Media Log: Literature and Language
Literature and Language
American Icons: Moby-Dick
Documentary Radio
The American Icons series examines a single classic work—of literature, music, film, architecture, theater, or visual art—that has achieved the status of an "icon" in American culture. In the series debut program on Herman Melville's epic novel Moby-Dick, a range of stories explores the historical and social context of the work itself, how and why it has gained enduring significance within our culture, and how other artists have been influenced by the work since its creation.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Studio 350/WNYC, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2006
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Julie Burstein
PRODUCERS: Kerrie Hillman, Ave Carrillo, Michele Siegel, Leital Molad, Trey Kay, Edward Lifson, Jonathan Mitchell, Jeff Lunden
EDITOR: David Krasnow
HOST: Kurt Andersen
CAST: Laurie Anderson, Ray Bradbury, Stanley Crouch, Andrew Delbanco, Rinde Eckert, Edward Herrmann, David Ives, Tony Kushner, Samuel Otter, Elizabeth Schultz, Frank Stella
PRINT MATERIALS: Promotional Material, PRI, 612-330-9256
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: George Foster Peabody Award
FORMAT: Radio 1 hour
DISTRIBUTOR: Public Radio International
American Oz
Documentary
Explore the life and times of author L. Frank Baum, the creator of one of the most beloved, enduring and classic American narratives. By 1900, when The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, Baum was forty-four years old and had spent much of his life in restless pursuit of success. With mixed results he dove into a string of jobs—chicken breeder, actor, marketer of petroleum products, shopkeeper, newspaperman and traveling salesman—Baum continued to reinvent himself, reflecting a uniquely American brand of confidence, imagination, and innovation. During his travels to the Great Plains and on to Chicago during the American frontier’s final days, he witnessed a nation coming to terms with the economic uncertainty of the Gilded Age. But he never lost his childlike sense of wonder and eventually crafted his observations into a magical tale of survival, adventure, and self-discovery, reinterpreted through the generations in films, books, and musicals.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: American Experience WGBH Educational Foundation, Boston, MA
YEAR PRODUCED: 2021
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Cameo George
PRODUCERS: Rebecca Taylor, Randall Maclowry, Tracy Strain
DIRECTORS/WRITERS: Tracy Heather Strain, Randall Maclowry
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jason Longo, Austin DeBesche
EDITOR: Chad Ervin
NARRATOR: Joanna Rhinehart
CAST: Gregory Maguire, Louis Warren, Dina Massachi, Maria Montoya, Evan Schwartz, Philip J. Deloria, Douglas A. Jones, Michael Patrick Hearn, Sharon Strom, Robert Baum, Kent Drummond
PRINTED MATERIAL: Related articles available on the American Experience website:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/american-oz/
FORMAT: DVD (1:52:52)
DISTRIBUTOR: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/
The American Short Story
Dramatic Series
The American Short Story series dramatizes seventeen short stories by eminent American writers:
Almos' a Man, by Richard Wright
Barn Burning, by William Faulkner
Bernice Bobs Her Hair, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Blue Hotel, by Stephen Crane
The Displaced Person, by Flannery O'Connor
The Golden Honeymoon, by Ring Lardner
The Greatest Man in the World, by James Thurber
I'm a Fool, by Sherwood Anderson
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, by Katherine Anne Porter
The Jolly Corner, by Henry James
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, by Mark Twain
The Music School, by John Updike
Parker Adderson, Philosopher, by Ambrose Bierce
Paul's Case, by Willa Cather
Rappaccini's Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Sky Is Gray, by Ernest J. Gaines
Soldier's Home, by Ernest Hemingway
Program 1
Almos' a Man, by Richard Wright
In this story a misunderstood black teenaged farm worker in the rural South of the 1930s comes of age.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1977
PRODUCER: Dan McCann
ADAPTATION: Leslie Lee
DIRECTOR: Stan Lathan
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Tak Fujimoto
CAST: LeVar Burton, Madge Sinclair, Robert Doqui, Chistopher Brooks, Roy Andrews, Gary Goodnow
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: American Film Festival; Columbus (OH) Film Festival, Bronze Plaque; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a MacArthur Video Classics Library selection
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (39:00)
Program 2
Barn Burning, by William Faulkner
The adolescent son of a post-Civil War sharecropper finds himself torn between trying to win his father's acceptance and his aversion to his father's unrelenting and violent nature.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1979
PRODUCER: Calvin Skaggs
ADAPTATION: Horton Foote
DIRECTOR: Peter Werner
EDITOR: Jay Freund
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Peter Sova
CAST: Tommy Lee Jones, Diane Kagan, Shawn Whittington, Jimmy Faulkner
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (41:00)
Program 3
Bernice Bobs Her Hair, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A girl from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is transformed from a reticent "ugly duckling" into a successful, sought-after vamp by her manipulative cousin.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1976
PRODUCER: Paul R. Gurian
DIRECTOR/ADAPTATION: Joan Micklin Silver
EDITOR: Ralph Rosenblum
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ken Van Sickle
CAST: Shelley Duvall, Veronica Cartwright, Bud Cort, Dennis Christopher, Gary Springer, Lane Binkley, Polly Holliday, Mark LaMura, Murray Moston, Patrick Byrne, Mark Newkirk, Leslie Thorsen, Claudette Warlick
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: American Film Festival, Red Ribbon; CINE Golden Eagle; International Short and Documentary Film Festival Award; Columbus (OH) Film Festival, Bronze Plaque; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a MacArthur Video Classics Library selection
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (48:00)
Program 4
The Blue Hotel, by Stephen Crane
A disturbed young Swede arrives in a small Nebraska town in the 1880s expecting the Wild West of popular dime novels, and projecting these fears onto the hotel keeper and his fellow guests.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1975
PRODUCER: Ozzie Brown
DIRECTOR: Jan Kadar
ADAPTATION: Harry M. Petrakis
EDITORS: Barbara Marks, Richard Marks
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ed Lynch
CAST: David Warner, James Keach, John Bottoms, Rex Everhart, Geddeth Smith, Thomas Aldredge, Red Sutton, Lisa Pelikan, Cynthia Wright
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (55:00)
Program 5
The Displaced Person, by Flannery O'Connor
A conscientious but driven Polish refugee disrupts the hierarchy of power on a Georgia farm in the 1940s.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1976
PRODUCER: Matthew N. Herman
ADAPTATION: Horton Foote
DIRECTOR: Glenn Jordan
EDITOR: Aaron Stell
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ken Van Sickle
CAST: Irene Worth, John Houseman, Shirley Stoler, Lane Smith, Robert Earl Jones
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (58:00)
Program 6
The Golden Honeymoon, by Ring Lardner
Charlie and Lucy Tate, an elderly couple from New Jersey, celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary in St. Petersburg, Florida, in the 1920s. There they encounter Lucy's suitor of fifty years past, who is vacationing with his wife.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1979
PRODUCERS: Don McCann, Whitney Green
DIRECTOR: Noel Black
ADAPTATION: Frederic Hunter
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jonathan Else
CAST: Teresa Wright, James Whitmore, Stephen Elliott, Nan Martin
AWARD: American Film Festival, Finalist
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (52:00)
Program 7
The Greatest Man in the World, by James Thurber
When an illiterate lout becomes the first man to complete a nonstop solo flight around the world, he instantly captures national attention, and the highest government officials strive to make the man into a hero worthy of the adulation they would bestow.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1979
PRODUCER: Ed Lynch
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Calvin Skaggs
DIRECTOR: Ralph Rosenblum
ADAPTATION: Jeff Wanshel
EDITOR: Sandra Morse
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Tony Mitchell
CAST: Brad Davis, Reed Birney, John McMartin, Howard DaSilva, Carol Kane, William Prince, Sudie Bond
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (51:00)
Program 8
I'm a Fool, by Sherwood Anderson
At the turn of the century, a young man from Ohio, who is serving an apprenticeship at the Sandusky racetrack, lies about his family and position in order to impress a beautiful woman.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1975
PRODUCER: Dan McCann
DIRECTOR: Noel Black
ADAPTATION: Ron Cowen
EDITORS: Arnold Faderbush, Stan Siegel
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jonathan Else
CAST: Ron Howard, Santiago Gonzalez, Amy Irving, John Light, Randi Kallan, Otis Calef, John Tidwel
AWARD: Chicago Educational Film Festival, Golden Babe
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (38:00)
Program 9
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, by Katherine Anne Porter
On her deathbed, a proud and once domineering matriarch reviews the successes and failures of her life.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1978
PRODUCERS: Calvin Skaggs, Phylis Geller
DIRECTOR: Randa Haines
ADAPTATION: Corinne Jacker
EDITOR: Stan Warnow
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mike Fash
CAST: Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lois Smith, William Swetland
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (57:00)
Program 10
The Jolly Corner, by Henry James
An expatriate American who fled from the Civil War returns thirty-five years later to a changed and highly commercialized America that both attracts and repels him.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1976
PRODUCER: David B. Appleton
DIRECTOR/ADAPTATION: Arthur Barron
EDITOR: Zina Voynow
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Peter Sova
CAST: Fritz Weaver, Salome Jens, Paul Sparer, Lucy Landau, Sudie Bond, James Greene, George Backman
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (43:00)
Program 11
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, by Mark Twain
A mysterious stranger who was slighted by the people of Hadleyburg years ago reappears with a scheme to test the honesty of the town's leading citizens.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1980
PRODUCER: Christopher Lukas
DIRECTOR: Ralph Rosenblum
ADAPTATION: Mark Harris
EDITOR: Jay Freund
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mike Fash
CAST: Robert Preston, Fred Gwynne, Tom Aldredge, Frances Sternhagen
AWARDS: American Film Festival, Finalist; Pacific Film Festival, Golden Medallion
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (40:00)
Program 12
The Music School, by John Updike
A contemporary writer struggles during a twenty-four-hour period to find a focus to his life.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1974
PRODUCER: Dan McCann
DIRECTOR/ADAPTATION/CINEMATOGRAPHY: John Korty
EDITOR: Richard Chew
CAST: Ron Weyand, Dana Larsson, Tom Dahlgren, Vera Stough, Frank Albertson, Elizabeth Huddle Nyberg, Anne Lawder
AWARDS: San Francisco Film Festival, Golden Gate Award; CINE Golden Eagle; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a MacArthur Video Classics Library selection
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (30:00)
Program 13
Parker Adderson, Philosopher, by Ambrose Bierce
A Union spy is captured behind enemy lines at the end of the Civil War and confronts a weary Confederate general.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1973
PRODUCER: Ozzie Brown
DIRECTOR/ADAPTATION: Arthur Barron
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Paul Goldsmith
CAST: Harris Yulin, Douglass Watson, Darren O'Connor
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (39:00)
Program 14
Paul's Case, by Willa Cather
In turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh, a desperate young man drops out of high school and, using stolen money, moves to New York to gain entry to a world of refinement.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1979
PRODUCER: Ed Lynch
DIRECTOR: Lamont Johnson
ADAPTATION: Ron Cowen
EDITOR: William Haugse
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Larry Pizer
CAST: Eric Roberts, Michael Higgins, Lindsay Crouse
AWARDS: American Film Festival, Red Ribbon; American Library Association, Selected Film for Young Adults; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a MacArthur Video Classics Library selection
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (55:00)
Program 15
Rappaccini's Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
In eighteenth-century Padua, Italy, a young scholar falls in love with a beautiful but forbidden woman in a strange garden.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1979
PRODUCER: Calvin Skaggs
DIRECTOR: Dezso Magyar
ADAPTATION: Herbert Hartig
EDITOR: Jay Freund
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mike Fash
CAST: Kristoffer Tabori, Kathleen Beller, Michael Egan, Leonardo Cimino
AWARD: Chicago Educational Film Festival, Golden Babe
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (57:00)
Program 16
The Sky Is Gray, by Ernest J. Gaines
In the 1940s, a young black boy from rural Louisiana encounters a variety of people and attitudes when he journeys to Bayonne with his mother, a struggling sharecropper.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1980
PRODUCER: Whitney Green
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Calvin Skaggs
DIRECTOR: Stan Lathan
ADAPTATION: Charles Fuller
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Larry Pizer
CAST: Olivia Cole, James Bond III, Margaret Avery, Cleavon Little, Clinton Derricks-Carroll
AWARDS: American Film Festival, Blue Ribbon and Emily Award; Birmingham International Education Film Festival, Best of Festival; Chicago Educational Film Festival, Golden Babe; Cleveland Instructional Film Festival, Top Twenty Award; American Library Association, Selected Film for Young Adults
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (47:00)
Program 17
Soldier's Home, by Ernest Hemingway
After service in World War I, a soldier returns to Kansas, where he struggles with a pervasive sense of alienation from his neighbors and family.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1976
PRODUCER: David B. Appleton
DIRECTOR: Robert Young
ADAPTATION: Robert Geller
EDITOR: Ed Beyer
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Peter Sova
CAST: Richard Backus, Nancy Marchand, Robert McIlwaine, Lisa Essary, Mark LaMura, Lane Binkley, Robert Hitt, Philip Oxnam, Robert Nichols, Mark Hall, Tom Kubiak, Brian Utman
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Chicago International Film Festival, Silver Hugo; American Film Festival, Final Competition Selection; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a MacArthur Video Classics Library selection
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (42:00)
SERIES PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Learning in Focus, Inc., NY
YEARS PRODUCED: 1973-80
SERIES EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Geller
SERIES AWARD: George Foster Peabody Award
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (all 17 titles)
SERIES DISTRIBUTORS:
Monterey Movie Company (home video)
The American Novel
Documentary
The series is comprised of six themes—themes of infinite consequence to Americans past and present: The American Dream, the series pilot, explores how novelists have dealt with money and class, wealth, poverty and the nature of success and failure in America; From Melting Pot to Mosaic considers the immigrant novel as a window into America's cultural and economic history; The Color Line sees how American novelists have dealt with the issue of race, as our fiction evolved to encompass a range of multi-ethnic voices; Crises of Faith looks at novels that examined religion, the rebellion against it, and the search for meaning and moral guidelines in the modern world; Violence illustrates how stories of violence and terror enable Americans to grapple with—and perhaps lay to rest—some of the most painful memories of our collective history; Sex and Taboos surveys works of fiction that pushed limits or stirred controversy, including the tensions sometimes caused by today's almost total freedom of literary expression.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: WNET/Thirteen, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2007
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Susan Lacy
PRODUCERS: Michael Epstein, Elena Manes, Susan Steinberg, Julie Sacks, Robert Seidman
DIRECTORS/WRITERS: Michael Epstein, Elena Manes, Susan Steinberg, Robert Seidman CINEMATOGRAPHY: Michael Chin, Buddy Squires, Terry Hopkins, Tony Hardmon
EDITOR: Ed Barteski
NARRATORS: Marck Dold, Sioux Madden, Tom Hammond, Terry Greiss, Ebony Jo-Ann, Malachy Cleary, Geraldine Guo
PRINT MATERIALS: One Page Thirteen/WNET
FORMAT: Video 2 hours each
DISTRIBUTOR: WNET/Thirteen
...And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him
Drama
Based on Tomas Rivera's classic novel ...y no se lo trago la tierra, this film tells the story of twelve year old Marcos Gonzalez, his migrant worker family, and a Chicano farm labor community in South Texas.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: KPBS-TV, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1994
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Paul Espinosa, Lindsay Law
PRODUCER: Paul Espinosa
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Severo Perez
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Virgil Harper
EDITOR: Susan Heick, Howard Heard
NARRATOR: Miguel Rodriquez
CAST: Jose Alcala, Rose Portillo, Marco Rodriguez, Daniel Valdez, Lupe Ontiveros, Sal Lopez, Art Bonilla, Evelyn Guerrero, Sam Vlahos
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Best of the Festival Audience Award; San Antonio Cine Festival, Best Feature; Cairo International Film Festival, Best Director; San Diego Filmmakers Showcase, Best Feature; San Sebastian (Spain) International Film Festival; Mill Valley Film Festival; Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Havana, Cuba; Hampton's International Film Festival, Long Island, New York; San Jose (CA) Cinequest International Festival; USA Film Festival, Dallas; Independent Feature Project Screening (NYC); Kennedy Center (DC), Hispanic Academy of Arts and Sciences Screening; Director's Guild of America, Special Screening; Rimini (Italy) Cinema Festival; Cruzando Fronteras Film Fest and Smithsonian Institution Screening, Washington, DC; California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation Screenings (Sacramento, Riverside, Long Beach); Annual Tom s Rivera Conference Screening (Riverside, CA)
FORMAT: Video (100:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Kino International
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
Documentary
Explore the life and legacy of playwright August Wilson (1945–2005)—the man some call America’s Shakespeare—from his roots as an activist and poet to his indelible mark on Broadway. Unprecedented access to Wilson’s theatrical archives, rarely seen interviews, and new dramatic readings bring to life his seminal 10-play cycle chronicling each decade of the twentieth-century African American experience; including the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson. Film and theater luminaries, including Viola Davis, Charles Dutton, Laurence Fishburne, James Earl Jones, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Phylicia Rashad share their stories of the career- and life-changing experience of bringing Wilson’s rich theatrical voice to the stage. Wilson’s sister Freda Ellis; his widow, costume designer Constanza Romero; friends; colleagues and scholars trace Wilson’s influences, creative evolution, triumphs, struggles, and quest for cultural determinism before his untimely death from liver cancer.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: WQED Multimedia, Pittsburgh, PA
YEAR PRODUCED: 2015
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Darryl Ford Williams, Susan Lacy
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Sam Pollard
WRITER: Stephen Stept
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Frank Caloriero
EDITOR: Steven Wechsler
NARRATOR: Keith David
PRINTED MATERIALS: Educational materials (teachers guides) Available through WQED
FORMAT: DVD 90 mins
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/august-wilson-the-ground-on-which-i-stand/about-the-film/3610/
Beckett Directs Beckett: Waiting for Godot and Krapp's Last Tape
Dramatic and Documentary Series
Beckett Directs Beckett is a three-part program that features dramatizations of Waiting for Godot and Krapp's Last Tape by Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett (1906–89). It includes behind the scenes footage, interviews, and a roundtable discussion with scholars and theater professionals.
Program 1
Waiting for Godot (1955)
dramatizes the human condition through the plight of Vladimir and Estragon, who pass the time on the road as they wait in vain for the arrival of Godot.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1988
PRODUCERS: Mitchell Lifton, Jean-Pierre Cottet
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: John Fuegi
WRITER: Samuel Beckett
DIRECTOR: Walter D. Asmus from the mise-en-scene by Samuel Beckett
WRITER: Samuel Beckett
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Daniel Vogel
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Luc Herve, Guy Kartagener, Jean-Louis Angelini, Roger Wrona
EDITORS: Jacques Audoir, Christian Martin
CAST: The San Quentin Drama Workshop, featuring Rick Cluchey, Lawrence Held, Bud Thorpe, Alan Mandell, Louis Beckett Cluchey
AWARD: American Film and Video Festival, Blue Ribbon
PRINT MATERIAL: Study Guide forthcoming from Smithsonian Press
FORMAT: Video (150:00) on two cassettes
French version with different cast also available
Program 2
Krapp's Last Tape (1958)
concerns an old man, who reviews his life by listening to a recording he made at age 39 summarizing another tape made ten or fifteen years earlier. At each stage, Krapp sees the foolishness of his earlier self but not the fool he presently is.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1988
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: John Fuegi
PRODUCERS: Mitchell Lifton, Jean-Pierre Cottet
DIRECTOR: Walter D. Asmus from the mise-en-scene by Samuel Beckett
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Daniel Vogel
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Tom Arnold, Francis Guilbert, Jean-Marc Zilbering
EDITOR: Christian Martin
CAST: Rick Cluchey
PRINT MATERIAL: Study Guide available
FORMAT: Video (60:00)
French version with different cast also available
Program 3
Beckett and the Television Text
is a roundtable discussion with scholars about Beckett's ideas for the staging of the plays and about the nature of "television texts."
YEAR PRODUCED: 1988
PRODUCERS: Mitchell Lifton, John Fuegi, Jean-Pierre Cottet
DIRECTOR: Jacques Audoir
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Daniel Vogel
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Luc Herve, Guy Kartagener, Jean-Louis Angelini, Roger Wrona
EDITOR: Christian Martin
MODERATOR: John Fuegi, University of Maryland, College Park
PARTICIPANTS: Herbert Blau, theater director, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Dr. Martin Esslin, Stanford University; Dr. Robert Corrigan, University of Texas, Dallas; and Dr. Kathleen Woodward, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
PRINT MATERIAL: Study Guide available
FORMAT: Video (27:00)
Available only as part of Beckett Directs Beckett package
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: The University of Maryland Visual Press, College Park, MD, in association with WGBH, Boston, MA; Cameras Continentales, La SEPT, Société Française de Production (SFP), and FR3, Paris, France; and Radioteleviseo Portuguesa-E.P. (RTP), Lisbon, Portugal
YEAR PRODUCED: 1988
SERIES PRODUCERS: Mitchell Lifton, Jean-Pierre Cottet, John Fuegi
FORMAT: Video (see individual listings)
DISTRIBUTOR: Smithsonian Institution Press
The Beckett Festival of Radio Plays
Radio Series (Drama and Documentary)
This five-part series presents American premiere productions of all the extant radio plays of Samuel Beckett (1906–89). Each drama is introduced by a host and accompanied by a short interpretive documentary that includes interviews and discussions.
Program 1
All That Fall (1957)
Maddy Rooney's laborious trip to the Boghill railway station to meet her blind husband and their return home together.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Soundscape, Inc., Alexandria, VA; Voices International, New York, NY; and RIAS, Berlin, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986
PROJECT DIRECTOR: Louise Cleveland
PROJECT ORIGINATOR: Martha Fehsenfeld
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Everett C. Frost
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Faith Wilding
WRITER: Samuel Beckett
STUDIO SOUND EFFECTS: Charles Potter
RECORDING ENGINEER: Mike Moran
PRODUCTION ENGINEER: David Rapkin
HOST: Henry Strozier
CAST: Billie Whitelaw, David Warrilow, Alvin Epstein, Jerome Kilty, George Bartenieff, Susan Willis
COMMENTARY: Desmond Briscoe, Everett Frost, Billie Whitelaw, Richard Ellman, Linda Ben-Zvi, Enoch Brater, Hersh Zeifman, David Hesla
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: New York International Radio Festival, Gold Medal, Best Drama Special; Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Honorable Mention, Arts and Humanities Programming
FORMAT: Audiocassette (120:00)
2 (60:00) tapes: drama (89:00); documentary (31:00)
Program 2
Embers (1959)
Henry sits on the beach talking to his dead father who has drowned and does not answer, and to his wife Ada, who does.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Voices International, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1989
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Everett C. Frost
DOCUMENTARY PRODUCER: Charles Potter
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Faith Wilding
WRITER: Samuel Beckett
PANEL ENGINEER: Peter Novis
SEA SOUND EFFECTS: Liam Saurin
RECORDED SOUND EFFECTS: Bert Coules
SOUND EFFECTS: Mike Etherden
PRODUCTION ENGINEER: Stephen Erickson
HOST: Henry Strozier
CAST: Barry McGovern, Billie Whitelaw
COMMENTARY: Barbara Bray, Barry McGovern, Ruby Cohn, Linda Ben-Zvi
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: New York International Radio Festival, Gold Medal
FORMAT: Audiocassette (60:00)
1 tape: drama (48:00); documentary (12:00)
Program 3
Words and Music (1962)
Words, called Bob, and Music, called Joe, are forced to collaborate by the club-wielding Croak and under duress they produce two exquisite lyric poems.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Voices International, New York, NY, and WDR, Cologne, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Everett C. Frost
DOCUMENTARY AND SOUND EFFECTS PRODUCER: Charles Potter
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Faith Wilding
WRITER: Samuel Beckett
RECORDING AND PRODUCTION ENGINEER: Mike Moran
COMPOSER: Morton Feldman
MUSIC: The Bowery Ensemble, conducted by Nils Vigeland
HOST: Henry Strozier
CAST: David Warrilow, Alvin Epstein
COMMENTARY: Morton Feldman, Everett Frost, Linda Ben-Zvi, Maurice Beja
FORMAT: Audiocassette (60:00) 1 tape: drama (40:00); documentary and commentary (20:00)
Program 4
Cascando (1963)
In this play, an Opener "opens" and "closes" two characters; Voice desperately promises to tell a story he can finish; and Music equally struggles to create a finished composition.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Voices International, New York, NY, and WDR, Cologne, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1989
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Everett C. Frost
DOCUMENTARY PRODUCER: Charles Potter
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Faith Wilding
RECORDING AND PRODUCTION ENGINEERS: Mike Moran, Tony May, Stephen Erickson
HOST: Henry Strozier
CAST: Fred Neumann, Alvin Epstein
COMMENTARY: Alvin Epstein, William Kraft, Thomas Bishop, Porter Abbot
COMPOSER: William Kraft
MUSIC: Speculum Musicae, conducted by William Kraft
FORMAT: Audiocassette (60:00)
1 tape: drama (18:00); documentary (12:00); discussion by Beckett scholars (30:00)
Program 5
Rough for Radio II (1976)
An Animator, assisted by a Stenographer and the whip-wielding mute character Dick, has the task of eliciting from Fox some unknown testimony of unknown significance.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Voices International, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1989
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Everett C. Frost
DOCUMENTARY & SOUND EFFECTS PRODUCER: Charles Potter
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Faith Wilding
RECORDING ENGINEER: Mike Moran
PRODUCTION ENGINEER: Stephen Erickson
HOST: Henry Strozier
CAST: W. Dennis Hunt, Amanda Plummer, Barry McGovern, Charles Potter
COMMENTARY: Barry McGovern, Everett Frost, Rosette Lamont
FORMAT: Audiocassette (60:00)
1 tape: drama (24:00); documentary (6:00); discussion by Beckett scholars (30:00)
SERIES ORIGINATOR: Martha Fehsenfeld
PROJECT DIRECTOR FOR THE BECKETT FESTIVAL OF RADIO PLAYS: Everett C. Frost
PROJECT DIRECTOR FOR ALL THAT FALL: Louise Cleveland
SERIES AWARD: Gabriel Award
SERIES FORMAT: Audiocassette (360:00)
Five programs on six tapes: All That Fall, 2 (60:00); Programs 2-5 (60:00 each)
DISTRIBUTOR: Pacifica Program Service/Radio Archive
Born To Trouble: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Documentary
Set against a backdrop of American history, this film tells the story of the creation of Mark Twain’s celebrated novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and its century of controversy. No American novel has been attacked by the public as long as Huck Finn. In Twain’s time, Huck was said to threaten public morality and childhood innocence. In our time, the book has been charged with demeaning African Americans and perpetuating racism. In the documentary, the connections between race, culture, politics, and morality are evoked as the film chronicles Twain’s literary genius and influences along with a retelling of the novel’s plot and a vérité look at the recent crusade of a mother and daughter in Tempe, Arizona, to remove Huck from high school required reading lists.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: WGBH, Boston, MA
YEAR PRODUCED: 2000
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Jill Janows
WRITERS: Jill Janows, Leslie Lee
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Richard Dallett, Robb Moss
EDITOR: Jon Neuburger
NARRATOR: Courtney B. Vance
CAST: Voice of Mark Twain, Ken Richters; Voice of Huck Finn, Colin Welch
PRINT MATERIALS: Teaching guide available through WGBH, Educational Print & Outreach, 125 Western Ave., Boston, MA, 02134; Coursepack available through PBS Video.
FORMAT: Video (90:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video
The Cafeteria
Drama
The Cafeteria is an adaptation of a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991), which portrays the experience of two refugees in the United States, a European-born writer and a young Holocaust survivor.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Amram Nowak Associates, Inc., and Isaac in America Foundation, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1983 (first broadcast on American Playhouse)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Amram Nowak
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Kirk Simon
ADAPTATION: Ernest Kinoy
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jerry Pantzer
EDITOR: Jason Rosenfield
CAST: Zohra Lampert, Bob Dishy, Morris Carnovsky
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: CINE Golden Eagle: American Film Festival, Honorable Mention; San Francisco Film Festival; San Francisco Jewish Film Festival; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a MacArthur Video Classics Library selection
FORMAT: Video (58:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Direct Cinema Limited
Centennial Faulkner
Radio Series (Documentary and Drama)
Centennial Faulkner is a three-hour series marking the one hundredth anniversary of William Faulkner's birth. Each of the one-hour programs examines a different aspect of Faulkner and his work and includes a radio drama adapted from a Faulkner short story. Hosted by Stacy Keach, it features interviews with Shelby Foote and other writers and critics.
Program 1
Spotted Horses
Looks at Faulkner as a renegade writer critic of Southern culture.
Program 2
Honor
Sees Faulkner as a born storyteller. The dramatized story is typical of Faulkner's more commercial fiction.
Program 3
Mountain Victory
Examines the current debate over Faulkner's treatment of women and African Americans. The dramatization is a dark brooding story that takes place in the wake of the Civil War.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Foundation for New Media, Inc.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1997
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Clem
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Robert Clem
EDITORS: Donald Stark, David Rapkin
HOST/NARRATOR: Stacy Keach
CAST: Campbell Scott, David Strathairn, Betty Buckley, Jeffery Wright, Hope Davis, Michael O'Keefe, Will Patton, Jeff DeMunn, Lois Smith
FORMAT: Video 3 (58:00) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: New Media/Waterfront
Classic Theatre: The Humanities in Drama and Classic Theatre Previews
Dramatic and Documentary Series
Classic Theatre: The Humanities in Drama is a BBC-produced series of thirteen great English and European plays from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. All the dramas are accompanied by half-hour documentaries which, taken together, form a series called Classic Theatre Previews. The Endowment supported the selection, acquisition, and broadcast of the BBC plays and production of the accompanying documentaries.
The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606), by William Shakespeare
Edward the Second (1593), by Christopher Marlowe
The Duchess of Malfi (c. 1614), by John Webster
Paradise Restored
She Stoops to Conquer (1773), by Oliver Goldsmith
Candide (1759), by Voltaire
The Rivals (1775), by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Wild Duck (1884), by Henrik Ibsen
Hedda Gabler (1890), by Henrik Ibsen
Trelawny of the "Wells" (1898), by Arthur Wing Pinero
The Three Sisters (1901), by Anton Chekhov
The Playboy of the Western World (1907), by John Millington Synge
Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893), by George Bernard Shaw
Program 1
The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606), by William Shakespeare
Set in Scotland, this play is a classic study of ambition, murder, and remorse.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: John Gorrie
CAST: Eric Porter, Janet Suzman, John Alderton, Michael Goodliffe, John Thaw, John Woodvine
Classic Theatre Preview with Shakespeare scholar S. Schoenbaum of Northwestern University.
Program 2
Edward the Second (1593), by Christopher Marlowe
King Edward, a confused, weak, and foolish man ruled by personal passions, is ennobled in a horrifying death.
PRODUCER: Mark Shivas
DIRECTOR: Tony Robertson
CAST: Ian McKellen, Timothy West, Diane Fletcher, James Laurenson
Classic Theatre Preview with Clifford Leech of the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
Program 3
The Duchess of Malfi (c. 1614), by John Webster
Obsessed by his love for the Duchess, her brother Ferdinand imprisons her and subjects her to mental torture after she marries her steward.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: James MacTaggart
CAST: Eileen Atkins, Michael Bryant, Charles Kay, T.P. McKenna, Gary Bond
Classic Theatre Preview with Michael Goldman of Queens College.
Program 4
Paradise Restored
Based on the life and work of the English poet and author John Milton (1608-1674), this dramatization portrays some of the personal triumphs and defeats that lie behind Paradise Lost, his epic poem on the fall of man.
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Don Taylor
CAST: John Neville, Polly James, Anne Stallybrass
Classic Theatre Preview with Judith A. Kates of Harvard University.
Program 5
She Stoops to Conquer (1773), by Oliver Goldsmith
When Young Marlow, a bashful young man who feels at ease only with serving girls, mistakes Mr. Hardcastle's house for an inn, Miss Hardcastle takes advantage of the situation by posing as a barmaid.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: Michael Elliott
CAST: Sir Ralph Richardson, Tom Courtenay, Thora Hird, Juliet Mills, Elaine Taylor
Classic Theatre Preview with William Appleton of Columbia University.
Program 6
Candide (1759), by Voltaire
This is a dramatic adaptation of the philosophical novel which satirizes the optimistic creed of Leibnitz: "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds," through the story of young Candide, and his series of misadventures.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR/ADAPTATION/TRANSLATION: James MacTaggart
CAST: Frank Finlay, Ian Ogilvy
Classic Theatre Preview with Georges May of Yale University.
Program 7
The Rivals (1775), by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
This comedy of double identity features the legendary Mrs. Malaprop.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: Basil Coleman
CAST: John Alderton, Jeremy Brett, Andrew Cruikshank, Beryl Reid, Jenny Linden, T.P. McKenna
Classic Theatre Preview with William Appleton of Columbia University.
Program 8
The Wild Duck (1884), by Henrik Ibsen
A guilt-ridden loner and idealist sets out to rehabilitate an impoverished but basically compatible family, destroying the props of illusion that sustain their common existence.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: Alan Bridges
TRANSLATION: Rolf Fjelde
CAST: Denholm Elliott, Derek Godfrey, Mark Digham, Rosemary Leach, John Robinson, Jenny Agutter
Classic Theatre Preview with Rolf Fjelde of Pratt Institute and the Juilliard School of Music.
Program 9
Hedda Gabler (1890), by Henrik Ibsen
Married to a pedantic scholar for whom she has no affection and living in a small, slow, backward Norwegian town of the 1860s, Hedda devises schemes for subtly asserting power over the people who come into her life.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: Waris Hussein
TRANSLATION: Michael Meyer
CAST: Janet Suzman, Ian McKellen, Tom Bell, Jane Asher, Dorothy Reynolds
Classic Theatre Preview with Eva Le Gallienne, actress and translator of Ibsen as well as cofounder of the American Repertory Theater.
Program 10
Trelawny of the "Wells" (1898), by Arthur Wing Pinero
In this play about the social acceptability of the stage, the actress heroine breaks her engagement to a young aristocrat to return to the theater Undaunted, he follows and becomes an actor.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: Herbert Wise
CAST: John Alderton, Moira Taylor, Roland Culver, Elaine Taylor, Lally Bowers, Graham Crowden, Ian Ogilvy, Rachel Kempson, Elizabeth Seal
Classic Theatre Preview with Jane W. Stedman of Roosevelt University.
Program 11
The Three Sisters (1901), by Anton Chekhov
Through the experience of three sisters and their suitors, this play explores the need for illusion as a means of coping with a profoundly dispiriting reality.
PRODUCER: Gerald Savory
DIRECTOR: Cedric Messina
TRANSLATOR: Elisaveta Fen
CAST: Janet Suzman, Eileen Atkins, Michele Dotrice, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Bryant, Joss Ackland, Sarah Badel, Ronald Hines, Richard Pearson
Classic Theatre Preview with Victor Erlich of Yale University.
Program 12
The Playboy of the Western World (1907), by John Millington Synge
A playboy claims to have killed his tyrannical father and is lionized by the villagers for his boldness until his father arrives to reclaim his errant son.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: Alan Gibson
CAST: John Hurt, Sinead Cusack, Pauline Delany, Joe Lynch, Donal McCann
Classic Theatre Preview with Ann Saddlemyer of the University of Toronto.
Program 13
Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893), by George Bernard Shaw
To the horror of her daughter, Mrs. Warren runs a chain of brothels in the capitals of Europe because it offers good hours, good money, and a chance for advancement otherwise unavailable to women.
PRODUCER: Cedric Messina
DIRECTOR: Herbert Wise
CAST: Coral Browne, Penelope Wilton, James Grout, Derek Godfrey, Robert Powell, Richard Pearson
Classic Theatre Preview with Dan H. Laurence, literary advisor to the estate of George Bernard Shaw.
For Classic Theatre Previews and American Presentation of the Programs:
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: WGBH, Boston, MA
YEAR CLASSIC THEATRE ACQUIRED & PREVIEWS PRODUCED: 1975
PROJECT DIRECTOR: Michael Rice
SERIES PRODUCER: Joan Sullivan
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Monia Joblin
DIRECTOR: David Atwood
RESEARCHER: Elizabeth Deane
MUSIC COMPOSED/CONDUCTED BY: Joseph Payne
VIDEOGRAPHY: Bill Charrette, Dick Holden, F.X. Lane, Larry LeCain, Greg MacDonald, Lee Smith, Skip Warehan, Bob Wilson
FORMAT: Video
Dramas: Programs 1,11 (150:00); Programs 2,3,5,7-10,12,13 (120:00); Programs 4,6 (90:00)
Documentary Previews: 13 (28:00) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: Public Media Inc. (plays only available)
Creeley
Documentary
Shot over a three-year period, this film looks at the life and work of American poet Robert Creeley (b.1926).
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Documentary Research, Inc., Buffalo, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1988
PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS/WRITERS/EDITORS: Diane Christian, Bruce Jackson
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Bruce Jackson
INTERVIEWS: Alan Ginsberg, Ed Dorn, Diane Di Prima, Philip Whalen, Stan Brakhage, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (59:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: contact Documentary Research, Inc.
Dead Souls
Dramatic Radio Series
This nine-part dramatization of the novel by Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) follows the comic life of a Russian man and his preposterous scheme to enrich himself.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Globe Radio Repertory, Seattle, WA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
PRODUCERS/WRITERS: Jean Sherrard, John Siscoe
DIRECTOR: Jean Sherrard
CAST: John Gilbert, Ted D'Arms, Marjorie Nelson, John Aylward, Mark Drusch
COMMENTARY: Donald Farger, Harvard University; Willis Konick, University of Washington
FORMAT: Audiocassette
9 (30:000) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: University of Washington Press
Don Quixote de la Mancha
Dramatic Radio Series
This thirteen-part adaptation of the novel by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) tells the story of an impoverished country gentleman who is convinced by reading tales of chivalry that he should become a knight errant.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Globe Radio Repertory, Seattle, WA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985
PRODUCERS/WRITERS: Jean Sherrard, John Siscoe
DIRECTOR: Jean Sherrard
CAST: Ted D'Arms, John Aylward, Glenn Mazen, Marjorie Nelson, JohnGilbert
PRINT MATERIAL: Study guide (24 pages) by Professors George Shipley, University of Washington; and Carrol Johnson, University of California, Los Angeles
FORMAT: Video
13 (30:00) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: University of Washington Press
Do You Speak American?
Documentary
Do You Speak American?, hosted by journalist and writer Robert MacNeil is an exploration of Americans as seen and heard through the way we speak. It examines the vibrant, dynamic, and some times controversial ways Americans speak English and the inextricable link between our language and the broader cultural issues of race, gender, social standing and power. The film covers topics such as Ebonics, Spanglish, Hip-Hop and the English-only movement.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Arlington, VA
YEAR PRODUCED: 2005
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Susan Mills, Jody Shef, Clive Syddall
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: William Cran
WRITERS: William Cran, Robert MacNeil
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Alan Palmer
EDITORS: Joe Frost
NARRATOR: Robert MacNeil
PRINT MATERIALS: MacNeil/Lehrer Productions website, www.pbs.org/speak
FORMAT: Video 3 one-hour programs
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video
Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive
Documentary
Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive draws on the rich palette of Poe’s evocative imagery and sharply drawn plots to tell the real story of the notorious author. Featuring Tony award-winning and Emmy-nominated actor Denis O’Hare, the film explores the misrepresentations of Poe as an alcoholic madman akin to the narrators of his horror stories. It reveals the way in which more than any other writer of his time, and even our own time, Poe tapped into what it means to be a human being in our modern and sometimes frightening world. Determined to re-invent American literature, Poe was an influential literary critic and magazine editor. He invented the modern detective story and refined the science fiction genre. Yet he is remembered primarily for his handful of horror stories. Poe famously died under mysterious circumstances. The fact is, the mystery around Poe’s death is the least of it. The real question at the heart of this film is why Edgar Allan Poe continues to be one of the most popular writers in the history of Western literature—and one of the most misunderstood.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Center for Independent Documentary
YEAR PRODUCED: 2016
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Susan Jaffe Tane, Michael Kantor
PRODUCER: Jennifer Pearce
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Eric Stange
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Boyd Estus
EDITOR: Peter Rhodes
NARRATOR: Kathleen Turner
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Smithsonian/NEH History Film Forum, Independent Film Festival of Boston, WorldFest Houston – Remy Award, Breckenridge Film Festival
FORMAT: DVD (84 min)
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video www.pbs.org
Edgar Allan Poe, Terror of the Soul
Documentary and Drama
This program examines the life and work of American writer, poet, and critic Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). It also includes dramatized sequences from several of his works.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Film Odyssey, Inc., Washington, DC, in association with American Masters/WNET, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1995 (first broadcast on American Masters)
PRODUCER/WRITER: Karen Thomas
EDITOR: Mark Muheim
DIRECTOR OF DRAMATIC SEQUENCES: Joyce Chopra
EDITORS/DRAMATIC SEQUENCES: Mark Muheim, Joe Gutowski
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS: Elizabeth Keyishian, Robert J. Sloane, Cindy E.Vaughn
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Kenneth Silverman, Daniel Blake Smith
CINEMATOGRAPHY: James Glennon (drama), Dyanna Taylor (documentary), Erich Roland and Foster Wiley (additional cinematography)
NARRATOR: Ruby Dee
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER for American Masters: Susan Lacy CAST:
The Tell Tale Heart: Treat Williams, Eric Christmas;
The Cask of Amontillado (story adapted by Joyce Chopra; music by Philip Glass): John Heard, Rene Auberjonois;
Dramatic Recreations: Anthony Maggio as Edgar Allan Poe, Eric Christmas, Sky Rumph, Pam Van Sant, Devyn Puett, Marianne Mullerleile, Robert Dowdell, Val Bettin
INTERVIEWS: Philip Glass, Richard Wilbur, Robert Regan, Joyce Carol Oates, Kenneth Silverman, Ira Levin, Stephen Nissenbaum, Alfred Kazin, Patrick Quinn
FORMAT: Video (58:00); Cask of Amontillado also available in single 16-minute version
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video
Ernest Hemingway: Rivers to the Sea
Documentary
More than forty years after his death, Hemingway is one of the most widely read, and widely written about American authors. His distinct style and profound influence are indisputable; his larger-than-life persona is still the stuff of heated debate. As well known in his lifetime as any movie star, Hemingway was a dashing international figure who challenged the notion that writers exist in an ivory tower. There were the battles, the bull fights, the big game, the booze—and he channeled these experiences into stark prose, creating a new form of expression, describing action and emotion in simple, authentic terms. An enormous critical success, his major works—The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls—are still in print, some in as many as twenty languages. The recent excitement over Cuba's release of their Hemingway collection is unmatched in modern literature. It is the literature, it is the written word and the art of Hemingway's story telling that forms the heart and the freshness of this film, the point of departure from which Hemingway's life and work are uniquely explored.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Educational Broadcasting Corp., New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2005
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Susan Lacy
PRODUCERS: DeWitt Sage, Catherine Collins, Allyson Luchak, Jenny Carchman
DIRECTOR/WRITER: DeWitt Sage
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pierre Aim, Dyanna Taylor
EDITOR: Deborah Peretz
NARRATORS: Kate Burton, James Naughton
PRINT MATERIALS: Press materials through www.thirteen.org/pressroom
FORMAT: Video 90:00 mins
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video
Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film
Documentary
This film tells the story of the life and work of America's only Nobel Prize-winning playwright, set within the context of the harrowing family relationships that shaped him and that he in turn sought to reflect and give form to in his writing. More than a biography of the greatest literary genius the American theater has produced, the film is a meditation on the costs and consequences of artistic creation and a poetic exploration of the dramatic masterpieces O'Neill wrenched from himself only at the very end of his career—brought to life in passages performed especially for the production by Al Pacino, Christopher Plummer, Zoe Caldwell, Liam Neeson, Robert Sean Leonard and Vanessa Redgrave. It also features penetrating on-camera reflections from a distinguished roster of directors, playwrights, artists, actors and scholars, including Jason Robards, Robert Brustein, Tony Kushner, John Guare, Arthur Gelb, Barbara Gelb, Sidney Lumet, Lloyd Richards, Edward Shaughnessy, and Robert Whitehead.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Steeplechase Films, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2005
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Ric Burns, Donald Rosenfeld, Mark Samels
PRODUCERS: Marlyn Ness, Steve Rivo, Robin Espinola, Mary Recine
DIRECTOR: Ric Burns
WRITERS: Arthur Gelb, Barbara Gelb, Ric Burns
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Buddy Squires, Peter Nelson, Allen Moore
EDITOR: Li-Shin Yu
HOST: Christopher Plummer
CAST: Al Pacino, Zoe Caldwell, Christopher Plummer, Robert Sean Leonard, Callie Thome, Vanessa Redgrave, Liam Neeson, Natasha Richardson, and Jason Robards
PRINT MATERIALS: American Experience, WGBH
FORMAT: Video 120 minutes
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video
Eugene O'Neill: Journey Into Genius
Drama
Eugene O'Neill: Journey Into Genius dramatizes the early years of O'Neill's life, from his expulsion from Princeton at the age of eighteen to his first triumph as a dramatist in his early thirties.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Lumiere Productions, Inc., New York, NY, and Connecticut Public Television
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987 (first broadcast on American Playhouse)
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Calvin Skaggs
ADAPTATION: Lanie Robertson
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Frank Prinzi
EDITOR: Sonia Polansky
COPRODUCER: Terry Benes
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Stephanie Keys
CAST: Matthew Modine, Dylan Baker, Kate Burton, Jeffrey DeMunn, Chris Cooper, Jane Kaczmarek
FORMAT: Video (55:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Caridi Entertainment
The Eugene O'Neill Radio Project
Radio Series (Drama and Documentary)
This series features several radio adaptations, with commentary, of works by American playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953), as well as a documentary on famed O'Neill director Jose Quintero.
Program 1
S.S. Glencairn: Four Plays of the Sea(1916-1919)
describe life on a tramp freighter and reflect O'Neill's experiences as a seaman.
1: The Moon of the Caribbees
The S.S. Glencairn, anchored off a Caribbean Island, is visited and troubled by chants, women, and whisky from the shore. (29:24)
2: Bound East for Cardiff
The dying Yank and Driscoll confess to each other the unexpressed dream that has lain at the heart of their friendship. (30:00)
3. In the Zone
In a zone of war the enemy may already be aboard in the form of a "little black box" which Smitty hides under his mattress. (32:00)
4. The Long Voyage Home
Home is a longing never to be realized by those who have given themselves to the sea. (29:30)
DIRECTOR: Jose Quintero
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
SOUND DESIGN: Randy Thom
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR/CONSULTANT: Travis Bogard
CAST: Mike Genovese, Shay Duffin, Gisli Bjorgvinsson, Tim Choate, Ian Abercrombie, Jim Piddock, James Scally, Larry Drake, Christopher Grove, Antonie Becker, Erik Holland, and others
Program 2
Jose Quintero Directs O'Neill
is a documentary on the foremost director of O'Neill work, focusing on his method of direction and staging, rehearsal comments by the director and cast members, and aural excerpts from completed productions.
Part 1 emphasizes Quintero's style of direction with examples from rehearsals of each of the Glencairn plays.
Part 2 concentrates on the theme and continuity of one play, In the Zone (30:00).
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
TECHNICAL PRODUCTION: Jim McKee
Program 3
The Hairy Ape (1922)
O'Neill's Expressionist drama portrays the story of Yank, a fireman in the stokehole of a giant ocean liner. Branded "a beast" because of his size and appearance, Yank searches with disastrous results for a place to belong. (93:36)
DIRECTOR: Jose Quintero
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
SOUND DESIGN: Randy Thom
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR/CONSULTANT: Travis Bogard
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: Jim McKee
PRODUCTION: Sprocket Systems/Lucasfilm
CAST: George Dzundza as Yank, Eric Christmas as Paddy, Christopher Grove as Long, Deborah May as Mildred, Mercedes Shirley as Aunt
Program 4
The Emperor Jones (1920)
A former Pullman porter, Jones has risen to Emperor of a Caribbean island, convincing his subjects that he has supernatural powers and that only a silver bullet can destroy him. And it does, to the sound of drums and the island's magic. (88:00)
DIRECTOR: Jose Quintero
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
SOUND DESIGN: Randy Thom
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR/CONSULTANT: Travis Bogard
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: Jim McKee
PRODUCTION: Skywalker Sound, Lucasfilm
CAST: Joe Morton as Brutis Jones, Richard Riehle as Smithers
Program 5
Hughie (1958)
Erie, a small-time gambler, who has lost his luck and self-confidence with the death of Hughie, the night clerk of a small side street hotel, tries to convert the new night clerk into believing his pipe dreams about himself. (57:00)
DIRECTOR: Jose Quintero
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
SOUND DESIGN: Randy Thom
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR/CONSULTANT: Travis Bogard
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: Jim McKee
PRODUCTION: Skywalker Sound, Lucasfilm
CAST: Jason Robards as Erie, Jack Dodson as Night Clerk
Program 6
Lazarus Laughed (1926)
Subtitled "a play for an imaginary theater" and originally requiring a minimum of 166 actors, O'Neill's work is an apocalyptic journey in which he has created a Lazarus, risen from the dead by Jesus, who returns with a message about death which confounds everyone, and a laughter which transforms all who hear it. (111:88)
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
DIRECTOR: Edward Hastings
MUSIC: Lou Harrison
SOUND DESIGN: Jim McKee
CHORUS DIRECTOR: Barney Jones
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR/CONSULTANT: Travis Bogard
STUDIOS: Earwax in San Francisco, Skywalker Sound, Lucasfilm, Nicasio Sony Studios
CAST: (Principals) Robert Foxworth as Lazarus, Barbara Bain as Miriam, Rene Auberjonois as Caligula, Sydney Walker as Tiberius, Fredi Olster as Pompeia, Ray Reinhardt as Crassus, William Patterson as Father, Will Marchetti as Priest
SERIES PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Bay Area Radio Drama (BARD), San Francisco, CA
YEARS PRODUCED: 1988-1995
SERIES PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
FORMAT: Audiocassette (see various lengths above)
SERIES DISTRIBUTOR: contact Bay Area Radio Drama (BARD)
Fear and the Muse: The Story of Anna Akhmatova
Documentary
This program chronicles the life and times of one of the U.S.S.R.'s most celebrated cultural figures, the poet Anna Akhmatova (1899-1966), who served as the poetic "conscience of Russia" during the years of Stalinist repression.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: New York Center for Visual History, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1990
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: Jill Janows
COPRODUCER: Molly Ornati
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Richard P. Rogers
EDITOR: Jon Neuburger
NARRATOR: Christopher Reeve
CAST: Claire Bloom as the voice of Anna Akhmatova
AWARDS: American Educational Film and Video Festival, Blue Ribbon; Chicago International Film Festival, Silver Plaque
FORMAT: Video (58:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Mystic Fire Video
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams
Documentary
Using the evocative lyricism of this very autobiographical writer, a tale of his life is told that breaks beyond 1920s caricature and Jazz Age stereotype. Original cinematic recreations of the texts—The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, Tender Is The Night, The Last Tycoon—are illuminated by insights from people who knew Fitzgerald and have never before been interviewed. From St. Paul, Minnesota, to the tip of Long Island to Paris, we are transported on F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's uniquely American journey and enveloped in their deeply emotional commentary.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: American Masters/WNET, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2000
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Susan Lacy
PRODUCERS: Catherine Brown Collins, DeWitt Sage
DIRECTOR/WRITER: DeWitt Sage
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Dyanna Taylor
EDITOR: Kenneth Levis
VOICES: Campbell Scott, Amy Irving, Laura Linney, William Sadler
PRINT MATERIALS: Contact Matthew Baumoel at 212/560-3118.
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: 2001 Peabody Award; Gold Special Jury Award-Worldfest Houston 2002
FORMAT: Video (90:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Wellspring
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Drama
Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by James Baldwin (1924-1987), this drama tells the story of John Grimes, a young black teenager who struggles to rid himself of a past that has left his family emotionally crippled.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Learning in Focus, Inc., New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1984
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Geller
PRODUCER: Calvin Skaggs
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS: Sue Jett, Tony Mark
DIRECTOR: Stan Lathan
ADAPTATION: Gus Edwards, Leslie Lee
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Hiro Narita
EDITOR: Jay Freund
CAST: Paul Winfield, Rosalind Cash, James Bond III, Olivia Cole
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: American Film and Video Festival, Blue Ribbon; San Francisco International Film Festival, Golden Gate Award, Best Television Feature of the Year; FILMEX (Los Angeles); Telluride International Film Festival; CINE Golden Eagle; New York Times, Best American Television Film of the Year; Time magazine, one of "Ten Best of 1985"; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a MacArthur Video Classics Library selection; Berlin Film Festival; New Delhi Film Festival; London Film Festival
FORMAT: 16mm (97:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Monterey Movie Company
Herman Melville: Damned in Paradise
Documentary
This film tracks the personal and intellectual experiences that influenced such works as Moby Dick and Billy Budd.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: The Film Company, Washington, DC
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Robert D. Squier
PRODUCERS: Robert D. Squier, Karen Thomas
WRITERS: George Wolfe, Robert D. Squier, Patricia Ward, Carter Eskew
NARRATOR: John Huston
CAST: F. Murray Abraham as Herman Melville
AWARD: Chicago International Film Festival, Gold Plaque
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (90:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Pyramid Film and Video
The Hollow Boy
Drama
An adaptation of a short story by Hortense Calisher, The Hollow Boy tells of the friendship between two young men whose families live in apartments that face each other across a courtyard in New York City in 1936. (See also Love and Other Sorrows, Pigeon Feathers, and The Revolt of Mother .)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Learning in Focus, Larchmont, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1990 (first broadcast on American Playhouse)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Robert Geller, Brian Benlifer
PRODUCER: David Kappes
WRITER: Jay Neugeboren
CINEMATOGRAPHY Declan Quinn
EDITOR: Sandra Adair
CAST: Alexis Arquette, Marty Finkelstein, Jerry Stiller, Kathleen Widdoes
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (54:46)
DISTRIBUTOR: Coronet/MTI Film and Video, Inc.
The Human Language
Documentary Series
This series explores the nature of language and how it works—from language structure, meaning, and evolution to recent developments in the field of linguistics, particularly the "Chomskyan Revolution." The programs feature a wide range of linguists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers, authors, comedians, and others.
Program 1
Colorless Green Ideas
deals with words, sentences, syntax, and Universal Grammar, the system claimed by many linguists to be common to all the world's languages.
Program 2
Playing the Language Game
examines the way children "acquire" language, presenting the innateness theory versus the imitation theory.
Program 3
With and Without Words
traces theories about how and why the human species evolved the capacity to talk to one another and how language is a mixed system of verbal communication, body language, hand gestures, and facial expressions.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Ways of Knowing, Inc./Equinox Films, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1994
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Gene Searchinger
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: Gene Searchinger
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Gene Searchinger, John Hazard, Michael Male
EDITORS: Sara Fishko, Sharon Sachs, Tom Haneke, Jeffrey Stern
FEATURING: George A. Miller, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Deborah Tannen, Dan Slobin, Jerry Fodor, Lila Gleitman, Ursula Bellugi, Stephen Jay Gould, Jill DeVilliers, Frederick Newmeyer, Judy Kegl, George Carlin, Sid Caeser, Russell Baker, and others
SCREENINGS: Linguistic Society of America; American Psychological Association; Modern Language Association; Northeast Linguistics Society; Boston University Conference on Language Development; American Association of Applied Linguistics
FORMAT: Video, 3 (56:00) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: Equinox Films, Inc.
Isaac in America: A Journey with Isaac Bashevis Singer
Documentary and Drama
This program explores aspects of the life and work of Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991), combining documentary footage with dramatized scenes from A Day in Coney Island which describe the author's first impressions of America. (See also The Cafeteria .)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Amram Nowak Associates, Inc.; and the Isaac in America Foundation, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985 (first broadcast on American Masters)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Manya Starr
PRODUCER: Kirk Simon
DIRECTOR: Amram Nowak
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jerry Pantzer with Greg Andracke, Brian Kellman, David Lerner, Kirk Simon, Burleigh Wartes
EDITOR: Riva Friefield
STORY NARRATED BY: Judd Hirsch
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Academy Award nominee, Best Documentary Feature; American Film and Video Festival, Finalist; National Educational Film and Video Festival, Gold Apple; New York Film Festival; CINE Golden Eagle; San Francisco Film Festival, Golden Gate Award; Denver Film Festival; Sundance Film Festival; Moscow Jewish Film Festival; Berlin Film Festival; San Francisco Jewish Film Festival; Nyon (Switzerland) Film Festival, Sestere d'Argent (Second Grand Prize); U.S.A. (Dallas) Film Festival
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (58:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Direct Cinema Limited
James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
Documentary
This film examines the life and work of the American writer and civil rights activist, James Baldwin (1924-1987).
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Nobody Knows Productions in association with Maysles Films, Inc., WNET/New York, and American Masters.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1989 (first broadcast on American Masters)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Albert Maysles, Susan Lacy
PRODUCERS: Karen Thorsen, William Miles
COPRODUCER: Douglas K. Dempsey
DIRECTOR: Karen Thorsen
WRITERS: Karen Thorsen, Douglas K. Dempsey
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS: Joy Birdsong, Joe Wood
CINEMATOGRAPHY: David Lenzer
EDITORS: Steve Olswang, Sandra Guthrie
AWARDS: 17 awards including The Academy of Motion Pictures, Top Ten Documentary; The National Educational Film and Video Festival, Gold Apple; CINE Golden Eagle; Festival dei Popoli, Florence, Italy, Premiodi Ricerca; Chicago International Film Festival, Silver Hugo; Nyon (Switzerland) Documentary Film Festival, Silver Sesterce; American Filmand Video Festival, Red Ribbon; Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Award; Atlanta Film Festival, Special Jury Award; Sydney (Australia) Film Festival, Audience Approval Award; Sinking Creek Film and Video Festival, Sinking Creek Award; North Carolina Film Festival, Documentary Award; International Film and Television Festival (New York), Finalist; Banff International Television Festival (Alberta, Canada), Finalist; Sundance Film Festival, Special Tribute; Sundance in Tokyo Film Festival, Special Tribute, one of the "Ten Best American Independent Films" from the past two years; Istanbul (Turkey) International Film Festival, Special Tribute
FESTIVALS: Over 50 film festivals worldwide including the Margaret Mead Film Festival; Virginia Festival of American Film; INPUT Conference; London International Film Festival, Cinema du Reel, Paris; International Filmfestspiele, Berlin, West Germany; Weekly Mail Film Festival, Johannesburg, South Africa; International Documentary Film Festival, Vienna, Prague, and Budapest
FORMAT: Video (87:00)
DISTRIBUTORS: California Newsreel
Joseph Brodsky: A Maddening Space
Documentary
In this profile of the Nobel Prize-winning poet, the artist and others speak about his work, his life in the Soviet Union, and his experience as an exile.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: New York Center for Visual History, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1988
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: Lawrence Pitkethly
PRODUCER: Sasha Alpert
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Yuri Neyman
EDITOR: Richard Smigielski
NARRATOR: Jason Robards
FORMAT: Video (58:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Mystic Fire Video
Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening
Documentary
The production revisits the life and work of renowned nineteenth-century author Kate Chopin. She is best known for her novel The Awakening, a story of a woman’s personal self-realization that shocked the Victorian establishment. The documentary presents key biographical details set against events of the times, and emphasizes influences that prompted Chopin’s interest in societal and cultural expectations and their impact on women. Selections from her fiction are interwoven at appropriate points.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Louisiana Public Broadcasting, Baton Rouge, LA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1998
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Clay Fourrier
PRODUCERS: Tika Laudun, Lucille McDonell
DIRECTOR: Tika Laudun
WRITER: Anna Reid Jhirad
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Rex Forten Berry
EDITOR: Randy Ward
NARRATORS: Kelly McGillis, JoBeth Williams
FORMAT: Video (30:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Louisiana Public Broadcasting
Language Matters with Bob Holman
Documentary
Language Matters with Bob Holman is a two-hour documentary that asks: What do we lose when a language dies? What does it take to save a language? Language Matters was filmed around the world: on a remote island off the coast of Australia, where 400 Aboriginal people speak 10 different languages, all at risk; in Wales, where Welsh, once in danger, is today making a comeback; and in Hawai’i, where a group of Hawaiian activists are fighting to save their native tongue.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Bob Holman, Inc., New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2014
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Grubin, Bob Holman, Leanne K. Ferrer
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: David Grubin
CINEMATOGRAPHY: James Callanan, Bob Richman
EDITOR: Deborah Peretz
HOST: Bob Holman
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Winner of the Grand Festival Award for Documentary at the 23rd Annual Berkeley Video and Film Festival 2014
FORMAT: Approx. 2 Hours
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS http://www.pbsdistribution.org
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Prairie to Page
Documentary
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Prairie to Page presents an insightful look at the unlikely author whose autobiographical fiction helped shape enduring ideas of the American frontier. A Midwestern farm woman who published her first novel at age sixty-five, Laura Ingalls Wilder transformed her frontier childhood into the “Little House” series, among the most popular books ever written for children. The documentary delves into Wilder’s legacy as well as the way she transformed her early life into enduring legend, a process that involved a little-known collaboration with her daughter Rose. Though Wilder’s stories emphasized real life and celebrated stoicism, she omitted the grimmer details of her personal history as well as those that undermined her claim to self-reliance: grinding poverty, government assistance, deprivation, and the death of her infant son. In recent years, Wilder’s racist depictions of American Indians and black people have stirred controversy, and made her less appealing to some readers, teachers, and librarians. Laura Ingalls Wilder: Prairie to Page reveals the story behind her beloved books and explores why they have resonated with several generations of readers.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Twin Cities PBS Saint Paul, MN and American Masters/WNET, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2020
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Michael Rosenfield, Michael Kantor
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: Mary Murphy
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Rich White
EDITOR: Atticus Brady
NARRATOR: Victor Garber
CAST: Tess Harper, Bryn Robinson, Caroline Ranald Curvan, Amy Brenneman, Garth Williams, Christopher Flockton
FORMAT: DVD 90 min
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS, www.pbs.org
Katherine Anne Porter: The Eye of Memory
Documentary and Drama
Featuring a full dramatization of her short story, The Grave, and excerpts from The Witness and The Circus, this program shows the central Texas milieu that shaped Porter's writing.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: KERA-TV, Dallas, TX
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986 (first broadcast on American Masters)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Patricia P. Perini
PRODUCER: Calvin Skaggs
DIRECTOR: Ken Harrison
WRITERS: Jordan Pecile, Ken Harrison
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Bert Guthrie
EDITOR: Jay Freund
CAST: Dina Chandel, Paul Winfield, Bill Irwin, Yankton Hatten
COMMENTARY: Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, Eleanor Clark, Peter Taylor, Joan Givner, Paul Porter
FORMAT: Video (58:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Films for the Humanities and Sciences
Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart
Documentary
Lorraine Hansberry was a visionary playwright who authored the groundbreaking A Raisin in the Sun. An overnight sensation, the play helped transform the American theater and has long been considered a classic, yet the remarkable story of the playwright faded from view. Using rare archival imagery and Hansberry’s personal writings, this documentary resurrects the Lorraine Hansberry we have forgotten—a passionate artist, committed activist, and sought-after public intellectual who waged an outspoken and defiant battle against injustice in twentieth-century America. The film reveals Hansberry’s prescient works tackling race, human rights, women’s equality, and sexuality that anticipated social and political movements on the horizon. Lorraine Hansberry lived much of her thirty-four years guided by a deep sense of responsibility to others, proclaiming: “One cannot live with sighted eyes and feeling heart and not know or react to the miseries which afflict this world."
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Lorraine Hansberry Documentary Project, LLC, Boston, MA
YEAR PRODUCED: 2017
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Chiz Schultz, Jacquie Jones, Sally Jo Fifer, Michael Kantor
PRODUCERS: Tracy Heather Strain, Randall MacLowry
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Tracy Heather Strain
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jonathan Weaver, Austin de Besche, Nikki Bramley, Rick Butler, Keith Walker
EDITORS: Randall MacLowry, Chad Ervin
NARRATOR: LaTanya Richardson Jackson
CAST: Lorraine Hansberry Voiceover, Anika Noni Rose; Lorraine Hansberry, Alexandria King; Young Lorraine, Rossella Quartey; Carl Hansberry, Sr., Alan White; Robert Neniroff; Gabriel Tomasulo
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: 2017 Toronto International Film Festival; 2017 Chicago International Film Festival; 2017 DOC NYC
FORMAT: DVD (120 min)
DISTRIBUTOR: • US Public Television: American Masters –
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/lorraine-hansberry-sighted-eyes-feelingheart-full-film/9973/
• US Non-Broadcast & Educational: California Newsreel – http://www.newsreel.org
[contract in-progress]
Love and Other Sorrows
Drama
This adaptation of Harold Brodkey's short story First Love and Other Sorrows looks at the effect of courtship on an American family in 1950. (See also The Hollow Boy, Pigeon Feathers , and The Revolt of Mother .)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Learning in Focus, Inc., New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987 (first broadcast on American Playhouse)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Geller
PRODUCER: Brian Benlifer
DIRECTOR: Steven Gomer
ADAPTATION: Dick Goldberg
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Edwin Lynch
EDITOR: Pam Wise
CAST: Elizabeth Franz, Stephen Mailer, Haviland Morris, Christopher Collet, Sheila Ball, Tim Ransom, Spencer Garrett
AWARD: Houston International Film Festival, Gold Award
FORMAT: Video (56:09)
DISTRIBUTOR: Coronet/MTI Film and Video, Inc.
The Mahabharata
Dramatic Series
Based on a Sanskrit poem written more than two thousand years ago, The Mahabharata is a three-part dramatization of a feud of royal succession fought in northern India during the first millennium B.C. One of India's two major epics, it combines military and spiritual conflicts to instruct on dharma, the moral order in the universe, and includes the Bhagavad Gita, a mystical dialogue between a warrior and the god Krishna. Peter Brook, who first brought the epic to the West in a nine-hour stage version, provides the introductions.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY, in association with Les Productions du 3eme Etage, Le Centre National du Cinema, Paris, France, Channel 4/U.K., and Reiner Moritz Associates, Ltd.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1988 (originally presented as a six-hour miniseries on Great Performances)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Michael Birkett, Michael Kustow, Harvey Lichtenstein
PRODUCER: Michel Propper
COPRODUCERS: Ed Myerson, Rachel Tabori, Micheline Rozan
DIRECTOR/HOST: Peter Brook
WRITERS: Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carriere, Marie-Helene Estienne
CINEMATOGRAPHY: William Lubtchansky
EDITOR: Nicolas Gaster
MUSIC: Toshi Tsuchitori
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Chloe Obolinsky
CAST: Georges Corraface, Mamadou Dioume, Urs Bihler, Ryszard Cieslak, Sotigui Kouyate, Tuncel Kurtiz, Miriam Goldschmidt, Jeffrey Kissoon, Robert Langdon Lloyd, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Bruce Myers, Yoshi Oida, Helene Patarot, Mallika Sarabhai, Andrzej Seweryn
INTRODUCTIONS: Peter Brook
FESTIVAL: Venice Film Festival
PRINT MATERIAL: 24-page booklet comes with the video set
FORMAT: Video (360:00)
3 (120:00) programs
Theatrical film (180:00) also available
DISTRIBUTORS:
Parabola Video
Marcel Proust: A Writer's Life
Documentary
This film examines the life and work of one of France's most celebrated writers, including his struggle to create the 3,000-page masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past, and his treatment of the nature of time and memory, sex and society, and the creative process itself. (Proust, 1871-1922).
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Wolfe-Carter Productions, Inc., Birmingham, AL
YEAR PRODUCED: 1992
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Paul Wagner
PRODUCERS: William C. Carter, George Wolfe, Sarah Patton, Sarah Mondale
DIRECTOR: Sarah Mondale
WRITER: Terence Monmaney
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jean-Claude Larrieu, Dominique Gentil, Allen Moore
EDITOR: Marian Hunter
NARRATOR: Kate Nelligan
INTERVIEWS: Dame Iris Murdoch, Shelby Foote, Roger Shattuck, and others
AWARDS/SCREENINGS (selected): American Film and Video Festival, Red Ribbon; National Educational Film and Video Festival, Gold Apple; Houston International Film Festival, Finalist, Gold Medal; CINE Golden Eagle; Cindi Silver Award; Baltimore (MD) Film Forum, Honorable Mention; International Documentary Film Festival (L.A.); Breckenridge Film Festival, Colorado; American Film Institute Washington, DC; The French Embassy, Washington, DC; German Cultural Television; French Institute/Alliance Française, NYC; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; University of Rome; broadcast on German, Austrian, Swiss, Australian, and Japanese television
FORMAT: Video (60:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Direct Cinema Limited
Mark Twain: Beneath the Laughter
Drama
In this program, Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), known as Mark Twain, reviews his life as if he were writing a story: the young Sam joins and then deserts the Confederate army, becomes a newspaper reporter, and learns to pilot a Mississippi riverboat.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Foundation for American Letters and Media, Los Angeles, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1979
PRODUCER: Marsha Jeffer
DIRECTOR: Larry Yust
WRITERS: Gill Dennis, Larry Yust
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Howard Wexler
CAST: Dan O'Herlihy, Lynn Seibel, Kay Howell
AWARDS: CINE Golden Eagle; American Film Festival, Honorable Mention
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (58:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Pyramid Film and Video
The Mark Twain Series
Dramatic Series
The series presents dramatizations of several works by Mark Twain.
Program 1
Life on the Mississippi
grew out of Twain's experiences when, as a young man, he fulfilled his boyhood ambition to become a river-boat pilot.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1980 (first broadcast on Great Performances)
DIRECTOR: Peter H. Hunt
ADAPTATION: Philip Reisman, Jr.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Walter Lassally
EDITOR: Cynthia Schneider
MUSIC: William Perry
HOST: Kurt Vonnegut
CAST: Robert Lansing, David Knell, James Keane, Donald Madden, John Pankow, Jack Lawrence, Stanley Reyes, Marcy Walker
AWARDS: CINE Golden Eagle; International Film and TV Festival of New York, Silver Medal; Prix d'Italia, Silver Award; American Cinema Editors (ACE), Eddie Award; TV Guide, Top Ten Films of the Year
FORMAT: Video (120:00)
Program 2
The Private History of a Campaign That Failed
concerns a group of fifteen boys from Hannibal, Missouri, who face the reality of the war. Twain's later anti-war essay, "The War Prayer," has been dramatized as an epilogue to the production.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1981 (first broadcast on Great Performances)
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Peter H. Hunt
ADAPTATION: Philip Reisman, Jr.
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH: Laurie Zwicky
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Walter Lassally
EDITOR: Herbert H. Dow
MUSIC: William Perry
CAST: Pat Hingle, Edward Herrmann, Joe Adams, Garry McCleery, Henry Crosby, Kelly Peese
AWARDS: George Foster Peabody Award; CINE Golden Eagle; TV Guide, Top Ten Films of the Year
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (90:00)
Program 3
The Mysterious Stranger
is set in a medieval Austrian town and involves the arrival of a supernatural being, Number 44, at the town's printing shop.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1982 (first broadcast on Great Performances)
DIRECTOR: Peter H. Hunt
ADAPTATION: Julian Mitchell
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Walter Lassally
MUSIC: William Perry
CAST: Lance Kerwin, Chris Makepeace, Fred Gwynne, Bernhard Wicki
FORMAT: Video (90:00)
AWARDS: CINE Golden Eagle; Association of Visual Communicators (formerly IFPA), Silver Cindy Award; American Film Festival, Special Screening
Program 4
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
tells how Roxy, a light-skinned young slave of the 1830s, fears separation from her newborn son and switches him with her white master's child.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1983 (first broadcast on American Playhouse)
PRODUCER: Jane Iredale
DIRECTOR: Alan Bridges
ADAPTATION: Philip Reisman, Jr.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Walter Lassally
MUSIC: William Perry
CAST: Ken Howard, Lise Hilboldt, Steven Weber, Tom Aldredge
FORMAT: 35mm, Video (90:00)
AWARDS: CINE Golden Eagle; National Educational Film and Video Festival, Special Screening and Bronze Apple
Program 5
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
traces Huck's development from a trusting follower of Tom Sawyer to an independent-minded individual who is willing to risk eternal damnation rather than betray the black man he has come to understand and love.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985 (first broadcast on American Playhouse)
PRODUCER: Jane Iredale
DIRECTOR: Peter H. Hunt
ADAPTATION: Guy Gallo
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Walter Lassally
EDITOR: Jerrold L. Ludwig
CAST: Jim Dale, Frederic Forrest, Lillian Gish, Barnard Hughes, Richard Kiley, Butterfly McQueen, Geraldine Page, Sada Thompson, Samm-Art Williams, Patrick Day
MUSIC: William Perry
FORMAT: Video (240:00)
4 (60:00) programs
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: American Film Institute, Special Screening
SERIES PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: The Great Amwell Company, New York, NY; Nebraskans for Public Television, Inc.; and Taurus Film, Germany
YEARS PRODUCED: 1980-1985
SERIES EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: William Perry
SERIES PRODUCER: Marshall Jamison
FORMAT: see individual listings
DISTRIBUTOR: Public Media Inc.
The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe
Documentary and Drama
This program examines the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), mixing dramatization of his stories with new footage, still photographs, and interviews.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Film Odyssey, Inc., Washington, D.C.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1991
PRODUCER: Karen Thomas
DIRECTOR OF DRAMATIC SEQUENCES: Joyce Chopra
WRITERS: Karen Thomas, Daniel Blake Smith
CINEMATOGRAPHY: James Glennon, Dyanna Taylor, Erich Roland, Foster Wiley
EDITOR OF DRAMATIC SEQUENCES: Joe Gutowski CAST: Treat Williams, John Heard, Rene Auberjonois
INTERVIEWS: Joyce Carol Oates, Ira Levin, Philip Glass, and others
FORMAT: Video (58:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video
Nabokov on Kafka
Drama
Adapted from Vladimir Nabokov's lectures on literature, which were delivered to undergraduates at Wellesley and Cornell between 1940 and 1948, this program features his account of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosi.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Metropolitan Pittsburgh Public Broadcasting, Inc. (WQED),
Pittsburgh, PA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986
EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATOR: Danforth Fales
PRODUCER/WRITER: James Fleming
DIRECTORS: Gilbert Cates, Paul Bogart
CAST: Christopher Plummer
FORMAT: Video (28:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Monterey Movie Company (home video)
The O/Aural Tradition: Beowulf
Radio Drama and Documentary
These two dramatic radio programs are based on the medieval epic poem, Beowulf, with readings from both the original Old English text and the modern translation by Burton Raffel. Each program includes short segments featuring interviews with scholars about the poem and related issues.
Part 1
Beowulf and the Grendel Kind
recounts the hero Beowulf's early battles with the monster Grendel and its mother.
Part 2
Beowulf and the Dragon
relates the later adventures of the old Beowulf and his final battle against a dragon, with flashbacks to his youthful exploits.
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Charles B. Potter
YEAR PRODUCED: 1978
ADAPTATION: Robert P. Creed
MUSIC: Mary Remnant
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: David Rapkin
NARRATOR: Earl Hammond
PERFORMERS: Robert P. Creed, readings; Mary Remnant, music
COMMENTARIES: John M. Foley, Emory University, Atlanta, GA; Donald K. Fry, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY; Mary Remnant, Royal College of Music, London, England; Bruce A. Rosenberg, Brown University, Providence, RI
AWARD: CPB Award, Best Public Radio Local Program and Best Drama
FORMAT: Audiocassette
2 (59:00) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: contact Charles B. Potter
The Odyssey of John Dos Passos
Documentary
This program chronicles the life and work of a major American writer, who, from his U.S.A. trilogy to the anti-war novel Three Soldiers, chronicled the first half of the twentieth century and helped effect social and cultural change. (Dos Passos, 1896-1970)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Educational Film Center, Annandale, VA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1993
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Ira H. Klugerman, Ruth Pollak
PRODUCER: Stephen Talbot
WRITERS: Ruth Pollak, Stephen Talbot
EDITORS: Judith Sobol, Penny Trams
NARRATOR: Robert MacNeil
VOICE OF DOS PASSOS: William Hurt
INTERVIEWS: Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Daniel Aaron, William Buckley, Townsend Luddington, Virginia Carr, Elizabeth Dos Passos, and others
AWARD: CINE Golden Eagle
FORMAT: Video (60:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video
O. Henry's Jimmy Valentine
Drama
In 1899, William Sydney Porter, who wrote under the name of O. Henry, was sentenced to serve five years in the Ohio State Penitentiary for embezzling bank funds. This is a dramatization of his short story inspired by that experience.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Family Communications and Learning Corporation of America, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Fred Rogers, Frank Doelger
PRODUCER: Robert McDonald
DIRECTOR: Paul Saltzman
ADAPTATION: Paul Lally
CAST: Victor Ertmanis, Marc Strange, Gary Reinecke, Chris Wiggins, Gerard Parkes, Wendy Lyon
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Birmingham International Film Festival; Columbus (OH) International Film Festival; National Educational Film Festival, Selected Films for Young Adults (American Library Association)
PRINT MATERIAL: Teacher's Guide available
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (two versions, 55:00 and 30:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Coronet/MTI Film and Video, Inc.
Peephole Art: Beckett for Television
Drama
This program contains three full-length performances of Samuel Beckett's work written or adapted especially for the screen - a medium Beckett called "peephole art" because "it allows the viewer to see what was never meant to be seen." Introduced by Irish actor Chris O'Neill, the featured works are: Not I, Quad I and II, and What Where. (See also Waiting for Beckett .)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Global Village, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1993
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: John L. Reilly
ASSOCIATEPRODUCER: Melissa Shaw-Smith
WRITERS: Melissa Shaw-Smith
PRINT MATERIAL: Study Guide
FORMAT: Video (36:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Global Village
Pigeon Feathers
Drama
Adapted from the short story by John Updike, this film follows the way a thoughtful teenager's realization of his own mortality causes him to question what he has been taught about God and the immortality of the soul. (See also The Hollow Boy, Love and Other Sorrows, and The Revolt of Mother .)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Learning in Focus, Inc., Larchmont, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987 (first broadcast on American Playhouse)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Geller
PRODUCER: Brian Benlifer
DIRECTOR: Sharron Miller
ADAPTATION: Jan Hartman
CINGMATOGRAPHY: Hiro Narita
EDITOR: Rachel Igel
CAST: Christopher Collet, Lenka Peterson, Jeffrey DeMunn, Caroline McWilliams
AWARDS: CINE Golden Eagle; American Film and Video Festival, Finalist
FORMAT: Video (38:30)
DISTRIBUTORS:
Coronet/MTI Film and Video, Inc.
Monterey Movie Company (home video)
A Poet on the Frontline: The Reportage of Ryszard Kapuscinski
Documentary
A Poet on the Frontline introduces audiences to the world of Ryszard Kapuscinski, the Polish daredevil war correspondent and one of the world's most important contemporary literary figures whose more than 20 books have been published in some 40 languages. Known as "Indiana Jones with a notepad," Kapuscinski is a legend among his peers who has been looking for the truths of human experience in the most dangerous places. In this film, director Gabrielle Pfeiffer interweaves Kapuscinski's childhood as a refugee in Poland during WWII with his later experiences on the battlefields of the Third World in a poetic reverie of the tragedy and absurdity of war. Kapuscinski's friends and colleagues describe the challenges that writers faced in Poland during the Solidarity years, and how writers were a force for change. Kapuscinski explains the thin line he walked between journalism and literature and the distinction he made between the recording of hard facts of a wartime event and the struggle to reach deeper for the delicate essence of human experience.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: The New York Center for Visual History, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2003
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Lawrence Pitkethly
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: Gabrielle Pfeiffer
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Tom Hurwitz
EDITORS: Holly Fisher, Gabrielle Pfeiffer
PRINT MATERIALS: Gabrielle Pfeiffer, @email
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Krakow Film Festival (Cracow, Poland); Festival du Cinema Bruxelles (Brussels, Belgium); Movie Eye International Film Festival (Tver, Russia); Berlin International Literature Festival (Berlin, Germany); Festival Cines dels Sur (Granada, Spain); PEN World Voices, New York Festival of International Literature (New York, NY)
FORMAT: Video/DVD (62:00 mins)
DISTRIBUTORS: Gabrielle Pfeiffer
Poetry in America
Documentary Series
Poetry in America is an anthology series that encourages people from all walks of life to have conversations about poems. Produced by Verse Video Education and distributed by PBS Plus, the series consists of twenty-four-minute documentaries, organized into eight-episode seasons. In each episode, poets, public figures, and members of various American communities join host Elisa New to engage in close readings of individual poems, considering American poetry as a central part of American culture and history. Episodes are designed for viewers to experience each work in an immersive way by hearing, reading, and interpreting it alongside archival materials, vibrant animation, and footage shot at the locations it evokes. About Season Three, series host and director Elisa New says, “The poems I've chosen for this season deliver us into so many different moments and worlds. From the antebellum south to the farthest reaches of our galaxy, from the Arizona desert to Robert Frost's green Vermont and the thriving Cuban neighborhoods of Miami––Poetry in America allows viewers to see and hear, absorb the vibes, and connect with a diverse array of American voices. Whether it's a great singer, distinguished journalist, public servant, or thinker––or, whether it's sixth graders in New York City, or high school kids in Gallup, New Mexico––this season’s guests, and the poems they interpret, speak to the matters that most concern us all: our civic life, our planet, our families, relationships, and deepest feelings.” Season Three guests include Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Julia Alvarez, Joshua Bennett, Rafael Campo, Donna Lynne Champlin, Gloria Estefan, Chris Eyre, Philip Galanes, LisaGay Hamilton, Leslie Jamison, Robin D.G. Kelley, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Emily Oster, Tracy K. Smith, DJ Spooky, David Strathairn, Cassandra Wilson, Natalia Zukerman, and more. They discuss works by A.R. Ammons, Richard Blanco, Robert Frost, Linda Hogan, Bernadette Mayer, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sharon Olds, Alberto Ríos, Evie Shockley, Walt Whitman, and more.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Verse Video Education https://www.poetryinamerica.org/
YEAR PRODUCED: 2021
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Elisa New, Brigid Sullivan
PRODUCER: Cathleen O’Connell
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Elisa New
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Steven J. Allardi, Samantha Corsini, Jimi Covert, Blaise Koller, Duane Oldham, Robert Pierce, Hogan Seidel
EDITOR: Peter Rhodes, Steven J. Allardi, Samantha Corsini, Nina Kotyantz
NARRATOR: Elisa New
FORMAT: 8 programs per season; 5 of the 8 in Season Three were funded by NEH’s “More Perfect Union” initiative
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Plus https://www.pbs.org/about/producing-pbs/pbs-plus/
Poets in Person
Radio Series (Interviews/Discussion/Readings)
This thirteen-part series presents and interprets the poetry of twelve contemporary American poets, from well-known authors to younger talents. Each program focuses on one poet and typically features readings of five or more poems.
Program 1
This introduction to Poets in Person traces the evolution and varieties of poetry since the 1950s, examining the trend toward finding poetry in ordinary American speech and personal experience.
Program 2
Allen Ginsberg discusses the Beat writers, the counter-culture of the 1960s, and the continuing influence of earlier poets.
Program 3
Karl Shapiro explains why he first attacked T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the academic establishment, what he loves about Nebraska, and how he became known as "the bourgeois poet."
Program 4
Maxine Kumin reviews her friendship with Anne Sexton, her roles as mother, grandmother, and writer, life on a horse farm, and her transformation from a "light versifier" to a serious poet.
Program 5
W.S. Merwin considers the origin of images, surrealism, alienation, the assault on the environment, and the search for faith in the modern world.
Program 6
Gwendolyn Brooks recounts her first meeting with Langston Hughes, the use of experiences from her own life in her work, and her efforts to encourage children to write poetry.
Program 7
James Merrill reflects on the subjects of love and loss, feeling and form in poetry, and how he came to write a 17,000-line modern epic with the help of a Ouija board.
Program 8
Adrienne Rich discusses coming of age in the 1950s and the evolution of her own life and work through the liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
Program 9
John Ashbery talks about the "New York School" of poets and artists and the impact of movies, paintings, and popular culture on his work.
Program 10
Sharon Olds discusses motherhood, metaphors, teaching, and making art out of real life in the New York metropolis.
Program 11
Charles Wright remembers growing up in Tennessee, discovering the power of language in fifth grade, and becoming a poet in the U.S. Army at age 23.
Program 12
Rita Dove describes her parents and grandparents, her adolescence in Akron, her early fascination with German poetry, and the influence of slave narratives on her own work.
Program 13
Gary Soto talks about baseball games, tragedy in a Chicano boyhood, the work and lives of migrant families, and his unexpected beginnings and popularity as a poet.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Modern Poetry Association, Chicago, IL
YEAR PRODUCED: 1991
PRODUCER/WRITER/HOST: Joseph Parisi
INTERVIEWERS (by program): Lewis Hyde (2); Joseph Parisi (3, 13); Alicia Ostriker (4, 10); James Richardson (5); Alice Fulton (6); J.D. McClatchey (7, 11); Diane Wood Middlebrook (8); David Bromwich (9); Helen Vendler (12)
PRINT MATERIAL: Companion booklet forthcoming
FORMAT: Audiocassette
13 (29:00) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: Modern Poetry Association
The Revolt of Mother
Drama
In The Revolt of Mother, adapted from a story by Mary Wilkins Freeman, two young people witness the loving but determined struggle of their mother to stand up to their father on a matter involving the family farm. (See also The Hollow Boy, Love and Other Sorrows, and Pigeon Feathers.)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Learning in Focus, Inc., Larchmont, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986 (first broadcast on American Playhouse)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Geller
PRODUCER: Brian Benlifer
DIRECTOR: Victor Lobl
ADAPTATION: Cynthia Cherbak
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Tom Houghton
EDITOR: Rachel Igel
CAST: Amy Madigan, Jay O. Sanders, Katherine Hiler, Benjamin Bernovy
AWARDS: Houston International Film Festival Blue, Silver Award; Christopher Award; American Film and Video Festival, Blue Ribbon; U.S.A. Film Festival (Dallas), Finalist
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (46:30)
DISTRIBUTORS:
Coronet/MTI Film and Video, Inc.
Monterey Movie Company (home video)
Richard Wright: Black Boy
Documentary
This film treats the life, work, and legacy of African American author Richard Wright (1908-1960), including his difficult Southern childhood; his experiences in Chicago and New York; his first major writings, Native Son and Black Boy; his move to Paris after World War II; and his growing commitment to pan-Africanism.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Mississippi Educational Television, Jackson, MS
YEAR PRODUCED: 1994
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Guy Paul Land & Jef Judin
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: Madison Davis Lacy
DIRECTOR (DRAMATIC SCENES): Horace Ove
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ngaio Killingsworth
EDITOR: Adam Zucker
NARRATOR: J.A. Preston
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS: Art Cromwell, Denise Greene
ORIGINAL MUSIC COMPOSER/PERFORMER: Randy Klein
ORIGINAL MUSIC RECORDED BY: Rob Harari
ORIGINAL BLUES BY: R.L. Burnside, Kenny Brown Cedric Burnside
VOICE OF RICHARD WRIGHT: W. Frank Lynch
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/MISSISSIPPI ETV: Larry Miller
INTERVIEWS: Margaret Walker Alexander, Julia Wright, Ralph Ellison, Maryemma Graham, Amiri Baraka, Ben Burns, John Henrik Clarke, Allen Willis, Michael Dyson, Joyce Ann Joyce, Cedric Robinson, Constance Webb, Mark Naison, Jerry Ward, Tom Cripps, Willie Morris, Ollie Harrington, Michel Fabre, and others
AWARDS: CINE Golden Eagle; Regional Emmy
PRINT MATERIALS: Teachers' Guide available from Mississippi Educational Television
FORMAT: Video (86:40)
DISTRIBUTOR: California Newsreel
The Scarlet Letter
Dramatic Series
This is a four-part dramatization of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel. (See also The Scarlet Letter Radio Series.)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: WGBH, Boston, MA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1979
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Herbert Hirschman
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Rick Hauser
ADAPTATION: Allan Knee, Alvin Sapinsley
MUSIC: John Morris
CAST: Meg Foster, John Heard, Kevin Conway
FORMAT: Video
4 (60:00) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Video
A Sea of Language
Radio Documentary
A Sea of Language explores how language is created; how it controls and affects us; how it is used as a tool of power; and how men and women use language differently.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Western Public Radio, San Francisco, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1980
PRODUCER: Barbara Boyer Walter
TECHNICAL PRODUCER: Zane Blaney
PROJECT COORDINATOR: Susan Horwitz
REPORTER/EDITOR: Shelley Fern, Leo Lee
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Pacifica Program Service/Radio Archive
Seize the Day
Drama
This dramatization of Saul Bellow's Seize the Day (1956) follows a brief period in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a bumbling, clownish salesman facing financial and personal ruin.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Learning in Focus, Inc., New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986 (first broadcast on Great Performances)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Geller
PRODUCER: Chiz Schultz
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Brian Benlifer
ADAPTATION: Ronald Ribman
DIRECTOR: Fielder Cook
CAST: Robin Williams, Joseph Wiseman, Jerry Stiller, Glenne Headly, Katherine Borowitz, Tony Roberts
AWARD/FESTIVALS: CINE Golden Eagle: Berlin Film Festival; Telluride Film Festival; Jerusalem Film Festival; Time magazine, one of "Ten Best of 1987"; New York Post, one of "30 Best Movies Ever Made for Television"; Los Angeles Times, one of "30 Best Movies Ever Made for Television"
FORMAT: 16mm, Video, Laserdisc (94:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Monterey Movie Company
Shakespeare Uncovered, Series Three
Documentary Series
The history behind Shakespeare’s greatest plays continues with a third series of Shakespeare Uncovered. The ambitious series concludes with celebrated new hosts Helen Hunt, F. Murray Abraham, Romola Garai, Brian Cox, Simon Russell Beale, and Sir Antony Sher, who weave their personal passions with history, biography, iconic performances, and new analysis to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s famous works. The final season investigates Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar, The Winter’s Tale, and Richard III.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Thirteen Productions for WNET, Blakeway Productions and 116 Films, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2018
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Stephen Segaller, David Horn, Fiona Stourton
PRODUCERS: Nicola Stockley, Richard Denton, Bill O’Donnell
DIRECTORS/WRITERS: Nicola Stockley, Richard Denton
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Justin Evans, Jay Dacey, Simon Firsht, Mark Trottenberg
EDITORS: Jamie Hay, John McAvoy, Safi Ferrah, Richard Fretwell
CAST: Helen Hunt, F. Murray Abraham, Romola Garai, Brian Cox, Simon Russell Beale, Antony Sher
PRINT MATERIAL: A teacher guide and lesson plans can be found online at:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/education/
FORMAT: DVD 6 discs x 60 mins
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS, www.pbs.org and www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/
The Shakespeare Hour
Dramatic and Documentary Series
This series is a reformatting of five of the BBC/Time-Life Shakespeare plays into one-hour segments. Host Walter Matthau provides introductory and concluding remarks for each hour and narrates the short documentaries accompanying four of the dramas.
Program 1
A Midsummer Night's Dream
with Peter McEnery as Oberon and Helen Mirren as Titania. Directed by Elijah Moshinsky. [2 (60:00) programs]
Program 2
Twelfth Night
with Felicity Kendal as Viola, Sinead Cusack as Olivia, and Alec McOwen as Malvolio. Directed by John Gorrie. [3 (60:00) programs]
In Praise of Folly
is a five-minute documentary that follows the first segment of Twelfth Night. It offers a brief history of the fool in literature, art, and society.
All the World's a Stage
is an eight-minute documentary that follows the final segment of Twelfth Night. It explores Shakespeare's use of drama as both metaphor and theatrical device.
Program 3
All's Well That Ends Well
with Ian Charleson as Bertram and Angela Down as Helena. Directed by Elijah Moshinsky. [3(60:00) programs]
The Woman's Part
is a five-minute documentary that follows the final segment of All's Well That Ends Well. It surveys Shakespeare's resourceful and witty comic heroines in the context of their real-life counterparts in England.
Program 4
Measure for Measure
with Kate Nelligan as Isabella and Tim Piggott-Smith as Angelo. Directed by Desmond Davis. [3 (60:00) programs]
The Darkening of Comedy
is a four-minute documentary that follows the final segment of Measure for Measure. It explores Shakespeare's mix of comedy and tragedy and the roots of this combination in medieval English drama.
Program 5
King Lear
with Michael Hordern as Lear and Frank Middlemass as the Fool. Directed by Jonathan Miller. [4 (60:00) programs]
Poetic Illusion
is a four-minute documentary that follows the third segment of King Lear. It discusses the play's famous Dover Cliff scene, exploring its use of Renaissance visual perspective to create a metaphor for the "tragic fall" that "cures" despair.
The Promised End
is a sixteen-minute documentary that follows the final segment of King Lear. It discusses the significance of the characteristically ambiguous ending of each of the five plays.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: WNET/13, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Donald Johnson
PRODUCERS: Harvey Bellin, Tom Kieffer
DIRECTOR: Tony Marshall
WRITER: Kenneth Cavander
HOST/NARRATOR: Walter Matthau
PRINT MATERIAL: The Shakespeare Hour by Edward Quinn available, call Penguin Books, 212-366-2000; Teacher and Viewer Guides no longer available
FORMAT: Video (15 hours)
1,2,3 and 4 one-hour programs, see individual listings
DISTRIBUTOR: Ambrose Video (plays only available)
Shakespeare in American Life
Documentary Radio Series
Three one-hour radio documentaries explore how a British poet from 400 years ago has and continues to influence American life—in politics, performance, and popular culture.
Episode 1
Shakespeare Becomes American: Shakespeare in American Performance
Shakespeare is everywhere in America, including musicals, festivals, television, and the movies. Explore how American Shakespeare has been shaped by the American experience. From the young nation's earliest days, when an "American" acting style first took shape, to the influence of African Americans on Shakespeare on stage, to method acting, to Hollywood, America and Americans—actors, directors, and audiences—have made Shakespeare our own.
Episode 2
The Father of the Man in America: Shakespeare in American Civic Life and Education
After the American Revolution, the nation wondered if it should adopt British culture and literature—including Shakespeare's plays—or create its own. Follow Shakespeare's path in the years that followed, including his surprisingly late arrival in the classroom and his role in major movements like the push west, the establishment of cities, the Civil War, and the immigrant experience. From Gold Rush mining camps to the final frontiers of Star Trek, Shakespeare is everywhere in America.
Episode 3
Shakespeare is a Black Woman: Shakespeare in American Politics
John Adams filled his diaries with mentions of Shakespeare's plays. Janet Reno assembled her staff to read King Lear. In 1849, disputes over British and American acting styles touched off a deadly riot. The most famous black Shakespearean of the nineteenth century was an American who went to Europe after he saw black actors arrested for performing Shakespeare in the US. In the 1980s, Shakespeare was drawn into battles over race and gender on college campuses. This program explores how Shakespeare's work has intertwined itself with American electoral politics, geopolitics, and racial, class, and academic politics throughout American history.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Rlpaul Productions, Washington, DC, and Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC
YEAR PRODUCED: 2007
PRODUCERS: Richard L. Paul, Esther Ferington, Garland Scott
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Richard L. Paul
EDITORS: Barbara A. Mowat, Heather Nathan, Gail Kern Paster, Alden Vaughan, Virginia Vaughan, Don Wilmeth, Georgianna Ziegler
NARRATORS: Sam Waterston, Lenny Williams
CAST: Morgan Duncan, Craig Wallace, Dolores King-Williams, Andy Clemence, Matt McKlesky, Michael Forrest, Brad Van Grack, Michael Thornton, Giles Gobert, Vladimir Frumkin, Dave Kane, Philip Boos, Joseph Schlenz, Phil Rosensteel
PRINT MATERIALS: A comprehensive website, www.shakespeareinamericanlife.org, includes the documentaries, extended interviews from the documentaries with transcripts, teacher resources, games and activities for children, and a wealth of visual and audio/video material relating to the topic from the collections of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Library of Congress, and the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. Teacher kits available through the Folger Shakespeare Library.
FORMAT: Audio: Three one-hour (60:00) episodes
DISTRIBUTORS: Public Radio International (PRI), NPR Worldwide and Public Radio Exchange (PRX)
Shakespeare Uncovered--Series 1
Documentary
Shakespeare Uncovered combines history, biography, iconic performances, new analysis, and the personal passions of its celebrated hosts to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Each documentary is the host’s journey of discovery into one Shakespeare play or group of related plays: Macbeth, two Comedies (Twelfth Night and As You Like It), Richard II, Henry IV and V, Hamlet and The Tempest. Interviews with actors, directors and scholars are combined with visits to key locations, clips from some of the most noted film and television adaptations, and illustrative excerpts from the plays staged specially for the series at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Thirteen, Blackeway Productions and 116 Films and Thirteen/WNET, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2012
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Stephen Segaller, David Horn, Fiona Stourton
PRODUCERS: Richard Denton, Bill O’Donnell
EPISODE PRODUCERS: Nicola Stockley, Janice Sutherland, John Holdsworth, Richard Denton
DIRECTORS: Nicola Stockley, Janice Sutherland, John Holdsworth, Richard Denton
WRITERS: Richard Denton. Nicola Stockley, Janice Sutherland, John Holdsworth, Richard Denton
EDITORS: Julian Hart, Macbeth, Hamlet, Brett Irwin, Richard Fretwell
HOSTS: Ethan Hawke, Joely Richardson, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons, David Tennant, Trevor Nunn
PRINT MATERIALS: An online teacher guide and lesson plans are found at PBS.org.
FORMAT: DVD (6 x 60 minutes)
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS (see also: pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered)
Shakespeare Uncovered – Series 2
Documentary
Shakespeare Uncovered combines history, biography, iconic performances, and the passions of six celebrated hosts to tell the story behind the stories of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. What sparked the creation of these works? Where did Shakespeare get his plots, and what new forms of theater did he forge? How have the plays been interpreted over the centuries? And finally, why has his body of work so thoroughly endured? Each film combines interviews with actors, directors, and scholars, visits to key locations, clips from film and television adaptations, and illustrative excerpts from the plays staged especially for the series at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. This second season explores A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and The Taming of the Shrew.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: WNET, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2014
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Stephen Segaller, David Horn, Fiona Stourton
PRODUCERS: Richard Denton, Nicola Stockley, Bill O’Donnell
DIRECTORS: Richard Denton, Nicola Stockley, Wyllie, John Holdsworth
HOST: Christopher Plummer, Morgan Freeman, Hugh Bonneville, David Harewood, Joseph Fiennes, Kim Cattrall
FORMAT: 6 1-hour programs
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS Home Video, http://www.shoppbs.org
SoundPlay/Horspiel
Radio Series (Drama and Documentary)
SoundPlay/Horspiel is an anthology of important works from the tradition of radio drama (horspiel) in Germany and Austria. The Endowment supported acquisition of some programs, production of new versions of others, and all the introductory and documentary segments. Breakfast in Miami was supported by other funders.
Program 1
The Flight of Lindbergh: A Radio Cantata (1929) by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
The cantata salutes Charles Lindbergh's historic 1927 transatlantic flight.
The accompanying documentary examines the beginnings of radio drama in Germany.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Voices International, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1991
PRODUCERS: Everett Frost, Faith Wilding
DOCUMENTARY PRODUCER: Everett Frost
WRITER: Bertolt Brecht
TRANSLATION: Lys Symonette
MUSIC: Kurt Weill
RECORDING PRODUCTION ENGINEERS: Stephen Erickson, Edward Haber, Gene Curtis
MUSIC PERFORMED BY: the Stamford Master Singers, conducted by Steven Gross
SOLOISTS: Jeffrey Lentz, Charles Kaye, Edward Pleasant
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 2
The Outsider (1947) by Wolfgang Borchert
The first radio play produced in Germany after World War II, The Outsider tells the story of a soldier captured at Stalingrad who returns to post-war Germany from Siberian concentration camp.
The documentary recreates the "sound" of German radio during the war and post-war era through a montage of archival recordings including the voices of Hitler, Goering, and an American Army colonel who helped set up German radio after the war.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Voices International, New York,
NY; WGBH, Boston; and Deutsche Welle, Cologne, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985 (Production by permission of Rowohlt Verlag Publishers, New York, NY)
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR/DOCUMENTARY PRODUCER: Everett Frost
DIRECTOR: Georges Wagner Jourdain
WRITER: Wolfgang Borchert
TRANSLATION: Michael Benedikt
RECORDING ENGINEER: Melanie Berzon
PRODUCTION ENGINEER: Volker Herder
NARRATOR: Robert J. Lurtsema
CAST: Jeremiah Kissel, Jeremy Geidt, Judy Braha
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (89:00)
Program 3
Dreams (1951) by Gunter Eich
This play consists of five related dreams, each occurring on a different continent.
The documentary includes interviews with Eich, who discusses his experiences as a anti-Nazi writer and later as a prisoner, and selections from tape recordings of listeners' angry phone calls after the initial German broadcast.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Voices International, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1990 (Production by permission of Suhrkamp Verlag Publishers, Frankfurt)
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Everett Frost
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Faith Wilding
WRITER: Gunter Eich
TRANSLATION: Anselm Hollo
COMMENTARY WRITER: Karl Karst
PRODUCTION ENGINEER: Stephen Erickson
CAST: Ruth Maleczech, Frederick Neumann, Bill Raymond, Avery Hart, Terry O'Reilly
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (89:00)
Program 4
The Other and I (1952) by Gunter Eich
An American woman driving along the north Italian coast is drawn into another life and past, from which she cannot return.
The documentary includes comments by the author.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Bay Area Radio Drama, San
Francisco, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1984 (Production by permission of Suhrkamp Verlag, Publishers, Frankfurt)
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
WRITER: Gunter Eich
TRANSLATION: Robert Goss
ENGINEER: Danny Kopelson
CAST: Winifred Mann
HOST: Erik Bauersfeld
FORMAT: Audiocassette (89:00)
Program 5
The Good God of Manhattan (1958) by Ingeborg Bachmann
The title character is on trial for plotting the murder of two lovers and for having killed one of them.
The documentary features a discussion of the playwright.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Voices International, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1990 (Production by permission of R. Piper & Co, Verlag Publishers, Munich)
PRODUCER: Faith Wilding
DIRECTOR: Carey Perloff
WRITER: Ingeborg Bachmann
TRANSLATION: Faith Wilding
MUSIC: Elizabeth Swados
PRODUCTION ENGINEER: Stephen Erickson
CAST: Elizabeth McGovern, Patrick O'Connell, Bill Raymond, Bob Gunton
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (89:00)
Program 6
Experimental Radio Drama Program I
This three-part program includes works by four poets that illustrate the ongoing interest of German radio drama in linguitic forms. The documentary segments include discussion of these works.
Excerpt from the Ursonate (1932) by Kurt Schwitters
A pre-war experimental work for radio, the Ursonate reduces language to the simplest syllabic sounds, anticipating the avant garde movement in acoustic radio drama known as Neues Hoerspiel.
YEAR PERFORMED/RECORDED: 1932
REALIZATION: Kurt Schwitters
Ophelia and the Words (1969) by Gerhard Ruhm
Ruhm took as his text all the words spoken by Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Bay Area Radio Drama, Berkeley, CA, and Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), Cologne, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
TEXT: Gerhard Ruhm, from Shakespeare
DIRECTOR/DRAMATURG: Klaus Schoening
ENGINEER: Danny Kopelson
CAST: Sigrid Worschmidt
Five Man Humanity (1968) by Ernst Jandl and Friederike Mayrucker
In Mother Goose-style language, the story describes five men who are born, raised, educated, conscripted, imprisoned, tried, executed, and born again.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Bay Area Radio Drama, Berkeley, CA, and Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), Cologne, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1984
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
DIRECTORS: Robert Goss, Klaus Mehrlander
WRITERS: Ernst Jandl, Friederike Mayrucker
TRANSLATION: Robert Goss
RECORDING ENGINEER: Danny Kopelson
CAST: Sigrid Worschmidt, Leo Downey
For Experimental Radio Drama Program 1
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Bay Area Radio Drama, Berkeley, CA
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Maria Gilardin
TECHNICAL PRODUCTION: Jim McKee (Earwax Studio)
HOST: Erik Bauersfeld
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 7
Monologue: Terry Jo (1968) by Max Bense and Ludwig Harig
This play is based on a French newspaper account of the true story of an American family murdered during a vacation cruise in the Caribbean.
The documentary examines the distinction between how language is used in art and journalism, with Monologue: Terry Jo as a study of each.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Bay Area Radio Drama, San Francisco, CA, and Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), Cologne, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1984
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
DIRECTOR: Klaus Schuning
WRITERS: Max Bense, Ludwig Harig
TRANSLATION: Robert Goss
ENGINEER: Danny Kopelson
CAST: Sigrid Worschmidt
HOST: Erik Bauersfeld
FORMAT: Audiocassette: (59:00)
Program 8
Gertrude (1978) by Wolfgang Schiffer and Charles Dorr
This drama tells the true story of Gertrude, an incurable schizophrenic and avid radio listener, who sent a series of letters to radio station WDR in Cologne, where two producers took an interest in her and began to document her struggles to find a new place in society. The drama is an example of non-fiction recordings transposed into radio art.
The documentary includes comments by the real Gertrude and by German co-author Wolfgang Schiffer.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Bay Area Radio Drama, San Francisco, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1984
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
DIRECTOR: Oscar Eustis
CONSULTING DIRECTOR: Wolfgang Schiffer
WRITERS: Wolfgang Schiffer, Charles Duerr
TRANSLATION: Robert Goss
MUSIC: Maggi Payne
ENGINEER: Danny Kopelson
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: Karin Brocco
CAST: Abigail Booream
HOST: Erik Bauersfeld
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 9
Experimental Radio Drama Program II
This program illustrates two further directions of German acoustic radio drama, Neues Hoerspiel.
Radio (1983) by Ferdinand Kriwet
The author analyzes the language of media connected to particular professions or activities, and the listener is taken from America to Spain to Latin America to Germany to Russia to hear similarly worded newscasts, entirely intelligible to anyone anywhere.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), Cologne, Germany; Radio France, Paris; and Sveriges Riksradio, The Netherlands
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985
REALIZATION: Ferdinand Kriwet
Wind and Sea (1970) by Peter Handke
In this brief work, Handke explores the possibility of telling a story and evoking emotions through the orchestration of sound.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), Cologne, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1971
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Peter Handke
Documentary segments include discussion of the works and Ferdinand Kriwet's demonstration of his radio collage methods.
For Experimental Radio Drama Program II
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Bay Area Radio Drama, Berkeley, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1991
PRODUCER: Erik Bauersfeld
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Maria Gilardin
TECHNICAL PRODUCTION: Jim McKee (Earwax Studio)
HOST: Erik Bauersfeld
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 10
Radio Play (No. 1) (1968) by Peter Handke
In this surreal drama, a young man is interrogated by five questioners and a chief interrogator; it is never clear what, if anything, the interrogators are trying to find out, whether the Questioned knows anything or not, or whether he is "innocent" or "guilty."
The documentary includes an interview with Handke, who discusses Group 47, the influential post-war gathering of German writers concerned about repairing the damage done to German language and literature and to the careers of writers during the Third Reich.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Voices International, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1988
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Klaus Schuning
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: David Leveille
WRITER: Peter Handke
TRANSLATION: Robert Goss
ADAPTATION FOR AMERICAN RADIO: Faith Wilding
RECORDING ENGINEER: Marilyn Ries
CAST: Bill McElhiney, Frederick Neumann
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 11
Houses (1969) by Jorgen Becker
This drama explores the varied and often contradictory feelings people have about the suburban houses and apartments in which they live.
The documentary includes a discussion of the use of ordinary people rather than actors in the drama and a comparison of the German and English productions of the play and what each reveals about the two societies.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Bay Area Radio Drama, San Francisco, CA, and Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), Cologne, Germany
YEAR PRODUCED: 1991
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/DRAMATURG: Erik Bauersfeld
WRITER: Jorgen Becker
TRANSLATION: Robert Goss
SOUND DESIGN/MUSIC & TECHNICAL PRODUCTION: Jim McKee (Earwax Studio)
ASSISTANT PRODUCER: Maria Gilardin
HOST: Erik Bauersfeld
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 12
Centropolis (1975) by Walter Adler
This drama presents an imagined future in which the state, Centropolis, has solved all problems and is bio-engineering a triumph over death itself.
The documentary features a discussion of the play's effectiveness and its popularity in Germany.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Bay Area Radio Drama, San Francisco, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1990
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/DRAMATURG: Erik Bauersfeld
WRITER: Walter Adler
TRANSLATION: Robert Goss
MUSIC/SOUND DESIGN/TECHNICAL PRODUCTION: Jim McKee (Earwax Studio)
CAST: Fredi Olster, Will Marchetti
HOST: Erik Bauersfeld
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 13
The Tribune (1980) by Mauricio Kagel
The play presents a Head of State rehearsing a long speech he will give to his assembled people, while the taped reactions of an absent but well-schooled crowd are played through loudspeakers.
The documentary includes comments by Kagel.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Voices International, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1990
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/DRAMATURG: Everett Frost
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Faith Wilding
WRITER: Mauricio Kagel
TRANSLATOR: Anselm Hollo
MUSIC: Mauricio Kagel (courtesy S. Peters Verlag Publishers & WDR)
PRODUCTION ENGINEER: Stephen Erickson
CAST: Bill Raymond
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 14
Breakfast in Miami (1978 and 1989) by Reinhard Lettau
In this satiric play, six deposed dictators living in retirement in Miami gather for a series of discussions about their experiences as heads of state.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Voices International, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1990
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/DRAMATURG: Everett Frost
WRITER: Reinhard Lettau
TRANSLATION: Reinhard Lettau, Julie Prandl
RECORDING AND PRODUCTION ENGINEER: Stephen Erickson
CAST: Norberto Kerner, Jeremy Dempsey, Christian Bruckner, William Duff-Griffen, Miguel Perez, Hewitt Brooks
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 15
Moscow Time (1988) by Helmut Kopetzky
Based on extensive field recordings, this program looks at the Russian people during the beginnings of glasnost.
The program features a short introductory discussion by Kopetzky.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Voices International, New York, NY, and Hessicher Rundfunk, Frankfurt, Germany
YEARS PRODUCED: 1989-1990
REALIZATION/TRANSLATION: Helmut Kopetzky, Faith Wilding
MUSIC: Dmitri Shostakovitch
ENGLISH NARRATOR: David McBride
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
Program 16
Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake (1979) by John Cage
Created for German radio broadcast, the drama contains 2,293 sound effects, all mentioned in James Joyce's experimental novel, Finnegans Wake.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: WDR, Cologne, Germany; SDR, Stuttgart Germany; and KRO, Hilversum, The Netherlands
YEAR PRODUCED: 1979
REALIZATION: John Cage, John David Fullemann
PRODUCER/EDITOR: Klaus Schuning
TEXT ARRANGEMENT/ADAPTATION: John Cage
CAST: John Cage (Voice), Joe Heaney (Singer)
HOST: Alvin Epstein
FORMAT: Audiocassette (59:00)
For the SoundPlay/Horspiel series
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: Voices International, New York, NY, in cooperation with Bay Area Radio Drama (BARD), Berkeley, CA
YEARS PRODUCED: 1984-1991
PROJECT DIRECTOR: Everett Frost
CODIRECTOR: Faith Wilding
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Molly Bernstein
TECHNICAL PRODUCER: Stephen Erickson
BARD PROJECT DIRECTOR: Erik Bauersfeld
BARD ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Maria Gilardin
BARD TECHNICAL PRODUCER: Jim McKee (Earwax Studio)
DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEWS (by program): Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Dr. Reinhold Grimm, Dr. Kim Kowalke, Steven Gross (1); Hans Quest, Gotz Naleppa, Dr. Georges Wagner Jourdain (2); Gunter Eich, Fritz Schroder-Jahn, Klaus Schuning, Dr. Karl Karst (3); Gunter Eich, Klaus Schuning, Erik Bauersfeld, Dr. Frederic Tubach (4); Dr. Karen Achberger, Carey Perloff (5); Gerhard Rohm, Ernst Jandl, Friederike Mayrucker, Klaus Schuning (6); Klaus Schuning (7); Gertrude, Wolfgang Schiffer, Oscar Eustis (8); Erik Bauersfeld, Klaus Schuning, Ferdinand Kriwet (9); Peter Handke (10); Dr. Frederic Tubach, Erik Bauersfeld (11); Walter Adler, Dr. Frederick Tubach (12); Mauricio Kagel (13); Helmut Kopetzky (15)
PRINT MATERIAL: English translations of most of the plays appear in the anthology German Radio Plays, eds. Everett Frost and Margaret Herzfeld-Sander [Volume 86 of the German Library series], published by the Continuum Publishing Company, 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017
FORMAT: Audiocassette
Programs 2-5 (89:00); Programs 1,6-16 (59:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: The Pacifica Program Service/Radio Archive [Note: Program 4 (89:00) and Programs 1,9,10,13,16 (59:00) are Currently unavailable]
The State of the Language: So To Speak
Documentary
The program examines some of the challenges encountered by various people directly involved in the translation process, from translators of novels and plays to State Department interpreters and the foreign language producer of Sesame Street.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: The English-Speaking Union and Power/Rector Productions, San Francisco, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1983
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Jules Power, Richard R. Rector
PRODUCER: Lynn O'Donnell
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Tom Tucker, Jim McCutcheon
EDITOR: Michael Chandler
HOST: Edward Herrmann
PRINT MATERIAL: Companion book The State of the Language, eds. Christopher Ricks and Leonard Michaels (University of California Press, 1990)
FORMAT: Video (27:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: The English-Speaking Union
Staus: Growing Old in America
Drama
Set in the steel and mining region just south of Pittsburgh, this drama, based on a short story by Mary Ann Rishel, centers on an aging widower who is encouraged by his sisters to start his life again.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: The Labor Theater/Realizations, Inc., New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1983
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: C.R. Portz
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Bette Craig
DIRECTOR: Bob Walsh
ADAPTATION: Nancy Musser, Peter Almond
MUSIC: Martin Burman
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jim Crispi
CAST: Theodore Bikel, Hope Cameron, Charlotte Jones, Rebecca Schuller
FORMAT: Video (40:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Currently unavailable.
StoryLines New England
Documentary Radio
StoryLines America explores American culture and history through the lens of outstanding regional literature. The series creates an alliance of public radio stations, libraries, bookstores, the American Library Association, and state humanities councils that supports a lively and thoughtful cultural jambalaya of a talk show. Through the intimacy of radio, StoryLines builds a regional front porch where universal ideas and issues are shared and discussed, using books as the catalyst, and where anyone from across the nation can take a seat through their local radio station or a web site. Combining listener call-ins with discussions by authors, hosts, and other guests, StoryLines is a reading group on the air that generates a provocative dialogue on what it means to live in various regions of the United States today and how the heritage of the regions fits into and influences the larger American culture. In an era when the increasing homogenization of culture threatens to overwhelm individuality, StoryLines celebrates regional distinctiveness as well as cultural diversity by creating a unique and dynamic forum for the discussion of each through literature.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: American Library Association, Chicago, IL, and New Hampshire Public Radio, Concord, NH
YEAR PRODUCED: 2004
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Paul Zalis
PRODUCERS: William Marcus, Keith Shields, Andrew Walsh
WRITERS and EDITORS: Paul Zalis, Keith Shields, Laura Knoy, Kevin Gardner
HOSTS: Kevin Gardner, Laura J. Knoy
PRINT MATERIALS: Book discussion guides and audio file available from the American Library Association at www.ala.org/ala/ppo/currentprograms/storylines/storylinesneguides.htm. Limited quantities of CDs of individual programs available free as a set of 13 from the American Library Association.
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Previous series award: The Michigan Association of Broadcasters selected StoryLines Midwest for its Special Interest Programming "Best Award" for 2001.
FORMAT: Audio 13 weekly programs, one hour each
DISTRIBUTOR: American Library Association
Tell About the South
Documentary Series
An exploration of African American and white Southern literature in the context of their parallel histories and cultures, this film analyzes the South's regional uniqueness, relating literature to a sense of time, place, race, and gender. The film features the work of William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O'Connor, and many others, as well as interviews with writers such as Alice Walker, William Styron, Shelby Foote, and Eudora Welty.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: James Agee Film Project, Charlottesville, VA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1997 and 2000
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Ross Spears
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Ross Spears
WRITERS: Ross Spears, Silvia Kersusan
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Peter Hawkins, Neil Means
EDITORS: Neil Means, Ross Spears, Alex Searls, Reid Oechs
NARRATOR: Rita Dove
INTERVIEWS: Cleanth Brooks, Pat Conroy, Rita Dove, Wilma Dykeman, Shelby Foote, John Hope Franklin, Ernest Gaines, George Garrett, Nikki Giovanni, Andrew Lytle, Willie Morris, Albert Murray, Reynolds Price, Mary Lee Settle, Elizabeth Spencer, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, Eudora Welty, Joel Williamson
VOICES: Charles Wright, Vertamai Grosvenor, Earl McCarroll, Art Greene
PRINT MATERIAL: Available through AgeeFilms: http://www.ageefilms.org/
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: Best Series of the year 2000 nominee by the International Documentary Association; Editor's Choice, Booklist Magazine
FORMAT: Video 3 programs (60:00) and 1 (85:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: James Agee Film Project Library
Subtitle
Podcast
From a history of the language of death threats to the nature of words that make us laugh, this season of Subtitle draws on linguistics research to help listeners understand more about the nature of language. Combining journalism and scholarship, Subtitle tells stories of people caught up in a variety of linguistic issues: the loss and reclamation of one’s mother tongue, the staying power of Latin, a 90-year-old (and counting) audio archive of American English, the effect of COVID-19 on Ojibwe language-learning, the evolution and possible future course of Black American speech, what people say just before they die. Each episode seeks to enlighten and entertain, and to answer some of the big linguistic questions: How does a language come into being? How does a language die out? How, exactly, do we learn languages? Does language shape how we think and perceive the world?
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Quiet Juice LLC / https://subtitlepod.com/
YEAR PRODUCED: 2022
LEAD PRODUCER: Patrick Cox
REPORTERS/WRITERS: Patrick Cox, Kavita Pillay, Ciku Theuri, Nina Porzucki, Leah
EDITORS: Patrick Cox, Nina Porzucki, Oluwakemi Aladesuyi
HOST/NARRATOR: Patrick Cox, Kavita Pillay, Ciku Theuri
SOUND DESIGNER: Tina Tobey
FORMAT: Length of Program(s): 20-30 minutes
Number of Programs: 20
DISTRIBUTOR: Linguistic Society of America / https://www.linguisticsociety.org/
Tell Me a Story
Radio Series (Interviews/Discussion/Readings)
This multi-part, multi-year series is devoted to contemporary short stories read in their entirety by the authors themselves. Then, through conversation and commentary, the writers explore their own backgrounds, their art, and the relationship of their stories to other fiction of our era and past ages.
Program 1
Wright Morris, Victrola.
Program 2
Lucia Berlin, Maggie May.
Program 3
William Maxwell, Love and The Woman Who Never Drew Breath Except to Complain.
Program 4
Kay Boyle, Winter Night.
Program 5
Tim O'Brien, How to Tell a True War Story.
Program 6
Linda Svendsen, Heartbeat.
Program 7
Richard Ford, Optimists.
Program 8
Jayne Anne Phillips, Heavenly Animal.
Program 9
D.R. MacDonald, Sailing.
Program 10
Stephanie Vaughn, Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog.
Program 11
Kaye Gibbons, The Proof.
Program 12
Eudora Welty, A Visit of Charity.
Program 13
Ellen Gilchrist, Victory over Japan.
Program 14
John L'Heureux, The Anatomy of Bliss.
Program 15
Toni Cade Bambara, My Man Bovanne.
Program 16
William Trevor, Teresa's Wedding.
Program 17
Ron Hansen, Wickedness.
Program 18
Cynthia Ozick, A Drugstore in Winter.
Program 19
Robert Coover, The Gingerbread House.
Program 20
Don Carpenter, Road Show.
Program 21
James Alan McPherson, Why I Like Country Music.
Program 22
Joy Williams, The Blue Men.
Program 23
Peter Taylor, Three Heroines.
Program 24
Ann Beattie, Desire.
Program 25
John Updike, The Persistence of Desire.
Program 26
Roald Dahl, The Great Switcheroo.
Program 27
Louise Erdrich, A Wedge of Shade.
Program 28
Leo Litwak, The Therapist.
Program 29
Jamaica Kincaid, Gwen.
Program 30
Ethan Canin, Star Food.
Program 31
Molly Giles, Heart and Soul.
Program 32
J.F. Powers, The Old Bird: A Love Story.
Program 33
Hannah Green, Mr. Nabokov.
Program 34
John Edgar Wideman, Presents.
Program 35
Lee Smith, Between the Lines.
Program 36
John Barth, Night Sea Journey.
Program 37
Paul Bowles, A Distant Episode.
Program 38
Amy Tan, Half and Half.
Program 39
Tobias Wolff, The Other Miller.
Program 40
Peter Matthiessen, Horse Latitudes.
Program 41
Gloria Naylor, Eve's Song.
Program 42
Charles D'Ambrosio, The Point.
Program 43
Deborah Eisenberg, Days.
Program 44
Charles Baxter, Horace and Margaret's Fifty-Second.
Program 45
Joyce Carol Oates, Four Miniature Narratives.
Program 46
Jim Shepard, Reach for the Sky and Messiah.
Program 47
Denise Chavez, The Last of the Menu Girls.
Program 48
E.L. Doctorow, Willi.
Program 49
Harriet Doerr, The Red Taxi.
Program 50
Charles Simmons, Wrinkles.
Program 51
Gail Godwin, A Sorrowful Woman.
Program 52
Wallace Stegner, In the Twilight.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Tell Me a Story, San Francisco, CA
YEARS PRODUCED: Programs 1-13, 1988; Programs 14-26, 1989; Programs 27-39, 1990; Programs 40-52, 1991
PRODUCERS: Marjorie Leet (Programs 1-26); Marjorie Leet and David Litwin (Programs 27-52)
TECHNICAL DIRECTORS: Vance Frost (Programs 1-14,17,19,25); David Litwin (Programs 15-16,18,20-24,26-52)
WRITER/INTERVIEWER Marjorie Leet
HOST: Herbert Gold
FORMAT: Audiocassette
Programs 1-6,8-20,22-24,27-52 (30:00); Programs 7,21 (45:00); Program 25 (two versions, 30:00 and 45:00); Program 26 (60:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Tell Me a Story
Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage
Documentary
This film chronicles the life and career of American writer Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)—including his Missouri childhood; his legendary professional collaboration with Elia Kazan; and the way in which he transformed his personal experiences into lasting and universal art.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: International Cultural Programming, New York, NY, in association with WNET/13, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1994
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Catherine Tatge, Susan Lacy
PRODUCERS: Catherine Tage, Merrill Brockway
DIRECTOR: Merrill Brockway
WRITER: Brooks Haxton
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jerry Pantzer
EDITOR: Girish Bhargava
NARRATOR: Frank Langella
INTERVIEWS: Gore Vidal; Edward Albee; Maureen Stapleton; Robert Brustein; Jim Parrott; William Jay Smith; Donald Windham; Maria St. Just; Elaine Steinbeck; Frank Corsaro; Charles Bowden; Paula Laurence; and others
FORMAT: Video (two versions, 97:00 and 85:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Films for the Humanities and Sciences
To Be Young, Gifted, and Black
Drama
To Be Young, Gifted, and Black is a portrait of playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930–65), drawn largely from her unpublished letters, poems, diaries, and scenes from her plays.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: NET Educational Broadcasting Corporation, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1972
PRODUCER: Robert Fresco
DIRECTOR: Michael Schultz
ADAPTATION: Robert Fresco
CAST: Ruby Dee, Al Freeman, Jr., Claudia McNeil, Roy Scheider, Blythe Danner, Barbara Barrie, Lauren Jones
AWARD: American Film Festival, Blue Ribbon
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (90:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Indiana University, Audio-Visual Center
To Render A Life: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and the Documentary Vision
Documentary
To Render a Life explores the legacy and themes of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), the classic work of American documentary literature by writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans. Along with scholarly reflection, the film records the daily life of a contemporary poor rural family in southern Virginia whose circumstances parallel those of the cotton tenant farmers that Agee and Evans portrayed fifty years ago.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: James Agee Film Project, Johnson City, TN
YEAR PRODUCED: 1991
PRODUCERS: Ross Spears, Silvia Kersusan
DIRECTOR: Ross Spears
WRITERS: Silvia Kersusan, Ross Spears
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ross Spears, Neil Means, Anthony Forma
EDITORS: Grahame Weinbren, Ross Spears
COMPOSERS: Kenton Coe, Edgar Meyer
MUSIC: Performed by the Edgar Meyer Group
NARRATOR: Ross Spears
VOICE/READINGS: Earl McCarroll
INTERVIEWS: Robert Coles, Jonathan Kozol, Ted Rosengarten, Wilma Dykeman, Rev. Will Campbell, Fred Wiseman, Jonathan Yardley, Alex Harris, Ruth Behar, William Allard, James Hubbard, and others
AWARDS/SCREENINGS: American Film Festival Blue Ribbon; Crystal Heart Award; Golden Globe Nominee; Andrew Sarris, One of Year's Best Films; Festival of American Film; Sinking Creek Film Festival; National Gallery; Film Forum; Pacific Film Archives, Washington Film Festival
FORMAT: Video (88:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: James Agee Film Project Library
Voices and Visions
Documentary Series
Voices and Visions presents the achievements of thirteen American poets over the last 150 years, using archival materials, location cinematography, drama, dance, animation sequences, and interviews. In addition, each program includes a select group of poems, presented by the author or actors.
Program 1
Elizabeth Bishop: One Art (1911–79)
illustrates the writer's wandering spirit, from a childhood in Nova Scotia to travels in Brazil, and the central themes of her work: geography, landscape, and the quest for consciousness and identity through travel.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/WRITER: Jill Janows
CO-PRODUCER: Ellen Weissbrod
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Richard Dallet
EDITOR: Arnold Glassman
ANIMATION: Anita Thacher
CAST: Blythe Danner as the voice of Elizabeth Bishop
INTERVIEWS: Octavio Paz, Mary McCarthy, Mark Strand, James Merrill, Howard Moss, Frank Bidart, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:30)
Program 2
Hart Crane (1899–1932)
traces the poet's boyhood in Ohio, his complex relationship with his parents, and the sources of his ambition and inspiration.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986
PRODUCER: Lois Cunniff
DIRECTOR: Lawrence Pitkethly
WRITERS: Derek Walcott, Margot Feldman
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jonathan David
EDITOR: Jessica Bendiner
NARRATOR: Jose Ferrer
CAST: Dan Ziskie as the voice of Hart Crane
INTERVIEWS: Derek Walcott, Richard Howard, Malcolm and Peggy Cowley, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:00)
Program 3
Emily Dickinson (1830–68)
explores the reclusive poet's accomplishments, education, and interests, dispels the belief that she was unworldly and naive, and considers why her poems were not appreciated during her lifetime.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
PRODUCER: Jill Janows
DIRECTOR: Veronica Young
WRITER: Judith Thurman
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jeri Sopanen
EDITOR: Lisa Jackson
CAST: Jane Alexander as the voice of Emily Dickinson
INTERVIEWS: Richard Sewell, Joyce Carol Oates, Adrienne Rich, Anthony Hecht, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:00)
Program 4
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965)
considers the work of a writer many regard as the most influential American poet of his century against the backdrop of a life beset by enormous unhappiness and a troubled search for spiritual solace.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
PRODUCERS: Sasha Alpert, Lawrence Pitkethly
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Lawrence Pitkethly
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Nic Knowland
EDITOR: Jessica Bendiner
MUSIC: Performed by The Endellion Quartet
INTERVIEWS: Frank Kermode, Peter Ackroyd, Joseph Ciari, Stephen Spender, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:00)
Program 5
Robert Frost (1874–1963)
examines the poet's lengthy career, from his move to England at the age of 40 where his work was first published and celebrated, to his return to New England and the poetic speech with which he is most associated.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1985
PRODUCER: Robert Chapman
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Michael Hendricks
DIRECTOR/EDITOR: Peter Hammer
RESEARCH SUPERVISOR: Minda Novek
WRITER: Margot Feldman
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Tom Hurwitz, Jonathan David, Robert Fulton, Peter Hoving
COMPOSER: Michael Bacon
NARRATOR: Laurence Luckinbill
CAST: Jason Robards III, Joan Allen, Frank Maraden
INTERVIEWS: Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Richard Wilbur, William Pritchard, Richard Poirer, Alfred Edwards, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:30)
Program 6
Langston Hughes: The Dream Keeper (1902–67)
explains how Hughes wrote about the problems, cares, and dignity of African-Americans, as well as the way his poetry derives from African-American musical sources and the vocabulary and dialect patterns of black urban speech.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986
PRODUCER: Robert Chapman
DIRECTOR: St. Clair Bourne
WRITER: Leslie Lee
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Arthur Albert, Don Lenzer
EDITOR: Sam Pollard
COMPOSER: Stanley Cowell
POETRY NARRATED BY: Novella Nelson, Roscoe Orman
INTERVIEWS: James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Arnold Rampersad, George Houston Bass, Faith Berry, Raoul Abdul, Rowena Jelliffe, Louise Patterson, and others
FORMAT: Video (56:00)
Program 7
Robert Lowell: A Mania for Phrases (1917–77)
examines the life of a writer who descended from old Yankee stock and who incorporated the torments of his own psyche into his art, amplifying them to reflect the turmoil he saw in American society.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
PRODUCER: Robert Chapman
COPRODUCER: David Schmerler
DIRECTOR/EDITOR: Peter Hammer
COWRITERS: Lawrence Pitkethly, Peter Hammer
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Levi
COMPOSER: Michael Bacon
INTERVIEWS: Derek Walcott, Frank Bidart, Anthony Hecht, John Thompson, Robert Hass, Robert Giroux, Elizabeth Hardwick, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:00)
Program 8
Marianne Moore: In Her Own Image (1887–1972)
treats the life and work of this inventive and idiosyncratic poet, including her belief in a principled life and her close observation of nature.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
PRODUCERS: David Schmerler, Robert Chapman
DIRECTOR: Jeffrey Schon
WRITER: Vickie Karp
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mark Trottenberg, with Brian O'Connell, Jonathan David, Timothy Housel, Mead Hunt, Nic Knowland, Robert Levi
EDITOR: Joelle Schon
ANIMATION: Veronika Soul
COMPOSER: Richard Einhorn
NARRATOR: Peter Maloney
CAST: Laurie Heineman as the voice of Marianne Moore
INTERVIEWS: Charles Tomlinson, Clive Driver, Grace Schulman, Richard Howard, Patricia Willis, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:30)
Program 9
Sylvia Plath (1932–63)
examines the work of a poet whose achievement has been obscured by the drama of her suicide at age thirty.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Lawrence Pitkethly
COPRODUCER: Sasha Alpert
WRITER: Susan Yankowitz
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Nic Knowland, Bob Chappell
EDITOR: Jessica Bendiner
INTERVIEWS: Aurelia Plath, Wilbury Crockett, Clarissa Roche, Dido Merwin, Margaret Shook, A. Alvarez, Sandra M. Gilbert, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:30)
Program 10
Ezra Pound: American Odyssey (1885–1972)
considers the life and work of this poet, musician, editor, and essayist, who was one of the leading and most erudite forces behind modernism.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1983
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: Lawrence Pitkethly
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jonathan David
ANIMATION CAMERA: Gary Becker, Mead Hunt
GRAPHICS AND ANIMATION: Jeffrey Schon
EDITOR: Variety Moszynski
CONSULTING EDITOR: Peter Hammer
NARRATOR: Paul Hecht
INTERVIEWS: Olga Rudge, Mary de Rachewiltz, James Laughlin, Basil Bunting, Alfred Kazin, Hugh Kenner, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (two versions, 56:30 and 87:00)
Program 11
Wallace Stevens: Man Made Out of Words (1879–1955)
contrast the writer's separate but connected identities: his sedate public career as an insurance lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut, and his exotic and adventurous inner life as a poet.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1987
PRODUCER: Jill Janows
DIRECTOR: Richard P. Rogers
WRITER: Robert Seidman
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Richard P. Rogers, Nancy Schreiber
EDITOR: Corey Shaff
COMPOSER: Martin Bresnick
INTERVIEWS: Mark Strand, James Merrill, Harold Bloom, Joan Richardson, Helen Vendler, A. Walton Litz, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:30)
Program 12
Walt Whitman (1819–92)
spans the writer's career as a typesetter, journalist, and Civil War nurse and considers why he is credited with revolutionizing American letters and inaugurating modern poetry.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1983
COORDINATING PRODUCER: Lois Cuniff
DIRECTOR: Jack Smithie
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Lloyd Freidus, Robert Fulton, with Jonathan David, Robert Hanna, Pamela Katz
EDITORS: Peter Hammer, Mark Rappaport
NARRATOR: Peter MacNichol
CAST: Louis Turenne as the voice of Whitman
INTERVIEWS: Justin Kaplan, Harold Bloom, Allen Ginsberg, Galway Kinnell, Donald Hall, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:00)
Program 13
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
examines the writer's bold experiments in verse and the relationship between his art and his life as a family doctor in New Jersey.
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986
PRODUCER/WRITER: Jill Janows
DIRECTOR: Richard P. Rogers
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Richard P. Rogers, Gerry Cotts, Lisa Rinzler
EDITOR: Corey Shaff
ANIMATION/GRAPHIC DESIGN: George Griffin, Maureen Selwood
COMPOSER: Martin Bresnick
INTERVIEWS: Hugh Kenner, Majorie Perloff, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Coles, Dickran Tashjiam, James Laughlin, Dr. William Eric Williams, and others
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:00)
SERIES PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: The New York Center for Visual History, New York, NY
YEARS PRODUCED: 1982–87
SERIES EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Lawrence Pitkethly
SENIOR PRODUCERS: Robert Chapman, Jill Janows
PRINT MATERIALS: Voices & Visions: The Poet in America, edited by Helen Vendler (essays), Modern American Poets: Their Voices and Visions, edited by Robert DiYanni (text/anthology), Viewer's Guide, Joseph Parisi
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (56:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: The Annenberg/CPB Project
Waiting for Beckett: A Portrait of Samuel Beckett
Documentary
This program profiles the life of Samuel Beckett (1906–89), the Nobel Prize-winning author who shunned publicity throughout his life and yet, through works like Waiting for Godot, became a worldwide cultural influence. (See also Peephole Art.)
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Global Village, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1994
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: John L. Reilly
PRODUCER: Melissa Shaw-Smith
DIRECTOR: John L. Reilly
WRITERS: Robert Seidman, Melissa Shaw-Smith, John L. Reilly
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Frank Merino, Pedro Caravajal
EDITORS: Ray Benjamin, Pedro Caravajal
AWARDS/SCREENINGS: National Educational Film and Video Festival, Gold Apple; Chicago Film Festival, INTERCOM, Silver Hugo; American Film Institute, Los Angeles; New York University screening sponsored by Ireland House and Irish Film Association
PRINT MATERIAL: Study Guide
FORMAT: Video (86:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: Global Village
Walt Whitman: Boisterous Voice of America
Documentary
This film examines the life and times of America's self-proclaimed "Boisterous Voice," Walt Whitman. He is our nation's most well-known, yet least understood, poet. The film traces his life from rural Long Island in the early nineteenth century through the booming growth of New York City and the tumult of the Civil War years.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Hidden Hill Productions, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2007
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Mark Samels
PRODUCERS: Patrick Long, Jamila Wignot
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Mark Zwonitzer
HOST/NARRATOR: Chris Cooper
VOICES: Allan Garganus, Ed Folsom
FORMAT: Video/DVD (2 hours)
DISTRIBUTOR: WGBH—The American Experience
Willa Cather: A Look of Remembrance
Dramatic Radio Series
This series presents the life and legacy of the Nebraska novelist (l876–1947) and an examination of the principal themes of her work.
Program l
The Land
traces Cather's early years and her friendship with journalist Elizabeth Sergeant.
Program 2
The Cave
explores Cather's ideas on art and womanhood as she becomes increasingly reclusive.
Program 3
The Rock
examines Cather's notions of what the artist should be.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: National Public Radio, Washington, DC
YEAR PRODUCED: 1983
PRODUCERS: Joe N. Gwathmey, Jo Ellyn Rackleff, Frieda Werden
DIRECTORS: Jo Ellyn Rackleff, Joan Micklin Silver
WRITER: Jo Ellyn Rackleff
CAST: Colleen Dewhurst, Dianne Wiest
AWARD: The National Commission on Working Women, Women at Work Broadcast Awards Competition, Honorable Mention
FORMAT: Audiocassette
3 (30:00) programs
DISTRIBUTOR: Currently unavailable
Willa Cather—The Road Is All
Documentary
She had riveting blue eyes and a deep voice. She smoked cigarettes and talked tough. And she wrote some of the most unforgettable fiction of the twentieth-century. Willa Cather—The Road Is All is the story of a writer who invented herself from scratch. As a child, Cather was taken from her comfortable home in Virginia into the wild Nebraska frontier. Cather survived and even thrived on the Plains, pioneering her way to New York City where she wrote her great novels: O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, My Antonia, Death Comes for the Archbishop and the Pulitzer Prize-winning One of Ours. This ninety-minute American Masters special interweaves interviews, rare photographs, and scenes from Cather's novels to tell a story of the transforming magic of art.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: 13/WNET American Masters and NET Television for American Masters NET Television, Lincoln, NE
YEAR PRODUCED: 2005
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Susan Lacy
PRODUCERS: Christine Lesiak, Joel Geyer, Michele Wolford
DIRECTOR: Joel Geyer
WRITER: Christine Lesiak
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Patrick Aylward, John Beck, Michael Chin, Eddie Marritz, Allen Moore, Brian Seifferlein
EDITOR: Patrick Aylward
HOST/NARRATOR: David Strathairn
CAST: Marcia Gay Harden, Anna Bogaard, Yarrow Song-Brave, R.W. Clark, Bjorn Halverson, Irene E. Hill, Christopher Allen Martin, Seth Schulz, Samantha Thomas
FORMAT: Video 2 hours
DISTRIBUTOR: American Masters
William Kennedy's Albany
Documentary
This program explores the concept of place in the fiction of William Kennedy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose work illuminates the colorful Irish Catholic urban world of his native Albany.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: WETA-TV, Washington, DC, and Richard Rogers Projects, New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 1994
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Richard Richter
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Richard P. Rogers
WRITERS: Anna Reid Jhirad, Richard P. Rogers
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Richard P. Rogers, Allen Moore, David Ford
EDITORS: Miroslav Janek (Post Production: Darwin Silver, Todd Holme)
EXECUTIVE IN CHARGE: Tamara E. Robinson
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR; Alvin P. Sanoff
FORMAT: Video (56:44)
DISTRIBUTOR: contact WETA-TV
Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin
Documentary
The film explores the remarkable life and legacy of the late author Ursula K. Le Guin. Best known for groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy works such as A Wizard of Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Dispossessed, Le Guin held her ground on the margins of “respectable” literature until the sheer excellence of her work forced the mainstream to embrace fantastic literature. Her fascinating story has never before been captured on film. Produced with Le Guin’s participation over the course of a decade, the film is a journey through the writer’s career and her worlds, both real and fantastic. Viewers join the writer on an intimate journey of self-discovery as she comes into her own as a major feminist author, opening new doors for the imagination and inspiring generations of women and other writers along the way. The film features animation and reflections by literary luminaries including Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Michael Chabon, and more.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Center for Independent Documentary, Inc., Boston, MA
YEAR PRODUCED: 2015
PRODUCERS: Arwen Curry, Jason Andrew Cohn, Camile Servan-Schreiber
DIRECTOR: Arwen Curry
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Andrew Black, John Kiffmeyer
EDITOR: Juli Vizza, Andrew Gersh, Gail Huddleson
CAST: Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Michael Chabon, adrienne maree brown, Samuel R. Delany, Vonda N. McIntyre, Theodora Goss, Annalee Newitz, Charles Le Guin, Theodore Downes-Le Guin, Caroline Le Guin, Elisabeth Le Guin, Jean Kroeber
AWARD/FESTIVALS: Awards: Best of Fest - DC Independent Film Festival; Audience Vote For Documentary - International Women Make Movies of Zaragoza, Spain; Visionary Women Filmmaker Award - Santa Cruz Film Festival; Best of Festival Winner - Boston Science Fiction Film Festival; Outstanding Story - Women in Film Festival; Audience Choice Documentary - Macon Film Festival; Best Documentary Semi-Finalist - Berlin Sci-Fi Film Fest
Major festival screenings: U.S. (selected; complete list at worldsofukl.com):
DOC NYC - New York, NY; Mill Valley Film Festival - Mill Valley, CA; Oregon Independent Film Festival - Eugene, OR; Port Townsend Film Festival - Port Townsend, WA; Glendale International Film Festival - Glendale, CA; Santa Cruz Film Festival - Santa Cruz, CA; Tacoma Film Festival - Tacoma, WA; Ashland Independent Film Festival - Ashland, OR; Louisville International Festival of Film - Louisville, KY; BendFilm Festival - Bend, OR; Litquake - San Francisco, CA; Santa Fe Independent Film Festival - Santa Fe, NM; Austin Film Festival - Austin, TX; Virginia Film Festival - Charlottesville, VA; PhilaMOCA: Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art; Athena Film Festival - New York, NY; Omaha Film Festival - Omaha, NE; Portland International Film Festival - Portland, OR; Albany Film Festival - Albany, CA; Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival - Sebastopol, CA; Phoenix Film Festival - Phoenix, AZ; Fort Myers Film Festival - Fort Meyers, FL; Women+Film Festival - Denver, Colorado; Julien Dubuque International Film Festival - Dubuque, Iowa; Richmond International Film and Music Festival - Richmond, VA; Newport Beach Film Festival - Newport Beach, CA; Bay Area Book Festival - Berkeley, CA; Southside Film Festival - Bethlehem, PA; Macon Film Festival - Macon, GA; Nevada City Film Festival - Nevada City, CA; Vermont International Film Festival - Burlington, VT; Kansas International Film Festival - Kansas City, KS;
International (selected; complete list at worldsofukl.com): Sheffield Documentary Film Festival - Sheffield, UK [World Premiere]; Vancouver International Film Festival and Vancouver Writer’s Fest - Vancouver, Canada; Glasgow Youth Film Festival - Glasgow, Scotland; Kaunas International Film Festival - Kaunas, Lithuania; New Suns: A Feminist Literary Festival - London, UK; Festival Les Utopiales - Nantes, France; Pravo Ljudski Film Festival - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels - Istanbul, Turkey; Muestra de Cine realizado por Mujeres de Huesca - Huesca, Spain; Kosmopolis, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona - Barcelona, Spain; Belfast Film Festival - Belfast, Ireland; What if – Women in Film Festival - Olten, Switzerland; International Literature Festival - Dublin, Ireland; 13th Parish Festival - Jersey, Channel Islands; Vancouver International Film Festival - Vancouver, Canada
Women Deliver Film Festival - Vancouver, Canada; Festivaletteratura - Mantova, Italy;
FIWOM, Film Festival for Women’s Rights - Seoul, South Korea; Brisbane International Film Festival - Brisbane, Australia
FORMAT: DVD 68 minutes (festival version), 52 minutes (PBS version)
DISTRIBUTOR: US Distribution: Grasshopper Film, @email International sales agent: Java Films, https://javafilms.fr
The World in Words
Radio and Podcast
PRI’s The World radio program and The World in Words podcast present a series of in-depth stories about language in the U.S. and around the world. Among the topics are the contested terms of migration; how gender influences language and vice versa; the high art of dubbing for film and TV in Germany; the compromises that Basque language activists are making to save their language; new research in the hunt for a proto-world “original” language; how gender and language are influencing each other in the age of “Mx,” “Latinx,” and calls for a gender-neutral God; and how one Texas-based linguist is seeking clues about when people code-switch by studying the bilingual correspondence of Swedish-speaking composer Jean Sibelius and his Finnish-speaking wife.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Public Radio International, Inc., Minneapolis, MN
YEAR PRODUCED: 2018
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Melinda Ward, Andres Sussman
DIRECTOR: Patrick Cox
CO-REPORTER AND PODCAST CO-HOST: Nina Porzucki
NARRATORS: Patrick Cox, Nina Porzucki
REPORTERS/CONTRIBUTORS: Ari Daniel, Jennifer Kronovet, Kavita Pillay, Rupa Shenoy, Alina Simone, Veronica Zaragovia
FORMAT: DVD 19 broadcast and podcast segments of varying length. Most broadcast segments are 6-15 minutes. Most podcast episodes are 20 to 30 minutes.
DISTRIBUTOR: https://www.pri.org/programs/world-words
The Writing Code
Documentary
The Writing Code tracks the origin, history, art, and technology of writing, one of the greatest inventions in human history. Featuring authors, anthropologists, linguists, historians, editors and poets, the programs explore the nature and history of writing from Cuneiform and Ancient Egyptian to the Internet. They concern how writing was invented, how Chinese writing works, the technologies of writing from papyrus to paper, quill pens to printing press, poetry and prose, literacy and the alphabet, how children learn to read and write, how computers and the World Wide Web have changed the way we write. Language made us human. Writing gave us civilization.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Ways of Knowing, Inc., New York, NY
YEAR PRODUCED: 2007
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Gene Searchinger
SUPERVISING PRODUCER: Suzanne Bauman
PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS: Gene Searchinger, Suzanne Bauman, Norman C. Berns
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Grange, David West, Tom Petrie, Jeff Stonehouse, Boyd Estes
EDITORS: Christopher Earl, Suzanne Bauman
COORDINATING PRODUCER: Lara Weinberg
INTERVIEWS: James Allen, Mark Aronoff, Margaret Atwood, Tim Berners-Lee, William Bright, Carol Chomsky, Peter Daniels, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr. Zahi Hawass, Paul LeClerc, Elmore Leonard, Victor Mair, John McWhorter, Steven Pinker, Anita Samen, Denise Schmande-Besserat, Charles Seife, Chad Smith, Stephen Tinney, Quincy Troupe, and many others
PRINT MATERIALS: Suzanne Baumanhttp://filmforthought@aol.com/
FORMAT: Video/DVD (56:46 mins each)
DISTRIBUTORS: PBS Video
Writing the Southwest
Radio Documentary Series
This series considers contemporary life and letters in the American Southwest, with profiles of authors whose works are diverse in style, but united by a sense of place and the heritage of this multicultural and multilingual region. Each program features author interviews and readings set with music and sound.
Program 1
Edward Abbey presents the work of the late naturalist and award-winning author of thirty books of essays and fiction. Larry McMurtry calls this former park ranger and environmental activist the "Thoreau of the American West."
Program 2
Denise Chavez introduces a playwright known for her comic dramas and her performances of the characters in them—from high school tattoo artists to waitresses in a beauty salon.
Program 3
Joy Harjo features readings by the Creek poet and screenwriter, accompanied by her jazz-reggae band and her own saxophone playing.
Program 4
Tony Hillerman reveals the world of the Oklahoma native whose best-selling mystery novels are set on the Navajo reservation between New Mexico and Arizona.
Program 5
Linda Hogan considers the writing of a University of Colorado professor who is recognized for her six books of passionate environmental poetry and a dark, provocative novel about oil swindles in Oklahoma.
Program 6
Barbara Kingsolver looks at the way this Arizona novelist, originally from Kentucky, offers a newcomer's perspective on her adopted region, with strong women characters making a place for themselves in today's Southwest.
Program 7
Terry McMillan presents the best-selling writer who is widely acknowledged for her telling and often humorous accounts of contemporary urban black communities in the Southwest.
Program 8
John Nichols considers the work of a New England born writer who moved to the Southwest twenty-five years ago. Perhaps best known for The Milagro Beanfield War, about the clash between a poor farmer and a developer, Nichols specializes in tragi-comic and satirical novels set in New Mexico.
Program 9
Simon Ortiz explores the work of a poet and translator whose writing is rooted in the oral tradition of his people, the Acoma Pueblos of the Arizona-New Mexico border. His poems consider the conflict between traditional tribal loyalties and the ambitions created by mainstream American culture.
Program 10
Alberto Rios examines the work of this award-winning poet and professor at Arizona State University. His writing reflects his experience on the U.S.-Mexico border—torn not only between two countries but between several cultures.
Program 11
Stan Steiner considers the work of a writer who hitchhiked West from his native Brooklyn after getting out of the service in World War II. Steiner's books trace the arrival of European immigrants into the Southwest and document the Hispanic and Native American civil rights movements of the 1960s.
Program 12
Luci Tapahonso introduces a leading Navajo poet whose work incorporates the chants and songs of her tribe and characters who experience racism and the tension between city and reservation.
Program 13
Frank Waters examines the work of the late "Dean of Western Writers." Waters set his novels in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico and was, in the 1920s, among the first Anglo Americans to write with understanding and compassion about Indian and Hispanic culture.
Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun
Documentary
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was an anthropologist and novelist, the author of the classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. She was raised in America's first incorporated all-black town, Eatonville, Florida, and her experiences growing up the mayor's daughter, surrounded by people who celebrated black culture, were markedly different from the experiences of other blacks in the South. Because she was not embittered by her Southern experiences, her writing depicted a romantic South, devoid of white racism, a celebration of black culture. She angered race champions during these early days of the civil rights struggle because she refused to become a race writer, with a focus on white prejudice. A strong independent woman and an iconoclast, she would lead a life dogged by her critics. She would not back down on her views, which became increasingly conservative, even arguing against the Supreme Court decision to integrate schools. Though she died in poverty, all her books out of print, black women writers brought her back posthumously, and her work is more popular now than it was in her lifetime.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Bay Bottom News, Tampa, FL
YEAR PRODUCED: 2008
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Susan Lacy, Kristy Andersen
PRODUCER/WRITER: Kristy Andersen
DIRECTOR: Sam Pollard
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Eric Jones, Bobby Shepard, Matthew Clarke
EDITOR: Marian Hunter
NARRATOR: S. Epatha Merkerson
CAST: Kim Brockington/Zora, Marceline Hugot, Mary Margaret McBride
FORMAT: Video/DVD (83:00 mins)
DISTRIBUTORS: California Newsreel (educational)