Docs Easy Riders Raging Bulls - How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (2003) Based on hundreds of interviews with directors such as Coppola, Scorsese, Hopper and Spielberg, as well as producers, stars, studio executives, writers, spouses, ex-spouses, and girlfriends, this is the story of the crazy world that the directors’ ruled. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
Side by Side (2012) Directors James Cameron, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan and others discuss digital technology's impact on filmmaking. (93% Rotten Tomatoes)
Jodorowsky’s Dune (2014) In 1975, Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose films EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN launched and ultimately defined the midnight movie phenomenon, began work on his most ambitious project yet. Starring his own 12-year-old son Brontis alongside Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine and Salvador Dali, featuring music by Pink Floyd and art by some of the most provocative talents of the era, including HR Giger and Jean 'Moebius' Giraud, Jodorowsky's adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel DUNE was poised to change cinema forever. (93% Rotten Tomatoes)
Life Itself (2014) Filmmaker Steve James chronicles the life of film critic Roger Ebert, especially his career highlights, his battle with alcohol, and his sometimes-ruthless rivalry with fellow critic Gene Siskel. (97% Rotten Tomatoes)
Listen to me Marlon (2015) A documentary that utilizes hundreds of hours of audio that Marlon Brando recorded over the course of his life to tell the screen legend's story. (96% Rotten Tomatoes)
Lost in La Mancha (2002) Visionary director Terry Gilliam has a dream. He wants to film the classic story of Don Quixote by recasting it as a trippy, time-traveling, mistaken-identity adventure with Johnny Depp as Quixote. After struggling for years to get financing, insurance and a cast in place, Gilliam travels to Spain and promptly watches his dream fall apart. From flash floods to cast no-shows to serious injuries, Gilliam and his crew suffer one setback after another. (94% Rotten Tomatoes)
Lost Soul - The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau (2014) A look at the disastrous 1996 film adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel \"The Island of Dr. Moreau,\" which was plagued by behind-the-scenes upheaval and catastrophic weather. Original director Richard Stanley was fired from the project three days into filming the picture starring Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
Milius (2013) The portrait of director and screenwriter John Milius, acknowledging his talents by a stellar line-up of contemporaries, including Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. (94% Rotten Tomatoes)
Nightmares in Red White and Blue (2009) Horror and sci-fi veteran Lance Henriksen (Alien) narrates this fascinating look at the history of the American horror film. Includes interviews with genre masters Roger Corman, John Carpenter and George A. Romero. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
Supermensch - The Legend of Shep Gordon (2013) Produced and directed by Mike Myers in his directorial debut. The film is the account of Gordon's career and his clients such as Alice Cooper, Blondie, Teddy Pendergrass, Michael Douglas and Pink Floyd pay tribute to Shep Gordon, the Hollywood insider who spent his life making other people famous. (78% Rotten Tomatoes)
Rain of Madness (2008) Tropic Thunder was the faux movie being made inside the real Tropic Thunder. Tropic Thunder's filmmaker, Ben Stiller, made a mockumentary called Rain of Madness about the two Tropic Thunder films -- sort of. The 30- minute mockumentary, Rain of Madness, spoofs Eleanor Coppola's famous documentary about her husband, Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Featuring Tropic Thunder's co-writer Justin Theroux as a Werner Herzog- esque German filmmaker, Jan Jurgen, who drily delivers such lines as \"what is war?\" and \"It's as unflinchingly as possible a look at the making of a Hollywood nightmare.\" Steve Coogan, who played the ill-fated director of the faux Tropic Thunder, gets to display more of his comic skill here. Most of the cast participates so you get more of Robert Downey Jr.'s hilariously intense Aussie method actor.
Talking Pictures S02E03 - On the Waterfront (2015) Sixty years after its original release, Talking Pictures examines On the Waterfront, one of the greatest films in US cinema history. Archive interviews with the director, writer and cast members, including Marlon Brando, reveal how behind its success lies a story of betrayal and resentment, born from America's anti-communist fervour of the 1950s.
The Thing: Terror Takes Shape (1998) A look back at the filming with cast and crew of the 1982 horror classic, The Thing.
Score - A Film Music Documentary (2017) What makes a film score unforgettable? SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY brings Hollywood's elite composers together to give viewers a privileged look inside the musical challenges and creative secrecy of the world's most international music genre: the film score. A film composer is a musical scientist of sorts, and the influence they have to complement a film and garner powerful reactions from global audiences can be a daunting task to take on. The documentary contains interviews with dozens of film composers who discuss their craft and the magic of film music while exploring the making of the most iconic and beloved scores in history: \"James Bond\", \"Star Wars,\" \"Indiana Jones,\" \"Pirates of the Caribbean,\" \"Titanic,\" \"The Social Network,\" \"Mad Max: Fury Road,\" and \"Psycho.\" (91% Rotten Tomatoes)
Creature Designers - The Frankenstein Complex (2015) From early experiments with apes and dinosaurs to the birth of special make-up effects, from the pinnacle of animatronics to the digital revolution, Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex explores a century of human imagination, cinematic thrills and wonders. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
The Cutting Edge - The Magic of Movie Editing (2004) Everybody knows about the director’s role in making a film. The French even went to far as to call him or her the “author” of a film. (What’s French for bullshit?) Most people are aware that a film has a writer, who begins the whole insane, marvellous collaborative process that is movie-making. Real movie lovers know the cinematographer is responsible for much of the look of the film. Most people don’t know much about the production designer, who is equally responsible. As for the film editor … people know a film is spliced together from a lot of little strips, but most people assume it’s mostly the director who does that, and the editor is just a technician. And that was true in the early days, when it was classed among the “non-artistic” jobs. Anybody can splice a film, right? But eventually the artistic contribution of this neglected art form was recognized—mostly by the honest directors, who didn’t glorify themselves by riding the stupid auteur bandwagon—and the editor came into his (or, more often than in other film professions, her) own. Cinematographers got their craft showcased in the excellent Visions of Light, which Lee and I both adore. Now comes this one, and though it’s not in that rank, it’s quite good. The director got a lot of real heavyweight directors to appear, from Steven Spielberg to Quentin Tarantino, Jodie Foster to Martin Scorsese to Thelma Schoonmaker. (Who? I hear you ask. Well, she’s not a director, but she won three Oscars, and cut Woodstock, Raging Bull, and The Departed, among many others. Oh, that Thelma Schoonmaker.) And every single director is lavish in his or her praise of the cutter. Couldn’t do it without them. Highly recommended. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
Altman (2014) Maverick. Auteur. Rebel. Innovator. Storyteller. Rambler. Gambler. Mad man. Family man. Director. Artist. Robert Altman’s life and career contained multitudes. This father of American independent cinema left an indelible mark, not merely on the evolution of his art form, but also on the western zeitgeist. “Altman”, Canadian director Ron Mann’s new documentary, explores and celebrates the epic fifty-year redemptive journey of one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of the medium. With its use of rare interviews, representative film clips, archival images, and musings from his family and most recognizable collaborators, Mann’s Altman is a dynamic and heartfelt mediation on an artist whose expression, passion and appetite knew few bounds. (69% Rotten Tomatoes)
A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies- Parts 1, 2 & 3 (1995) This lauded documentary by revered director Martin Scorsese explores the history of American cinema by focusing on the work of a number of highly influential filmmakers. In addition to examining pioneering productions by D.W. Griffith and F.W. Murnau, Scorsese looks at a variety of other key directors, including Charlie Chaplin, John Ford, Vincente Minnelli and Orson Welles, while featuring interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow and other cinema luminaries. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
Brando - The Documentary - Parts 1 & 2 (2007) As originally screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, at the Cannes Film Festival, and on Turner Classic Movies, the mammoth, epic-length documentary Brando chronicles in encyclopaedic detail (and with a consistently reverent overtone) the life and career of the man widely regarded as the most formidable American actor of the 20th century - famous for not only reshaping, but reinventing the craft of film acting and teaching audiences how to view a motion picture performance. Divided into chronological, thematically-unified segments, the film first treats Marlon Brando's dysfunctional upbringing - his alcoholic mother, his abusive father, his stint at a military academy - before charting his acting tutelage at the behest of Stella Adler and his early cinematic and theatrical roles, including work for Elia Kazan, who famously made many aggressive (and unsuccessful) attempts to discipline the headstrong actor onscreen. Throughout this segment, many Hollywood A-list actors appear - among them, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Robert Duvall - expostulating at length on Brando's influence over their approaches to performance, and attempting with great effort to define the elusive style known as \"method acting\" that Brando helped to create. The second half of the documentary moves into Brando's career during the '70s, '80s and '90s, covering the production of The Godfather, the actor's noteworthy political activism, and his tumultuous personal life. Francis Ford Coppola, who of course teamed with Brando for the first Godfather instalment and for Apocalypse Now, is noticeably absent from the proceedings. (90% Rotten Tomatoes)
Corman's World - Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2012) This lively documentary traces the remarkable career of the independent American film-maker Roger Corman, a tall, handsome Stanford engineering graduate who has produced and directed several hundred low-budget movies over the past half-century and kick-started the careers of, among many others, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, John Sayles, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich and Bruce Dern. (92% Rotten Tomatoes)
Scorsese’s Goodfellas (2015) In this retrospective documentary we hear from cast members and additional participants include Harvey Keitel, Leonardo DiCaprio and Terence Winter, creator of Boardwalk Empire and screenwriter of The Wolf of Wall Street. The program gives us thoughts about Scorsese's approach to the material, casting, characters, and performances, costumes and period details, photography, music, and retrospective thoughts about the film. It is filled with memorable stories and observations from a wide array of commentators. (96% Rotten Tomatoes)
Electric Boogaloo - The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014) From acclaimed cult film documentarian Mark Hartley (NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED), ELECTRIC BOOGALOO centres on the story of two movie-obsessed immigrant cousins, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who in pursuit of the \"American dream\" founded an indie studio (Cannon) that would produce over 120 exploitation films from 1979-1989, launching the careers of numerous action stars including Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. Wildly eclectic, Golan and Globus also produced work by such luminaries as Franco Zeffirelli, John Cassavetes and Barbet Schroeder. With relentless energy and sheer nerve, the cousins turned a renegade outfit into a major Hollywood powerhouse. (91% Rotten Tomatoes)
Hearts of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) In the late 1970s, as renegade filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola struggles to complete an epic allegory of the Vietnam War, \"Apocalypse Now,\" his wife, Eleanor, films his daily travails with a camera of her own. The documentary based on her footage details the difficulties of the large production -- from weather-related delays in the Philippines to star Martin Sheen's heart attack while filming -- and it provides unprecedented behind-the- scenes clips of one of Hollywood's most-acclaimed films. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
The Director’s Chair (2014) “The Director’s Chair” is a series of specials featuring El Rey Network Founder and Chairman Robert Rodriguez sitting down with the industry’s most iconic directors and engaging in a revealing and unexpected exchange about the world of filmmaking. Like a virtual film school, “The Director’s Chair” provides the incredibly rare opportunity to listen in as two great directors, who are fans of each other’s work, discuss the craft in great depth. Past guests have included John Carpenter, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Mann, George Miller, Jon Favreau, Frank Darabont Guillermo del Toro, Robert Zemeckis and Quentin Tarantino. The Director’s Chair S01E01 Director Robert Rodriguez interviews the legendary director John Carpenter (Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Thing, Escape From New York) on his influences and how he became a filmmaker. The Director’s Chair S01E02 Director Robert Rodriguez interviews the visionary director Guillermo Del Toro (Mimic, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim) on his influences and how he became a filmmaker.
The Director’s Chair S01E03 & The Director’s Chair S01E04 Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino discuss Tarantino's career through the lens of their 20-year friendship, using never-before-seen personal footage to discuss topics from screenwriting to Spaghetti Westerns and Kung Fu. The Director’s Chair S01E05 Robert Rodriguez sits with legendary director Francis Ford Coppola to discuss the influence of family, starting rebel studio Zoetrope and the challenges of creating The Godfather, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now. The Director’s Chair S01E07 Robert Rodriguez interviews Robert Zemeckis to discuss the career that began with an award- winning USC student film that caught the attention of Steven Spielberg, and took off with some of the biggest blockbuster hits of all time. The Director’s Chair S01E08 Robert Rodriguez interviews Michael Mann The Director’s Chair S01E09 Robert Rodriguez interviews George Miller to discuss his career as a director, writer, and producer of ground breaking films ranging from Babe and Happy Feet to the \"Mad Max\" series with a special section on this year's acclaimed \"Fury Road\". The Director’s Chair S01E10 Robert Rodriguez interviews director Sylvester Stallone to discuss Sly's beginnings and inspirations, what it's like to write, direct and star in an action film and his return to directing with Rocky Balboa, Rambo, and The Expendables.
The Go-Go Boys - The Inside Story of Cannon Films (2014) THE GO-GO BOYS: The Inside Story of Cannon Films is a documentary about two Israeli-born cousins, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who in pursuit of the American Dream turned the Hollywood power structure upside down, producing over 300 films and becoming the most powerful independent film company in the world. Up close and personal, the film examines the complex relationship between two contradictory personalities whose combined force fuelled their success and eventual collapse.
The Kid Stays in The Picture (2002) Robert Evans' rise from second-string actor (who really was discovered while lounging by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel) to head of one of Hollywood's biggest movie studios is told from the viewpoint of Evans himself in this documentary, adapted from his autobiography (and featuring Evans' own narration). In 1957, Evans had already achieved success in the garment business when actress Norma Shearer spotting him at poolside and suggested he should play her late husband, legendary producer Irving Thalberg, in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces. While Evans knew he wasn't cut out to be an actor, he discovered he liked the movie business, and after becoming a film industry executive, Evans was named head of production at Paramount in the late '60s. Under Evans' leadership, Paramount produced such classics as Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, and The Godfather. He also married actress Ali McGraw; however, McGraw left Evans for Steve McQueen after they starred together in The Getaway. After leaving Paramount to become a producer (and racking up hits like Chinatown and Marathon Man), Evans' golden touch began to elude him; an arrest for drugs seemed to put an end to his career, until he made a comeback as a freelance producer in the 1990s on such films as Sliver and The Saint. Part of the narration for The Kid Stays in the Picture was drawn from the book-on-tape version of Robert Evans' autobiography of the same name, which featured Evans reading his own work; the audio book has developed a cult following of its own, and legend has it Dustin Hoffman based his performance in Wag The Dog on Evans' reading style on the tape. (91% Rotten Tomatoes)
This film is not yet rated (2006) This documentary investigates Hollywood's best-kept secret: the MPAA film ratings system and its profound impact on American culture. It exposes this veiled type of censorship and a group of hypocritical moralists who find themselves in the position to decide what we can and cannot watch, using a questionable system that benefits mostly the interests of movie studios and corporations. (84% Rotten Tomatoes)
Never Surrender A Galaxy Quest Documentary (2019) The documentary features the film’s stars, including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Justin Long, Sam Rockwell, Tony Shalhoub, Missi Pyle, Rainn Wilson and Daryl “Chill” Mitchell, along with director Dean Parisot, writer Robert Gordon, and a legion of celebrity fans sharing their reminiscences and appreciation for this beloved film. Among the celebrities who appear in “Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary” are Wil Wheaton, Brent Spiner, Greg Berlanti, Damon Lindelof and more than a dozen other notable filmmakers, craftspeople and entertainment- industry observers who offer keen insight into the ways, both big and small, that “Galaxy Quest” has had lasting impact and developed a fan base that extends around the world.
Vangelis and the Journey to Ithaka (2013) Vangelis And the Journey to Ithaka is a 2014 documentary on the Academy Award winning Greek composer and synthesist. The two-hour documentary includes interviews with Vangelis and many of his friends and colleagues, including Sean Connery, Hugh Hudson, Jessye Norman, Oliver Stone, Akiko Ebi, Julian Rachlin and many others. It also includes rare, historical footage, most of which has never been seen before. In addition, the documentary includes recent footage of Vangelis improvising new music.
Swallowed Souls - The Making of Evil Dead II (2011) A documentary about the making of Evil Dead 2.
QT8: The First Eight (2019) This deep dive into the life and work of Quentin Tarantino traces his rise through Hollywood over the course of twenty-one years. Candid interviews with Tarantino's closest creative partners shed light on the habits, quirks, and vision of the filmmaker who has achieved cult status. (91% Rotten Tomatoes)
Doc of the Dead (2014) The definitive zombie culture documentary, brought to the screen by Filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe examines the zombie phenomenon in today's popular culture. (90% Rotten Tomatoes)
In Search of the Last Action Heroes (2019) The most comprehensive retrospective of the ’80s action film genre ever made.
The Death of Superman Lives (2015) Jon Schnepp delves into the story behind the proposed film to be directed by Tim Burton, with Nicolas Cage starring as Superman. (85% Rotten Tomatoes)
Making Waves - The Art of Cinematic Sound (2019) Examining how visionary directors work with sound designers to create the most exciting cinematic experiences. Also, featuring the latest discoveries and advances in sound technology to learn how sounds transform the cinematic experience. (97% Rotten Tomatoes)
The Beast Within - The Making of Alien Parts 1, 2 & 3 [2003] A making of doc that's more captivating than most proper narrative features; so thorough and informative that it's practically a complete film school education in three hours. Charts the course of a kind of immaculate cinematic conception, as a diverse bunch of brilliant artists converge to somehow cobble together a GOAT masterpiece, many of them vivid characters in their own right—the uber-curmudgeon Dan O'Bannon and the suave confidence of Ridley Scott; the surprisingly gentle playfulness of H.R. Giger and the blunt bitchery of David Giler.
In Search of Darkness (2019) An exploration of '80s horror movies through the perspective of the actors, directors, producers and SFX craftspeople who made them, and their impact on contemporary cinema. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
Kubrick Remembered (2014) An 83-minute candid look into the life of Kubrick, including interviews with his widow, family, co-workers and actors, and featuring a tour of the Archive in London and an inside look into Kubrick’s home.
Life after Flash (2017) \"Life After Flash\" looks at the roller coaster life of Sam J Jones since his role as Flash Gordon, his struggles and successes, and the aftermath of when he went up against one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood. (88% Rotten Tomatoes)
Spielberg (2017) Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his colleagues discuss the classic movies that made him famous, including \"Jaws,\" \"Raiders of the Lost Ark,\" \"E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,\" \"Jurassic Park,\" \"Schindler's List\" and \"Saving Private Ryan.\" (92% Rotten Tomatoes)
Hill Street Blues Retrospective - Life on the Hill \"Let's be careful out there...\" Those five words were a staple of Hill Street Blues, the classic '80s cop series which changed the way dramatic television was filmed and set the bar for small-screen characterization and episodic storytelling. (100% Rotten Tomatoes)
Dinner for Five (2001–2005) Actor/Director Jon Favreau hosts an evening with four Hollywood friends (four different people or combinations of people each episode), who casually discuss the craft of acting and the business of celebrity over dinner. Dinner for Five S02E01 Ben Affleck, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Garner, Kevin Smith. Dinner for Five S02E02 Fran Drescher, John Landis, Leland Orser, David Allen Grier. Dinner for Five S02E03 Dom Deluise, Peter Falk, John Herzfeld, Richard Lewis.
Dinner for Five S02E04 Peter Bogdanovich, Larry Miller, Penelope Ann Miller, Liev Schreiber. Dinner for Five S02E05 Ed Asner, Ed Begley, Jr., Carrie Fisher, Blair Underwood. Dinner for Five S02E06 David Byrne, Dave Eggers, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Pantoliano. Dinner for Five S02E07 Louis C.K., Illeana Douglas, Will Ferrell, Eddie Izzard.
Dinner for Five S02E08 Vince Vaughn, Cole Hauser, Rory Cochrane, Brian Cox. Dinner for Five S02E09 Beverly D'Angelo, Rosie Perez, Cathy Moriarty, Catherine Kellner. Dinner for Five S02E10 James Caan, Will Ferrell, Mary Steenburgen, Zooey Deschanel. Dinner for Five S02E11 Sean Hayes, Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt.
The Godfather Family - A Look Inside (1990) A documentary on the making of the three Godfather films, with interviews and recollections from the film makers and cast. This feature also includes the original screen tests of some of the actors for “The Godfather” film, and some candid moments on the set of “The Godfather: Part III.”
01- The Godfather Family - A Look Inside [1990] A documentary on the making of the trilogy of films, including excerpts, screen tests, and behind-the- scenes footage of the making of the three films, as well as an interview with Coppola. Also featured are some of the main cast of the films, including Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Andy Garcia and Talia Shire. . 02- The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't [2008] On the 35th anniversary of the release of the landmark film \"The Godfather,\" (March 15, 1972) we look back at the time and place of the film's conception and shooting. Forces in the film industry were in conflict: Hollywood was on the decline toward cultural irrelevance, conglomerates were taking over the storied movie studios and a new generation of auteur filmmakers including the young and then unknown Francis Coppola were emerging from film schools. The studio hated Coppola's ideas for casting, visual style and almost everything else, as they hoped for a quick, inexpensive exploitation of a pulpy best- seller. But one year later, said then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the world premiere in New York City: \"...this picture is going to be just huge around the world, because if you can cry for a leading character who has killed 100s of people when he- when he dies, and you cry for him when he's dying, that's touching greatness, and this man, Coppola, has touched greatness.\". 03- When the Shooting Stopped [2008] George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Walter Murch, George Spielberg, and co-editor Richard Marks examine editing, score and audio, story issues for Part II, and a few related subjects. 04- Godfather World [2008] Notes from Joe Mantegna, Francis Ford Coppola, Sopranos creator David Chase, filmmakers William Friedkin, Guillermo del Toro, and Steven Spielberg, film critic Mick LaSalle, South Park co-creator Trey Parker, actors Steven Van Zandt, Richard Belzer, and Alec Baldwin, Take the Cannoli author Sarah Vowell, and The Godfadda Workout creator Seth Isler as they look at the way the Godfather films permeated pop culture. It boasts insights to so many movie and TV sequences influenced by the flicks collected all in one place. 05- Emulsional Rescue - Revealing The Godfather [2008] Coppola, Spielberg, director of photography Gordon Willis, consulting restoration cinematographer Allen Daviau, film archivist Robert A. Harris, Paramount Post Production executive VP Martin Cohen, MPI senior technical advisor Daniel Rosen, MPI scanning technician Chris Gillaspie, senior digital artist Steven A. Sanchez, digital artist Valerie V. McMahon, and MPI technical director and senior colourist Jan Yarbrough offer interesting facts about the original cinematography, details on the restoration of the three films.
The Story of Film - An Odyssey (2011) The Story of Film: An Odyssey, written and directed by award-winning film-maker Mark Cousins, is the story of international cinema told through the history of cinematic innovation. Five years in the making, The Story of Film: An Odyssey covers six continents and 12 decades, showing how film-makers are influenced both by the historical events of their times, and by each other. It provides a worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made; an epic tale that starts in nickelodeons and ends as a multi-billion-dollar globalised digital industry. Described as a love letter to the movies, Cousins visits the key sites in the history of cinema; from Hollywood to Mumbai; from Hitchcock s London to the village where Pather Panchali was shot, and features interviews with legendary filmmakers and actors including Stanley Donen, Kyoko Kagawa, Gus van Sant, Lars Von Trier, Claire Denis, Bernardo Bertolucci, Robert Towne, Jane Campion and Claudia Cardinale. (80% Rotten Tomatoes)
S01E01 - Birth of the Cinema The first two decades of cinema, 1895-1918; its invention in New Jersey and Lyon and its development from a gimmick to a language through the innovation of many technicians and artists. S01E02 - The Hollywood Dream 1918-1928; the establishment of Hollywood as an industry that produced optimism, romanticism and happy endings; the filmmakers in America and Europe who defied Hollywood fantasy to show a harsh reality in cinema. S01E03 - The Golden Age of World Cinema 1918-1932, the great rebel filmmakers around the world. Novel and remarkable experiments in silent cinema; French impressionism and surrealism, German expressionism, Soviet, Japanese and Chinese cinematic innovation. S01E04 – The Arrival of Sound The Story of Film looks at the films of the 1930s and the development of \"talking pictures\". Sound requires the use of sound stages and this effects lighting and cinematography. It looks at Rouben Mamoulian's musical Love Me Tonight. It looks at the development of film genres in Hollywood: horror films, gangster films, musicals, westerns, comedies, and animated cartoons. It then looks overseas to look at the work of French filmmakers (Jean Cocteau, Jean Vigo, Marcel Carne, Jean Renoir), South American filmmakers (Mário Peixoto), Poland (Stefan and Franciszka Themerson), Germany (Leni Riefenstahl), and England (Hitchcock). S01E05 – Post-War Cinema The Story of Film examines world cinema in the period of 1939-1952 looks at film-making during and immediately after World War II. Hollywood films shift away from soft focus and begin to use the techniques of deep staging and deep focus as in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) and Orson Wells's Citizen Kane (1941). It then looks at Italian Neorealism of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica before examining the development of Film Noir in the films of Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, and Ida Lupino. American films grow more serious though romantic film remain popular. In the late 40's, American cinema is investigated for communist activities and producers, actors, and directors are blacklisted. Meanwhile in Britain, Carol Reed creates the Noir classic The Third Man (1949).
S01E06 – Sex & Melodrama The Story of Film examines cinema in the period of 1953-1957. It looks at the growth of movie-making around the world and examines how sex and melodrama dominated the period. It looks at the work of directors in Egypt (Youssef Chahine), India (Guru Dutt, Satyajit Ray), China (Xie Jin), Japan (Akira Kurosawa), Brazil (Nelson Pereira dos Santos), and Mexico (Fernando de Fuentes, Emilio Fernández, Luis Buñuel). In the United States, films like All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Johnny Guitar (1954) examine repressed sexuality. It also looks at the work of Kenneth Anger, Delbert Mann, Elia Kazan, and Nicholas Ray. It then turns to four classic films by four masters of American cinema Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958), John Ford's The Searchers (1956), Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo (1959). Finally, it goes to Britain to look at the work of directors David Leen and Lindsay Anderson. S01E07 – European New Wave The Story of Film examines European cinema in the period of 1957-1964. It first looks at the works of influential directors Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Jacques Tati, and Federico Fellini. It examines the French New Wave Movement including the work of Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard). It then looks at New Wave filmmakers in Italy (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sergio Leone, Luchino Visconti, and Michelangelo Antonioni). Finally, it looks at the New Wave directors in Spain (Marco Ferreri, Luis Buñuel) and Sweden (Vilgot Sjöman). S01E08 – New Directors, New Form The Story of Film examines world cinema in the period of 1965-1969 when New Wave Cinema swept the world and gave rise to a whole new generation of filmmakers. It first looks at the work of director Roman Polanski before turning to Czech filmmakers Jiri Trnka, Milos Forman, and Vera Chytilova, It then looks at directors in Hungary (Miklos Jancso), the Soviet Union (Andrei Tarkovsky and Sergei Parajanov), Japan (Nagisa Oshima and Shohei Imamura), India (Ritwik Ghatak), Brazil (Glauber Rocha), Iran (Forugh Farrokhzad), and Senegal (Ousmane Sembene). It also examines director in England including Karel Reisz, Ken Loach, and Richard Lester. Finally, it turns to America and a growing movement of innovative film-makers in the late 60s including Robert Drew, John Cassavetes, Alfred Hitchcock, Andy Warhol, Haskell Wexler, Dennis Hopper, and Stanley Kubrick. S01E09 – American Cinema of the 70’s The Story of Film examines American cinema in the period of 1967-1979 also known as New American Cinema. Films of this time generally fell into three types: satirical films that mocked society and the times, dissident films that challenged the conventional style of cinema, and assimilationist films that rework old studio genres with new techniques. Satirical films include the work of Frank Tashlin, Buck Henry, Mike Nichols, Robert Altman, and Milos Forman. Dissident films include the work of Dennis Hopper, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Charles Burnett, and Woody Allen. Assimilationist films include the work of Peter Bogdanovich, Sam Peckinpah, and Terrence Malick. It also looks at the assimilationist classics Cabaret (1972), The Godfather (1972), and Chinatown (1974).
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