TV

Francis Urquhart is the chief whip of the Conservative party. When Margaret Thatcher resigns as leader, he remains neutral and after a general election where the conservatives are returned with a reduced majority, he fully expects the new Prime Minister, Henry Collingridge, to give him his just reward: a senior Cabinet post. When he’s informed that he is to stay in his current position, he devises a plot to unseat Collingridge and ensure his own election as party leader which would make his Prime Minister. Written by garykmcdRead More »

BBC documentary in three parts written and produced by Adam Curtis on the history and influence of the ideologies of Islamic fundamentalism and neoconservatism

Part 1 Baby It’s Cold Outside (originally broadcast on October 20, 2004)
Part 2 The Phantom Victory (originally broadcast on October 27, 2004)
Part 3 The Shadows in the Cave (originally broadcast on November 3, 2004)
Read More »

This unaired pilot for a series Fuller pitched to CBS about a U.S. infantry troop fighting its way through Nazi-held North Africa offers a fascinating new angle on Fuller’s relationship with the average foot soldier and moral complexity of war.Read More »

• Portrait of François Truffaut
This excerpt from Serge Leroy’s 1961 documentary François Truffaut shows the newly celebrated filmmaker discussing his influences and beginnings along with Les Mistons and The 400 Blows.

from the Criterion DVD

Portrait of François Truffaut is a a twenty-five minute excerpt from a 1961 documentary by Serge Leroy, covering the director’s early years. Truffaut does plenty of talking about the creative choices and influences that went into his first films, while fidgeting restlessly in a chair before the camera, with overlong clips from his first few films mixed in.

from DVDBreakdown.comRead More »

A famous French documentary director has chosen to match his talents with those of a powerful subject who talks on his youth, his formative years, his life and work. Reichenbach on Welles on Welles, one might say.

These recollections help to explain something of the creative processes of film making, comparing the behaviour of Welles the director and Welles the man. Orson at home, Orson interviewed at the Cannes Festival, Orson shooting a scene with Jeanne Moreau… Orson in portrait. No less. (MIFF)Read More »

Sean Axmaker, Keyframe wrote:
When handed the raw materials from an unfinished documentary about Elmyr de Hory, an art forger whose life was being written up by biographer Clifford Irving, Orson Welles took the opportunity to make something far beyond the concept of the traditional documentary. F for Fake has been called the Orson Welles’ first essay film, a true enough statement if you limit the accounting to feature films, but he had been doing short-form non-fiction since 1955, when he made Around the World with Orson Welles (a.k.a. Around the World) for British television.Read More »

Making its debut with Romeo and Juliet on 3 December 1978, and concluding nearly seven years later with Titus Andronicus on 27 April 1985, the BBC Television Shakespeare project was the single most ambitious attempt at bringing the Bard of Avon to the small screen, both at the time and to date.

Producer Cedric Messina was already an experienced producer of one-off television Shakespeare presentations, and was thus ideally qualified to present the BBC with a daunting but nonetheless enticingly simple proposition: a series of adaptations, staged specifically for television, of all 36 First Folio plays, plus Pericles (The Two Noble Kinsmen was considered primarily John Fletcher’s work, and the legitimacy of Edward III was still being debated).Read More »

Footage from Shylock’s monologue filmed by Orson Welles in connection with his unfinished film The Merchant of Venice.
According to the accompanying notes by Hervé Pichard, head of restoration at La Cinémathèque Francaise, the rushes were restored in 2025 by the film museum. The 4K work was carried out using a 16mm double-strip work print (Eastmancolor film, 1969) deposited in its collections by Welles’ longtime companion and collaborator Oja Kodar.Read More »

Alexander Kluge: Jeder Zirkus hat ein Ende
10vor11 Kulturmagazin, 25./26.6.18, RTL

Die 1509. und zugleich letzte Ausgabe des Kulturmagazins 10 VOR 11. Zum Abschied mit Überlänge. Mit Hannelore Hoger, Thomas Gottschalk, Friedrich Kittler, Dirk Baecker, Andrea Komlosy, Jürgen Kocka, Olli Schulz, Helge Schneider, Michel Serres, Niklas Luhmann, Heiner Müller, Hans-Thomas Janka, Andrea Kunder, David Gross (Nobelpreisträger), Rainer Weiss (Nobelpreisträger), Karin Mölling, Sir Henry, Sophie Rois, Präsident Trump und vielen anderen Gästen. Mit viel Musik, Information, Dialog, Bildern und Zusammenarbeit mit Partnern. Von Philosophie über Kunst und Wissenschaft bis zur “Abrüstung vom Sinnzwang”. So nah sind sich Helge Schneider und Michel Serres sonst nirgends gekommen.Read More »