Sting first found fame with the band The Police and then went on to forge a highly successful solo career. He is one of today’s most thoughtful and literate songwriters, adopting an eclectic array of styles, while remaining a best-selling artist world-wide. Filmed at his magnificent English country manor, Sting is seen recording his hit album Mercury Falling. An elusive star who has preserved his essential privacy against all odds, he talks in interview about his life and his music.
Three Colours Cézanne
Widely acknowledged to be the ‘father’ of Modern Art, Cézanne (1839-1906) did not find critical or public success in his lifetime. Given access to the most comprehensive gathering of Cézanne’s paintings for over sixty years, provided by a major touring exhibition, this documentary analyses and re-assesses his achievements. A fascinating study of the artist’s life and work, it reveals an emotional turbulence that runs throughout his oeuvre and invites observations from a wide range of commentators.
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) is often described as the greatest Hollywood star of all time. On screen he was the cynical tough guy in the trench coat, the flawed hero. Off screen his life was the stuff of legends. Stephen Bogart guides viewers through this revealing account of his father’s life and examines Bogie’s screen performances in the light of his own intimate knowledge. Lauren Bacall – Bogart’s fourth wife – is among the contributors to the programme.
Gesualdo
The last decade of the twentieth century alone spawned three operas based on the life of the “principe die musici”: Alfred Schnittke’s Gesualdo was premiered in 1995 at the Vienna State Opera; then the following year came Franz Hummel’s opera of the same name, a commission from the city of Kaiserslautern; and in 1998 Salvatore Sciarrino wrote an opera for the Schwetzingen Festival entitled Luci mie traditrici, after a sixteenth century drama about a prince who murders his wife.
So Gesualdo was already the focus of a good deal of interest when the Munich-based director and film producer Werner Herzog also developed an interest in the composer at about this time. Herzog seemed somehow predestined for the job. His preference for eccentric protagonists, amply attested to in films such as Aguirre, Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo starring Klaus Kinski, went hand in hand with a musical streak that has won him a great deal of admiration since the mid 1980s with regular opera productions at the Bayreuth Festival, the Opera Bastille in Paris and La Scala, Milan. Of course, one was never to expect a creative artist of Herzog’s talents to produce a conventional documentary film.
John Mills
John Mills is a veteran of more than eighty films, including Ice Cold in Alex and Great Expectations. He received an Oscar for his portrayal of Michael in David Lean’s Ryan’s
Daughter. He has also had an illustrious stage career which began in the musical theatre of the 1930s. This popular actor talks about his life and work and his story is illustrated with film clips, archive material and extracts from his anecdotal autobiographical one-man show.
The Secret of Marcel Duchamp
Duchamp (1887-1968) was one of the most provocative and influential artists of the twentieth century. From 1923 onwards, he ceased to produce new work. Only after his death was the Etant Donnés revealed – an elaborate peepshow put together over twenty years. Including archive footage of the enigmatic artist himself, this programme explores the life and work of Duchamp, telling the story of a late love affair which affected him profoundly and inspired his final creation.
Claes Oldenburg
The work of sculptor Claes Oldenburg, one of America’s wittiest and most popular artists, is a celebration of the everyday. Making hard surfaces soft, soft edges hard, and small objects extra large, he creates visual paradoxes that defy our perceptions of commonplace objects and endow them with a new reality. This documentary surveys Oldenburg’s very varied output spanning four decades and he is seen installing a major retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Balthus
Balthus (1908-2001) was a master of figurative art. Self-taught and self-invented, he created a poetic but private universe, remaining faithful to a few themes: brooding landscapes, portraits that revealed the inner lives of their subjects, young girls and knowing cats. This profile centres on a rare interview with this enigmatic artist, filmed at his home in Switzerland, in which he talked about his long life, his approach to painting, his inspiration, his subject matter, the vicissitudes of ageing, and the modern world.
Wynton Marsalis
Considered one of the most technically brilliant players in the history of the trumpet, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis is also a master of classical music and a fine composer.
Marsalis takes the cameras with him around New York, to his home town of New Orleans, and to his rehearsal studios where he and his assembled band of musicians are seen putting together the album Blood on the Fields. He also talks about his music and his way of working. Shot in both colour and black and white.
Howard Hodgkin
Howard Hodgkin is acknowledged as one of the most inventive and original colourists of the twentieth century. His paintings exist at the margin between representation and abstraction, bright mosaics shot through with glimmerings of recognisable form. They are immensely pleasurable and intended to be enjoyed. Impressionistic in style, this documentary presents a vibrant survey of Hodgkin’s work. Talking in interview, the artist reveals the passions and preoccupations that fuel his creativity.