Filmed at home in Malibu shortly before his death in 1988, Houseman talks about his life, from being a stateless Rumanian to enjoying a sixty-year career as a leading light in film, theatre and television. His achievements included seminal theatre projects with Orson Welles, with whom he also worked on Citizen Kane, a dozen memorable films of his own, founding the drama department at New York’s famous Juilliard School, and unexpectedly becoming a star actor in his seventies.
James Joyce
This series examines the lives and principal works of ten great modernist writers, the giants of European literature at the turn of the nineteenth Century, whose thought and writing foreshadowed the age to come and whose influence is still felt today. Each programme explores the unique imaginative world of its subject, combining drama, documentary and critical explanation. “Anyone who sees the series, will acquire a remarkably clear idea of the Modern movement in literature and what it represents: in technique, experimentation and introspection; in content, paranoia and despair.” (Financial Times) Joseph Conrad (R0327) Fyodor Dostoevsky (R0225) T.S. Eliot (R0311) Henrik Ibsen (R0310) James Joyce (R0199) Franz Kafka (R0273) Thomas Mann (R0275) Luigi Pirandello (R279) Marcel Proust (R0281) Virginia Woolf (R0274) A follow-u programme is available, in which a panel of writers, including series consultant Malcolm Bradbury, discusses ideas which have been raised. Silver Medal, New York International Film and TV Festival Cable Ace, Best International Cuitural Series
David Puttnam
This exclusive interview with producer David Puttnam was recorded just after he shocked the film industry by resigning as head of Columbia Film Studios, eighteen months after becoming only the second non-American to hold this Position since World War II. He talks candidly about his time in Hollywood and the furore caused by his conviction that Columbia could produce films that were both profitable and meaningful.
Dylan Thomas
When Anthony Hopkins led a star-studded, all-Welsh cast in an audio recording of Dylan Thomas’s play for voices, Under Milk Wood, the cameras were on hand to capture the process on film. The programme visits Laugharne, the small Welsh town on which the work is based, where Thomas lived at the end of his life. It also examines his later years and the demons which drove him to create this nostalgic vision.
The Beauty Queens
One of the most profound and far-reaching social changes of the twentieth century was the enfranchisement and liberation of women. This, in turn, removed the Stigma that only fallen women adorned themselves with cosmetics. Beauty became a multinational billion-dollar business. The Beauty Queens looks at this huge industry and its power for social change, focusing on the lives and achievements of three exceptional women who helped shape its development: Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden and Estee Lauder.
Patrick Leigh Fermor
In 1933, at the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off on foot from England to walk to Constantinople. He is arguably the outstanding travel writer of our time. This film explores his life and work. Interviewed at his home in the Peloponnese, Fermor talks about his travels and relates the story of his heroic wartime exploits in German-occupied Crete, immortalised in the Dirk Bogarde film III Met by Moonlight. He also reads from his work.
Two Women in three Dimensions
Despite such illustrious examples as Barbara Hepworth and Elizabeth Frink, sculpture is still commonly regarded as a masculine pursuit. This programme profiles Nicola Hicks and Wendy Taylor, two outstanding sculptresses working in Britain today, both exceptionally talented, who express themselves with humour, frankness and ease. They are seen at work, at home and, most importantly, against the backgrounds of their work.
Henri Matisse
Matisse’s brilliantly coloured work inspired many twentieth-century painters and is a source of infinite enjoyment to all who love art. This film shows the richness of his oeuvre and uses archive footage of the man himself and extracts from his Notes ofa Painter, to explore his legacy. It highlights the influence of his travels to Tangie, Tahiti and New York, looks at his use of decorative patterns and textiles.
Raoul Dufy
Dufy (1877-1953) is perhaps best-known for his colourful and joyous paintings but he also produced a dazzling array of ceramics, wall-hangings, dress fabrics and furniture designs. This film, which includes interviews with patrons, dealers and models who knew Dufy puts the case that he was one of the finest draughtsmen of the twentieth century a designer whose influence is still much in evidence and a painter of genius to rank alongside Matisse and Léger.
The Firebird
American choreographer Glen Tetley says of his ballet, set to music by Stravinsky, “I see the Firebird as a symbol of our innermost dreams and longings for freedom and true love, and as a mythological figure representing the struggle between captivity and freedom, between good and evil.” This studio recording was made by the highly-acclaimed dance director Thomas Grimm and features the Danish ballerina Mette Honningen in the title role. A complementary documentary progamme – The Firebird in Rehearsal – is also available.