The Romantics and Us (Simon Schama) BBC2TV 2020
The Age of the Image (James Fox) BBC4TV 2020
The Century of the Self (Adam Curtis) BBC 2002
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Adam Curtis) BBC 2011
How Long is a Piece of String (Alan Davies) BBC 2009
and
almost anything presented by David Attenborough, especially
Empire of the Ants (David Attenborough) BBC 2017
https://paulrennie.rennart.co.uk/post/165652776845/a-short-list-of-documentary-films/amp
BBCiplayer is listing the documentary film about Alexander McQueen. Terrific and well worth watching, especially for the back-stage photos by Gary Wallis…
The BBCiplayer is listing Alfred Hitchcock’s, North by Northwest (1959) at the moment. This is one of Hitchcock’s greatest films…and well worth watching.
The story is basically a up-to-speed version of The Thirty Nine Steps (1935)… The film is nowadays famous as an early iteration of the James Bond man-about-town character. The suit, worn by Cary Grant, is probably the most famous suit in film history…The film uses architecture and styling to configure a slightly discombobulating space (Vertigo) for mistaken identity, a bit like the Matrix, but sixty years ago!
And the title sequence by Saul Bass is amazing.
I’ve posted before about Alfred Hitchcock on this blog…and elsewhere in relation to trains, and suits, and speed.
new pamphleteer blog – just search for Hitchcock and look for suits and speed…
bagdcontext blog – about trains and Hitchcock…
Simon Schama is presenting a series of films about the cultural legacies of romanticism…The first film was terrific with explanations of the significance of William Blake as visionary, and of Géricault’s and Delacroix’s painting…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000mfnj/the-romantics-and-us-with-simon-schama
Schama presents romanticism as a form of pathology related to anxiety…personally, I prefer to think of romanticism as a series of therapeutic practices.
On BBCiplayer now…perhaps the best film ever – stylish, romantic, heartbreaking, optimistic…
BBC4Tv are showing a terrific three-part documentary series about the history of soul music in America. Well worth watching.
The series presents the story of soul music as one linked to the political struggle of emancipation and civil-rights, and through personal links with Martin Luther King.
#muscle shoals (fame studios) #stax #motown
I found a lovely documentary about the photographer Malick Sidibe, in Mali. In the 1960s and 1970s he photographed the nightlife and developing youth culture of Mali.
It was quite unusual to be an independent photographer back then. The culture and politics of Mali seem to have been ultra orthodox and the club and beach scene (the dolce vita of the title) was understood as a form of hedonistic rebellion…This background also provided a lovely soundtrack for the film. Terrific.
The best parts of this film were when Malick and his mates were hanging out in the studio chatting about the old days, when they were young. That was lovely.
It turns out the guys in Mali often have several wives, and loads of kids. That background wasn’t really explained in enough detail…and we didn’t hear enough from the women in the story. That was a shame.