and Terence Stamp.
The Sundance Institute
Sundance is a unique film development unit founded and run by Redford at his ski resort in the Utah mountains, an area he is striving to conserve. Each year, young film-makers are invited to work with professionals in an environment which encourages experiment and is free of the commercial pressures of Hollywood. This programme follows two film-makers during their time at Sundance and shows prime-mover Redford taking part in proceedings as ‘Ordinary Bob’.
Jackson Pollock
Pollock (1912-56) was always controversial: hisfamous ‘drip’ paintings earned him notoriety and abuse, an added pressure on his life-long struggle with alcoholism. Despite his personal torments, he produced a body of work which helped forge the first great American art movement – Abstract Expressionism. This portrait mixes the reminiscences of his contemporaries with archive film and the testimony of his work to explore the legends which ding to him.
Paul Bowles
A compulsive traveller for much of his life, the American writer and composer Paul Bowles (1910-99) confirmed his position as an outsider, both in his life and in his writing, in choosing Morocco as his home some fifty years ago. This film journeys through North Africa to explore Bowles’s powerful novels and the inspiration he discovered there. Bowles gives a major television interview in the programme, which includes dramatisations from his work.
Andy Warhol
Warhol’s death in 1987 was the end of a classic American rags-to-riches story. Born in the slums of Pittsburgh, he grew up dreaming of Hollywood stars and eventually became a cult hero himself, famous for his Pop Art, his bizarre Underground films and simply for being a celebrity. This film looks at the whole range of his creativity and focuses on his unique understanding of mass culture, using archive and newsreel footage, extracts from his movies and interviews with many of his closest associates.
George V. Higgins
In a series of literary thrillers, starting with The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Higgins (1939-99) drew a convincingly tough, cynical and humorous picture of crime and politics in Boston. His ear for authentically scabrous dialogue was unmatched as he blurred the distinction between the illicit dealings of the underworld and the outwardly respectable goings-on in the city’s State House. This film, shot in Boston, features an interview with Higgins, visits locations he used and dramatises extracts from his novels.
Peter York
In this television lecture, style guru Peter York faces an audience of media folk – experts on fashion, journalism, interiors and exteriors – and gives his lively assessment of
British design.
Virginia Woolf
Julien Temple
A fascinating documentary showing the translation of Colin Mclnnes’ cult novel into a large-scale musical film starring David Bowie and Sade. Director Julien Temple and producer Steve Woolley talk about the making of the movie, which is set in teenage London in the late 1950s.