Hogarth’s penetrating vision and ferocious satirical style are seen most famously in his narrative cycles The Rake’s Progress and The Harlot’s Progress. His work opens a fascinating and disturbing window on to life in eighteenth-century London. Visiting Hogarth’s London as it survives today, this absorbing exploration of his life and work charts his progress from an impoverished childhood to being one of the first British artists to earn his living independent of patronage.
Baaba Maal
A world star of African music, Baaba Maal is a glamorous, ground-breaking musician, a showman, singer, dancer and story-teller. He brings an ancient music to a global audience in a new form: a fusion of West African classical music with Western contemporary rhythms and instruments. This film travels with Maal to his home town in Senegal to discover the influences and inspirations that have shaped his music. It is alive with his powerful, haunting vocals and mesmeric rhythms.
Pierre Soulages
Since 1979, the French painter Soulages has limited his palette to black, yet he creates pieces which are as alike and unalike as one day is to another. Soulages and his work are the sole protagonists in this visually striking film, for which he chose some eighty canvases to sign the development of his art. A charismatic man, his reflections on his life and work enhance an appreciation of the elemental and enigmatic beauty of his paintings.
Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel is one of the world’s most sought-after bass-baritones. It is the burly Welshman’s ability to express and colour words in a way that moves even the coldest of hearts that has established his ascendancy in the most illustrious vocal company. This profile charts his rise to fame and focuses on his development of various roles in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. He is seen preparing the role of the Don himself with Sir Georg Solti.
Schwarz auf Weiss
Heiner Goebbels has a genius for creating truly theatrical musical events. Made under studio conditions, this recording features members of the internationally-acclaimed Ensemble Modern, with whom he developed Black on White. They are both the players and performers in the highly original piece, a tribute to the playwright and director Heiner Müller, who died in 1995. At its heart is a recording of Müller reading Poe’s ‘parable of death’, Shadow. Around this, Goebbels creates a striking web of interlocking musical episodes.
Stories my Country told me
In today’s shrinking world the differences between one place and another appear to be rapidly diminishing yet never have so many peoples struggled to establish their own separate nation states. Resulting tensions have often become bloody and horrifying. What is the future of the nation-state in a world of multi-nationals and global communications? In this series, questions concerning identity and belonging are addressed by four world-famous writers and thinkers: Eric Hobsbawm, Desmond Tutu, Eqbal Ahmad and Maxine Hong Kingston.
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) scraped a living selling naturalistic paintings, while his ground-breaking collages, now recognised as some of the twentieth century’s most influential art works, were largely ignored. After his death, his legacy became the subject of one of the art world’s most acrimonious wrangles. With comments from some of the key players involved, the extraordinary tale of this scandal is told against the background of Schwitters’ difficult life and the innovative works he produced.
Albert Finney
The British stage and screen actor Albert Finney’s credits include Oscar nominations for his performances in Tom Jones, The Dresser, Under the Volcano and Murder on the Orient Express. He is eloquent about his craft and, over a convivial lunch with writer Melvyn Bragg, he looks back on his career. Finney’s remarkable talent is demonstrated in clips of some of his memorable performances and he is seen at work on Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, Dennis Potter’s last television plays.
Michael Collins
Norman Mailer on Picasso
In his book, Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man, Norman Mailer set out to capture an intimate sense of the character of the artist’s genius. At his Cape Cod home, the leading American writer talks in interview about Picasso, demonstrating his great talent for understanding the activity of the most enigmatic and protean of minds. Illustrated with many examples of the artist’s work, this engrossing programme reveals the obsessions shared by Picasso and Mailer: sex and mortality.