Best known for his novels A Boy’s Own Story and The Beautiful Room is Empty, American writer Edmund White spent six years researching his biography of Genet. In this evocative and poetic film, shot on location in Paris, he presents a highly personal and intriguing portrait of Genet which shows how the writer’s homosexuality was the major influence on his work and his life.
Richard Price
Richard Price is one of America’s top novelists and script-writers. His gritty and violent, street-wise stories of New York have made him a cult hero, and his film credits include Sea of Love and The Color of Money. This programme focuses on his thriller Clockers, set in crime-ridden Jersey City, and it visits a typical American inner-city area with Price. Interviews with friends and fellow writers, readings by Price from his own works, and film clips combine to paint a fascinating picture of the writer and his material.
Vladimir Ashkenazy on Rachmaninov
In this programme the celebrated pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, a champion of his compatriot Rachmaninov (1873-1943), urges a fuller appreciation of the composer’s music. Filmed at Ivanovka, the country house south of Moscow where Rachmaninov wrote many of his works, the programme makes extensive use of archive footage and stills. It draws on his writings and features several sound recordings of him playing his own compositions. Ashkenazy also plays and conducts music by Rachmaninov.
John Banville
Noted for his dense, thickly-textured prose and his very precise use of often rare and difficult language, the distinguished Irish writer is, by his own definition, “something between a novelist and a poet”. Recording an in-depth discussion between Banville and author Melvyn Bragg, this programme affords an opportunity to understand the motivation and method of this immensely gifted, profoundly literate contemporary writer. It includes visualised readings from Banville’s works, among them The Book of Evidence and Ghosts.
Ken Loach
Ever since he first began making films in the 1960s, Ken Loach’s concern with social injustice has informed his work. Interviews with Loach and with his long-time producer Tony Garnett, as well as extracts from his films, form the basis for an examination of how this modest and self-effacing man has managed to survive with his political beliefs intact.
Annie Leibovitz
Since the early 1970s, when she became chief photographer for Rolling Stone magazine, Annie Leibovitz has won acclaim for capturing images that stand as embodiments of their time. She is also renowned for persuading celebrity subjects to strike startling poses for her camera – such as the notorious Vanity Fair cover shot of a naked and pregnant Demi Moore. This programme chronicles Leibovitz’s career, showcases her work and shows her on a shoot with Demi Moore.
In Rehearsal: Zubin Mehta
Featuring some of today’s leading conductors in rehearsal, this series gives a unique insight into the process of creating great music. The conductors’ very different styles and methods; the dialogue between an orchestra and an inspired interpreter; the intensity of the preparations for a concert performance; and the struggle towards perfection are captured in these revealing audio-visual records. Most episodes include a full run-through of the work rehearsed. All include interviews with the conductor who is seen at work. Zubin Mehta rehearses the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance of Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche Op. 28.
Symphony No. 3 “The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”
“A towering monument to our world and to the appalling mess we have made of it,” is
how director Tony Palmer describes Henryk Górecki’s phenomenally successful Symphony No. 3.
Taking his cue from Górecki’s remarks about the inspiration for this symphony, Palmer overlays a
performance by the London Sinfonietta and soprano Dawn Upshaw, conducted by David Zinman, with
harrowing footage of man’s crimes against his fellow man – from Auschwitz to Somalia, Iraq and
Sarajevo. The result is an intensely moving and disturbing film.
Dmitry and Alexander Sitkovetsky
Dmitry Sitkovetsky is well-known in the West as one of the most exciting and respected violinists of his generation. He also has his own string orchestra, directs a Finnish summer music festival and is a brilliant transcriber and arranger of important classical works. Dmitry’s cousin, Alexander (Sasha), is a rock guitarist and an eminent rock/classical composer. This programme, shot on location in Latvia, St. Petersburg, Finland and London, interweaves the stories of the two cousins, charting their lives and careers.
Sylvie Guillem
Sylvie Guillem is a dance superstar whose breathtaking technique ranks her beside the likes of Nureyev and Baryshnikov. She rarely agrees to interviews but co-operated fully with director Nigel Wattis for this profile. The programme centres on film of Guillem rehearsing and performing a range of pieces, both contemporary and classical, which display her astonishing virtuosity. She talks incisively about working with some of the world’s top choreographers.