Cinema documentaries
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29 titles
- DirectorDamian PettigrewStarsFederico FelliniRoberto BenigniLuigi 'Titta' BenziA look at Fellini's creative process. In extensive interviews, Fellini talks a bit about his background and then discusses how he works and how he creates. Several actors, a producer, a writer, and a production manager talk about working with Fellini. Archive footage of Fellini and others on the set plus clips from his films provide commentary and illustration for the points interviewees make. Fellini is fully in charge; actors call themselves puppets. He dismisses improvisation and calls for "availability." His sets and his films create images that look like reality but are not; we see the differences and the results.
- DirectorWendy AppleStarsKathy BatesZach StaenbergJodie FosterDocumentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.
- DirectorJames ChressanthisStarsKaren BlackPeter BogdanovichSandra BullockThe lifelong friendship of the great Hungarian-born cinematographers László Kovács and Vilmos Zsigmond and their impact on American cinema.
- DirectorMark WexlerStarsHaskell WexlerMark WexlerBilly CrystalThe son of acclaimed cinematographer Haskell Wexler confronts his complex father by turning the camera on him. What results is a portrait of a difficult genius and a son's path out of the shadow of a famous father.
- DirectorDavid DworskyVictor KöhlerStarsApparatÓlafur ArnaldsScott BelskyA documentary that explores how the digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way.
- DirectorJan HarlanStarsKatharina KubrickMalcolm McDowellStanley KubrickThe career and life of Stanley Kubrick is explored through pictures, clips from his films, his old home movies, comments from his colleagues and a narration by Tom Cruise.
- 2003– 3m6.5 (54)TV EpisodeDirectorArmen AntranikianStarsTadashi AbeHenry ColemanJacob FletcherExplores the deep connections audiences have made with the legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick by watching his films.
- DirectorCraig McCallStarsJack CardiffMartin ScorseseKirk DouglasIn 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.
- DirectorJon FauerStarsRemi AdefarasinRuss T. AlsobrookHoward A. Anderson III110 of the world's top cinematographers discuss the art of how and why films look the way they do.
- DirectorChristopher KenneallyStarsDerek AmbrosiMichael BallhausAndrzej BartkowiakThe documentary investigates the history, process and workflow of both digital and photochemical film creation.
- DirectorKent JonesStarsWes AndersonPeter BogdanovichDavid FincherFilmmakers discuss how Francois Truffaut's 1966 book "Cinema According to Hitchcock" influenced their work.
- DirectorTed DemmeRichard LaGraveneseStarsFrancis Ford CoppolaWilliam FriedkinRobert AltmanA documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.
- 20031h 59mTV-147.5 (3.1K)DirectorKenneth BowserStarsMartin ScorseseDennis HopperPeter BogdanovichA look at 1970s Hollywood when it was known as New Hollywood, and the director was the star of the movie.
- DirectorNanette BursteinBrett MorgenStarsRobert EvansEddie AlbertPeter BartDocumentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans (the film shares the same name as Evans's famous 1994 autobiography).
- 1995–19983h 45m8.5 (5.1K)TV EpisodeDirectorMartin ScorseseMichael Henry WilsonStarsMartin ScorseseAllison AndersKathryn BigelowMartin Scorsese describes his initial and growing obsession with films from the 1940s and 50s as the art form developed and grew with clips from classics and cult classics.
- DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsMartin ScorseseWorld-renowned director Martin Scorsese narrates this journey through his favorites in Italian cinema.
- DirectorLes BlankStarsWerner HerzogKlaus KinskiClaudia CardinaleA documentary following German auteur Werner Herzog as he deals with difficult actors, bad weather and getting a boat over a mountain, all in an effort to make his film Fitzcarraldo (1982).
- DirectorFax BahrGeorge HickenlooperEleanor CoppolaStarsDennis HopperMartin SheenMarlon BrandoDocumentary that chronicles how Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) was plagued by extraordinary script, shooting, budget, and casting problems--nearly destroying the life and career of the celebrated director.
- DirectorArnold GlassmanTodd McCarthyStuart SamuelsStarsConrad L. HallJohn BaileyVilmos ZsigmondCameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography, illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from The Birth of a Nation (1915) to Do the Right Thing (1989).
- DirectorTheodoros AngelopoulosVicente ArandaJohn BoormanStarsPernilla AugustMax von SydowMerzak Allouache40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière brothers.
- DirectorTheodoros AngelopoulosOlivier AssayasBille AugustStarsIsabelle AdjaniPegah AhangaraniAnouk AiméeA collective film of 33 shorts directed by different directors about their feelings about Cinema.
- DirectorWim WendersStarsChishû RyûWerner HerzogYûharu AtsutaMoved by the work of director Yasujirô Ozu, Wim Wenders travels to Japan in search of the Tokyo seen in Ozu's films.
- DirectorMikhail VartanovSergei ParajanovStarsSergei ParajanovMikhail VartanovSofiko ChiaureliFilmed in wartime and edited under candlelight, Mikhail Vartanov's rarely-seen masterwork tells of his friendship with the genius Sergei Parajanov who was arrested by KGB, at the height of his fame, for the outspoken criticism of the Soviet regime. Vartanov resurrects the riveting scenes from his banned 1969 film, The Color of Armenian Land, where Paradjanov concocts the chef-d'oeuvre Sayat Nova (The Color of Pomegranates) - widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time - then reveals a shocking secret request Parajanov sent him in an unpublished 1974 letter from the Ukrainian prisons. Vartanov's camera documents Parajanov's staggering last day at work in 1990 during the making of the unfinished Confession - the original camera negative of which survives in Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) - as Parajanov comments on this cherished autobiographical film. The foremost achievement of The Last Spring, emphasized by the American and European critics, is Vartanov's exquisite wordless montage that "evoked the very soul" of Parajanov and earned the praise of many of cinema's greatest masters, such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.
- DirectorTonino GuerraAndrei TarkovskyStarsTonino GuerraLora JabloskinaAndrei TarkovskyAcclaimed Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky and his screenwriter Tonino Guerra travel all over Italy to scout locations for the film Nostalghia.
- DirectorLiz GarbusStarsF. Murray AbrahamElizabeth BanksAdrien BrodyModern day celebrities interpret excerpts from memoirs written by people who knew Marilyn Monroe as well as her recently discovered personal journals and letters.
- DirectorWim WendersStarsWim WendersMichelangelo AntonioniMaroun BagdadiDuring the '35th Cannes International Film Festival' (14th-26th May 1982), German director Wim Wenders asked a sample of 15 other international film directors to get, each one at a time, into the same hotel room to answer in solitude the same question about the future of cinema, while they were filmed with a 16mm camera and recorded with a Nagra sound recorder. In social sciences the goal of standardization is that each person is exposed to the same question experience, and that the recording setting of answers is the same, too, so that any differences in the answers can be correctly interpreted as reflecting differences between persons rather than differences in the process that produced the answer. The wide sampling frame in "Room 666" included European 'auteurs' and Hollywood directors, narrative and experimental filmmakers, male and female professional film directors that presented their films or were simply present at the 35th Cannes Festival in May 1982. The directors came from France, Italy, Brazil, Lebanon, Germany, Turkey, the Philippines and the USA. This unique documentary shows the complete footage (or selected parts) of the 15 answers that resulted from this 'standardized survey interviews'. The historical value of "Room 666" has increased over time: The 5 directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Yilmaz Güney, Maroun Bagdadi, Robert Kramer and Michelangelo Antonioni have died since then in this order. Fassbinder died only a few weeks later on June 10th 1982 and gave his last 'interview' in "Room 666".
- DirectorKirsten JohnsonStarsKirsten JohnsonAisha BukarEric W. DavisExposing her role behind the camera, Kirsten Johnson reaches into the vast trove of footage she has shot over decades around the world. What emerges is a visually bold memoir and a revelatory interrogation of the power of the camera.
- DirectorDouglas McGrathStarsAnn-MargretAnne BancroftRichard BurtonFilmmaker Mike Nichols sits down with theater director Jack O'Brien to discuss his personal life and professional work.
- DirectorJacob BernsteinNick HookerStarsTom HanksSteven SpielbergAmy AdamsA look at the life and work of writer/filmmaker Nora Ephron.