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- Documentary series focusing on great American artists and personalities.
- An intimate and candid look at the life and art of the legendary composer-lyricist.
- An interview with 'Tex Avery'.
- Author-critic Anthony Burgess explores in a free-wheeling way perspectives of James Joyce's great experimental novel "Finnegans Wake". He is in the unusual setting of an Irish pub, utilizing a variety of props to illustrate his points. Burgess, erudite and ironic, brings in photographs, history and even sings a song from the book -- the "Ballad of Persse O'Reilly." All this with Burgess leaning on the big wooden bar of the pub. Internationally known author Burgess ("A Clockwork Orange", "ReJoyce", etc.) has always been fascinated by "Finnegans Wake", its idiosyncratic language, its enormously complicated structure, and its attempt to address those most universal human questions of life, death, sex, mind, and mankind's fall and resurrection.
- Primer on the meaning, techniques and background of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Keir Dullea, who starred in the film as astronaut Bowman, narrates on camera and over many excerpts from the film.
- Excerpts from the 1937 musical comedy by composer-lyricist Harold Rome. Originally written for the International Ladies Garment Union, it ran for four years. Here Rome with two pianos and five singers discusses and performs songs from the current revival. Includes "Sing me a song of social significance", "Nobody makes a pass at me", "It's better with a union man", "I want to be a G-Man", "Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones" (Rome himself sings here), "One big union" (Rome himself sings here), "Sunday in the Park" (Rome's first Hit Parade "hit").
- Profile of Andre Kertesz, the "father of 35mm photography," 80 years old and living in New York (1978). He talks about his life and career and describes the genesis of some of his best known works. Several scenes show him at work in the streets of New York. Illustrated with many photographs.
- Film director Hitchcock discusses his life and career in long talks with Pia Lindstrom (newscaster and daughter of Hitchcock star Ingrid Berman) and with film historian William Everson. Excerpts from several films illustrate these interviews. Discussion topics include: what is fear?, method acting vs. film acting, the difference between the usual "Who Done It" mystery and what he considers to be real suspense. His choice of leading ladies and why (Bergman, Baxter, Kelly, Marie Saint, Leigh, etc.).
- French Chef Pierre Franey and N.Y. Times Food critic Craig Claiborne, plus assorted culinary colleagues Hughes Franey, Jean Vergnes, and Jacques Pepin, produce an authentic American clambake -- with a few Gallic touches -- on the beach outside Franey's house at East Hampton, Long Island, N.Y. Scenes include: Gathering clams, digging the pit, making the bed of stones, gathering wood for the fire, raking seaweed, shucking corn, wrapping food in cheesecloth, sifting sand, raking off burned logs, sealing pit with seaweed, slicing cooked lobsters, putting food on trays, guests taking food. The menu includes French sausage, the dessert is watermelon. The crowd seen enjoying this banquet included about twenty neighbors and friends, children and dogs, and Howard Johnson, owner of the restaurant chain which was soon to be Franey's employer.
- Anais Nin, filmed at the point in her life when she was passing from being a bohemian writer to being a widely read figure taken up by a new generation, reads selections from volume one of her just (1966) published Diary. This diary eventually went into many volumes and through its brutal honesty made her something of a cult figure on college campuses and in the new "women's liberation" movement. Many photos from her personal collection illustrate her life and world. The key passages read here deal with her childhood, her decision to keep a diary as a never-ending letter to her absent father, Europe in the 1930's, Henry Miller and his friends, and her fascination for the Surrealist movement and for psychoanalysis.
- Two of Brecht's "practice pieces for actors" are performed: "Romeo and Juliet" translated by George Tabori and "Hamlet" translated by Michael Lebeck. (These pieces are virtually unknown to students and are never performed.) Performers: Lotte Lenya, Micki Grant, David Rounds, Rudolph Weiss, Oliver Clark, Roscoe Lee Browne. These are dramatic scenes which Brecht wrote and had his own actors rehearse as preparation for full-length productions of the corresponding Shakespeare plays. The scenes reduce the "heroic" stature of the Shakespearean characters by showing them as ordinary people with the usual needs and vices, living in a world where economics is inevitably more influential than principle. The idea, in Socialist East Germany where Brecht lived and worked, was that the actors' own egos would be deflated by these scenes, and the result would be a more "human" portrayal. The scenes were therefore rehearsed but then omitted from actual performance of the full play.
- Documentary on the importance of calligraphic styles in different aspects of Japanese life, and the importance placed on good writing technique. Includes scenes of school children learning to write, citizens' writing competitions, calligraphy masters whose work is collected as art, styles of writing associated with billboards, menus, kabuki theater, etc. Also includes a brief analysis of the difference between modern Japanese writing and the older traditional ideograms.
- Documentary about kendo, the senior martial arts form, in which contestants use bamboo staves as dueling weapons. Includes scenes filmed in practice studios, competitions, the Budokan -- Tokyo's main exhibition hall. Also includes demonstrations of many other martial arts forms, and of art and film that illustrate the importance of disciplined fighting in Japanese culture.
- Francois Truffaut in conversation in 1977 with Richard Roud, then Director of the New York Film Festival. Truffaut, director of "Jules and Jim," "The Four Hundred Blows," " Bed and Board," "The Story of Adele H.," etc. was in America for the premier of "The Man Who Loved Women" at the 15th New York Film Festival. It was Truffaut's first US television appearance. The conversation is in French, with voice-over translations. A French-only version also exists. Mr. Roud gives a brief biography of Truffaut and his career. This footage includes clips from several Truffaut films, including his first, "Les Miston" ("The Mischief Makers", 1958.) The film director speaks of his childhood, the moral challenge of World War Two, the real meaning of the "auteur theory", how the conservative French film industry was forced to change, Truffaut as a "culture hero" in the US, making a film that is as personal as a novel, the difference between French and American approaches to cinema, individual films seen in the totality of one's work, gaining understanding and sympathy for a character in a film, Alfred Hitchcock's relationship to his characters, plot and story-telling, and many other themes.
- Playwright and Screenwriter David Mamet teaches his time worn acting techniques to his students.
- America's great film director-actor Buster Keaton, discussed by film critic Andrew Sarris and Raymond Rohauer, cinema historian, with some unusual perspectives on his goals and motivations. Illustrated with many film excerpts from 1917 to 1928. Rohauer knew Keaton and was partly responsible from rescuing many of his old films from destruction. Sarris is a leading film critic who has often written about Keaton. Excerpts include portions of "The General" (1926) a film illustrating "man versus machine." "Cops" (1922), which questions the meaning of "law and order." "Frozen North", a satire on William Hart films, and "The Boat" in which Keaton goes down but then wades to shore. In "Sherlock, Jr." Keaton is a film projectionist who in dream enters the movie. "College" (1927) spoofs the happy ending, "Steamboat Bill, Jr." mocks the cyclone that destroys everything in its path. Rohauer describes rescuing Keaton's films from a garage and talking with Keaton at the end of his life when he had been forgotten.
- "Life" Magazine photographer-photojournalist W. Eugene Smith and his Japanese wife Aileen talk with photo magazine editor James Hughes and writer William Pierce and show many of the famous pictures Smith took which established the scandal in Minamata, Japan. Fish poisoning caused by chemical dumping by the Chiso Factory caused mysterious diseases, birth deformities, and serious physiological defects in large numbers of villagers who lived by the sea and ate the fish. Chiso and the Japanese government tried to deny the facts and stop an investigation. The Smiths persevered and brought the story to worldwide notice. After many difficulties the victims were compensated. Smith himself was severely beaten in one of the demonstrations that turned violent. Smith's Minamata photographs established a new standard for photojournalism.
- Wide ranging exploration of the ideas of architect Paolo Soleri. With Paolo Soleri, architect, philosopher; Stewart Udall (former Secretary of Interior and head of an environmental consulting firm); Kenneth Gibson, Mayor of Newark, N.J.; Alvin Toffler, author ("Future Shock", etc.); scientist/future-thinker Arthur C. Clarke ("2001: A Space Odyssey", etc.); Moshe Safdie, architect ("Habitat"); Prof. John Gallahue (Columbia Univ., New York City.) and others. An illustrated series of interviews about Paolo Soleri's ideas. Themes: architecture, the future of urban centers, the Earth's ability to sustain itself under the increasing load of human population, the interaction of art and utility, the future of ideas we take for granted,( such as progress and technology), and the changing nature of man himself. Stewart Udall is on-camera host and voice-over narrator. Soleri is seen in dialog with a wide range of persons whose concerns and expertise intersect his own ideas. A great deal of film and photographs illustrate the themes discussed. The main theme discussed in this footage: cities are the man made landscape and are essential to the continuation of civilization; but new cities must evolve in response to a changing world; they must be integrated places, built up into three dimensions, not out endlessly across the landscape..
- Stan VanDerBeek, experimental filmmaker at work with friend and computer expert Wade Shaw, at the sophisticated new (1972) computer at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and discussing the inevitable interaction of computers with artistic creativity. Clips from several VanDerBeek films.
- Overview of the life and art of sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Interview of Noguchi, film of many of his sculptures, designs, stage sets, fountains, public spaces, drawings, etc. Filmed in his studio in Long Island City, NY. With scenes of the artist at work and reflecting on his aesthetics. He is interviewed by Faubion Bowers, well-known writer on the arts. Noguchi at 70 talks about art, space, awareness of gravity, balance, the influence of Japan on his work, early influences (Brancusi, Gorki), playgrounds, Martha Graham sets, sheet metal, the IBM Headquarters in Armonk, NY. Other themes and film segments: New York City work, Osaka fountains, in the Alps working where Michelangelo mined his stone, environments in Paris, gardens ("time is either friendly or it destroys...; all returns to earth"), the nature of sculpture ( "it is reflected light"), paper lanterns, in Japan learning from nature and natural mediums, apparent contradiction between nature and the modern world: "Industrialized civilization requires industrial tools... machines instead of hands."
- Stephen Sondheim, composer-lyricist; John Weidman, writer; and Frank Rich, theater critic, in a close study of how one Broadway musical song came to be: "Someone in a Tree" from "Pacific Overtures". Members of the Broadway cast join Sondheim in a performance of the number. Filmed in Sondheim's apartment in New York City. Members of the cast of "Pacific Overtures": Mako, James Dybas, Geddie Watanabe, Mark Hsu Syers. "It's my favorite song of anything I've written," Sondheim said. He demonstrates how he created the song, how the music tracks the libretto, gaining complexity and tension as the text becomes more urgent, how the song becomes a study of perceiving details in a seamless world.
- Filmmakers Costa-Gavras and Marcel Ophuls discuss the nature of films with a sharp political edge, with clips from Costa-Gavras' films. Two internationally known directors who have made a specialty of films with an outspoken political edge discuss the values and methods in the genre, and the problems they have faced. Costa-Gavras was best known for "Z" and "State of Siege", and Ophuls for "The Sorrow and The Pity" and "Sense of Loss" when this conversation -- illustrated with film clips -- was produced. Costa-Gavras' film "Special Section" had just been released. Costa-Gavras' films, though based on real facts and issues, are scripted and professionally acted. Ophuls' work is documentary in style. They address such themes as the difference between "objective" and "subjective" truth, and their personal motives for choosing this form of film art.
- The APA ("Association of Producing Artists") rehearses and discusses scenes from Ibsen's "The Wild Duck".
- The state of radio in a world of television. Hosted by the famous comedy team Bob and Ray, with examples of various kinds of radio shows in production and interviews with the men who are the stars of the medium. Film and photographs illustrate the golden age of radio that was pushed aside by television. With Bob Elliott, radio personality, Ray Goulding, radio personality, E.G. Marshall, actor, Himan Brown, producer-director, Lou Adler, radio news director, Gene Klavan, radio personality, Norm N. Nite, FM radio personality, Tom Meehan, writer, playwright. Featured: production of the "CBS Mystery Theater", sound effects, reflections of how comedy differs when it is only heard and not seen, production of an all-music format. Also: reflections on "top 40's" radio, on "old-gold" and "black" radio, and on the new "listener-sponsored" stations.
- Profile of Jean Gabin, the great French actor of 100 films, who died in 1976 at the age of 73. Here his career is traced and he is remembered by some of the many producers, directors, writers and actors with whom he worked. Illustrated with many photographs and film clips. Narrated by Nadia Gray who played opposite Gabin in the early 50's. Interviews with Directors Rene Clement, Jean Dellanoy, Denys de la Patelliere, Granbier-Deferre. Actors Madeleine Renaud, Michele Morgan, Simone Simon, Jean Desailly, Francois Arnoul, Lino Ventura, Danielle Darrieux. Cinema Critics and Historians Claude Beylie, Robert Chazal. Screenwriter Michel Audiard. 1978.
- Profile of the great film director D.W. Griffith. Ron Mottram, professor of cinema history and director of the Griffith retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (1975) interviews silent film stars Blanche Sweet and Lillian Gish about their careers and working with Griffith. Illustrated with many film clips and photographs. Film excerpts include portions of "Way Down East" (1920), "Intolerance" (1916), "True Heart Susie" (1919) and "Birth of a Nation." Ms. Gish reminisces about the long hours, dangerous situations, and the presentation of character without recourse to spoken dialogue. Film excerpts include portions of "Death's Marathon", "The Painted Lady", "Feud in the Kentucky Hills", "A Corner in Wheat", "The Informer", "Country Doctor", all made in the early years when Griffith worked for the Biograph company, 1908-1913. Ms. Sweet starred in many of these films and reminisces about the method of shooting in those days. These films and dozens of others were often turned out two or three a week, shown briefly, and then never seen again. Some of these films include the first "pans", "zooms" or "close ups" ever used. Griffith invented as he went along.
- Portrait of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, shot in her studio in Munich, Germany and in the nearby Alps. With many photos from her own archive and excerpts from her films, including "Triumph of the Will," "Olympia," and "Tiefland." Extensive interview about her early career as a dancer, as an actress in "mountain films" and finally as a director of "The Blue Light".
- The celebrated African-American author and long-time expatriate Chester Himes discusses his life and work with the young poet-author-political activist Nikki Giovanni. Himes also relates an illustrated memoir of Harlem in the 20's and 30's that he wrote especially for this interview. It features many personal photographs that trace his life and many archive pictures of the times. Himes has had an "underground" following for years for his "surreal" detective fiction and his best known work "Cotton Comes to Harlem." Here he reminisces about the Harlem he knew so well before World War Two, and about America's racial situation which finally drove him into his long exile in Europe. He and Giovanni also discuss the art of fiction and the role of the black writer in America today.
- Scripted documentary about the life and career of painter, experimental film-maker, surrealist Hans Richter. Interview of Richter, examples of his art work, excerpts from his films.
- John Whitney, Sr. one of the early pioneers in films made by computer-driven cameras explains and demonstrates his work. Shot on location at Whitney's home in California, includes excerpts from his films "Matrix 3", "Catalog", "Permutations" and "Lapis." 1975. Making abstract motion in time, and impinging directly on the viewer's emotions as music does -- these were among Whitney's early goals. "Music organizes time in a special way, creates tension in us, then satisfies, gratifies. We can do the same for patterns-- something is going to happen, make it happen in a way you don't expect. Film permutations can be parallel to tones in harmonic sequence; dominant chord resolves into tonic chord." To do this, says Whitney, "we need new tools, and to learn how to control them. They're unlike musical instruments which we have been practicing on for 300 years. We have to start from scratch. "
- The development of film special effects up to the dawn of the computer age. Linwood Dunn, a Hollywood special effects master from the glory days of Hollywood, and Robert Abel, a member of the next generation, each discuss the making of film illusions. Illustrated with film clips. Dunn grew up when the challenge was creating an ape for "King Kong", or making the Eiffel Tower crash down. He shows how the "optical printer" can combine separately recorded images on one strand of film, putting a leopard in a room or a stormy ocean behind a boat. He explains how Welles brought the audience straight through the skylight of the night club in "Citizen Kane", bridging the interior and exterior shots in a flash of lightning. Abel explains how he looks for illusions that don't exist at all in real life, and describes his work as being in the "post 2001" special effects era. His crew has perfected equipment that involves computer driven cameras and printers. One of his demonstrations is of a "7-Up" commercial that starts with one girl and ends with dozens - all printed from the same model.
- A survey of American comic strip art with comments by well-known artists and scenes of them at work. Commentary by Mort Walker, comic artist ("Beetle Bailey", "Hi and Lois") and president of the Museum of Cartoon Art in Rye, New York. Scenes and interviews with Dean Young and Jim Raymond, Ralph Bakshi, Dik Browne, Ray Bradbury, George Lucas, Will Eisner, Milton Caniff, John Cullen Murphy, Sean Kelly, Johnny Romita. 1978. "Comics" has come to mean one-panel drawings, strips with daily continuity, whole books, and several other forms, whether "comic" or not. This footage illustrates the whole range, plus film animation as well. Artists visited include Dean Young and Jim Raymond ("Blondie", then the most widely seen comic strip in the world), Ralph Bakshi (the film "Wizards" and "Lord of the Rings"), Dik Browne ("Hagar the Horrible.") Also included are illustrations from the earliest days of comics ("The Yellow Kid") to "Doonesbury." Ideas, opinions, sacred cows (eg: there are only four comic themes: eating, sleeping, raising children, and making money--"things the whole world can relate to.") Hearst changed comics when he made them a whole section in newspapers. The language of comics: symbols that mean confusion, speed, sleep, etc. and accepted conventions like the dialogue balloon and the dream balloon.
- Gisela May, star of Bertolt Brecht's East German "Berliner Ensemble" theater, in a concert of his songs. The music is by several of the major composers who worked with him: Paul Dessau, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill. The songs are sung in the original German, each preceded by a brief English explanation or accompanied by subtitles. From "Die Dreigroschenoper" ("Threepenny Opera"): "Moritat" ("Mack the Knife"), and "Seerauber Jenny" ("Pirate Jenny"). From "Happy End" the song "Surabaya Johnny." From "Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder" ("Mother Courage"): "Lied des Solomons." From "Schweyk im zweiten Weltkrieg" ("Schweyk in the Second World War"): "Das Moldau Lied." From "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny" ("The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny"): "Alabama Song" (in English.) Also included here: "The Song of the Nazi Soldier's Wife," "Ballade von Marie Sanders," and "Zu Potsdam unter den Eichen."
- Perspectives on poetess Anna Akhmatova, the celebrated Russian poet who bridged Tsarist and Revolutionary Russia, was adored and called "the soul of her time," and who suffered desperately under Stalin's disfavor. Irene Moore, a founder of the American Stanislavsky Theatre, recites Akhmatova's poetry in Russian. Samuel Driver, professor (Brown Univ.), Irene Kirk, professor (Univ. of Connecticut.) who have written about Akhmatova, reminisce about her life and times. Narrated by critic Faubion Bowers. With many photographs of Akhmatova and her world. Themes: Akhmatova, partly because of her vanity and her sufferings, partly because of the American feelings about the Stalin era, and mainly because her poetry weaves so many purely Russian idioms and contexts together, is usually inaccessible in translation to Americans. The academics here are passionate to change that. Driver is the author of a new book on the poet, and Kirk was one of the last Americans to see her alive and hopes to convey something of her importance to the Russians.
- Profile of film director Richard Lester, who speaks of his career, from early work in commercials to the experimental "Running, Jumping, Standing Still Film" with Peter Sellers and The Goon Show cast, through features: the Beatles' film "A Hard Day's Night", "The Knack and How to Get It", "How I Won the War", "The Bed Sitting Room", "The Three Musketeers", "The Four Musketeers." Clips from all these works. Lester talks of "the benevolent dictatorship of being a director", his commitment to the subject of his films, his anti-war message, his desire to widen the understanding of the audience.
- History of "The March of Time" newsreel series, which, before television, covered the news for motion picture audiences 1935 to 1951. Interviews with creative team of producer, director, editors. Many excerpts from the newsreel series. With: Louis De Rochemont, producer. Maury Wiseman, film editor. Jack Glen, director. Lothar Wolff, editor. (All creative personnel on "The March of Time.") Interview subjects cover reporting styles, logistical difficulties with 35 mm. cameras and big lights, the use of reenactments, the difference between the "truth of yesterday and the truth of today and how truth in film is perishable." Reflections on technical details for a "natural look", no zooms or panning, flat lighting, wide angle lens and distortion; and "The March of Time's" influence on today's television journalism. With many excerpts from "The March of Times".
- The character of Falstaff as seen by Shakespeare and Verdi. With performance of scenes from Verdi's "Falstaff" by Geraint Evans and Regina Resnik (Falstaff and Mistress Quickly respectively at the New York City Metropolitan Opera's production, 1964) and Maynard Mack, Professor of English at Yale University. Includes a photo montage of the stages of make-up construction for Mr. Evans and Ms. Resnik. Discussion topics include: did Verdi change the Shakespearean character of Falstaff?, Verdi's identification with Falstaff, who really was Falstaff?
- Profile of composer Earl Robinson, who sings and plays the piano, and discusses his career. Robinson performs the entire "Ballad for Americans," accompanying himself on piano. Robinson discusses his work for The Federal Theater Project (1936) collecting folk songs, and the first performance over CBS Radio of "Ballad for Americans", sung by Paul Robeson and choir, a huge success. He also performs his "The House I Live In" and "Black and White."
- George Dunning -artist, illustrator, film animator - explains his work, draws, tours his studio in England showing how film animation is produced from hand-drawn cells. Many examples of his pictures and films, including "The Flying Man", "Damon the Mower," and the Beatles animated film "The Yellow Submarine". Topics: Techniques that transform drawings and paintings into film --exposure sheets, levels where characters should appear, "peg" animation. Dunning shows how he achieved sequential drawings for "Damon the Mower." His acknowledged debt to Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren.
- Three distinguished theater producer-directors recapture the heady days of the famous Group Theater and discuss its origins, successes, failures, and eventual decline. Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg and Bobby Lewis - all actively involved in American theater production, as well as criticism and history - were among the young pioneers who gave life to one of the country's great experiments in the theater during the 1930s. Clurman and Strasberg, with Cheryl Crawford, were the Group's original founders. Many photographs from the period recall their efforts and collaborators, which included Elia Kazan, Stella Adler, Clifford Odets, Franchot Tone and John Garfield. The Group Theater was active from 1931 to 1940. It came in with the Depression and went out with the World War. It was intended as a forum for plays that would make a political difference in a world that seemed to be sliding backwards. It was intended as a new start in the choosing, casting and presentation of plays. It was a way of exploring acting techniques and of forging a cohesive group of talent that would work together and stay together. And it was intended to be socially conscious and have an effect on American society. To some extent it achieved all these aims. But as Mr. Clurman points out at the end of this vital discussion, its also labored against itself by not having a thoroughly thought out program and the finances to keep it going. Among the Group Theater's most memorable successes were "Awake and Sing" (1935), "Waiting for Lefty" (1935), "Johnny Johnson" (1936), "Golden Boy" (1937), and "My Heart's in the Highlands" (1937). The Group Theater was the first to present the work of Clifford Odets and Marc Blitzstein. Mr. Clurman has written about The Group Theater in his book "The Fervent Years."
- Master tap dancers Honi Coles and Cholly Atkins demonstrate favorite tap steps and routines from the time of World War One ("Over the Top and Through the Trenches") to the mid-sixties ("Bebop"). Music is provided by a small combo. Includes incisive perspectives on tap as the dancers talk with dance authority Marshall Stearns (author of "Jazz Dance.")
- Portrait of composer Marvin Hamlisch, winner of Academy Awards for his scores of the motion pictures "The Sting" and "The Way We Were", and winner of a Tony Award for his music for the long running Broadway hit "A Chorus Line." On this documentary he is seen at work composing, arranging, and recording, chatting with collaborators, and conducting a studio orchestra for the soundtrack of the film Starting Over". The program includes excerpts from several of the films Hamlisch scored, including "The Spy Who Loved Me", "The Swimmer" and "Bananas." Reminiscing about collaboration with Hamlisch are his old friend Joel Grey and Priscilla Lopez, who had a leading role in "A Chorus Line."
- Craig Claiborne, Food Editor of the N.Y. Times, gives a brief history of the state of American cooking at the time of America's third president, Thomas Jefferson, and lauds him as a gourmet who awakened a new view of our palates. Claiborne and Chef Pierre Franey prepare a feast that was served at the White House in the year 1800. Themes: American cooking as "plain". The Puritans had complained, "God sent me; the Devil sent cooks." Jefferson championed "fine food" in America and wrote on food and recipes. His presidency was an "age of hand power:" slaves labored at every level. It was a time of the introduction of the fork in polite society. Jefferson bought the waffle iron and the first pasta machine; he was among the first to make spaghetti here, and helped promote capers, baking powder, vanilla bean, almonds, broccoli, and tomatoes (which were at first considered poisonous). Claiborne announces the menu for this meal: duck, venison, rabbit stew, deviled squabs (prepared to look like frogs), and galantine of turkey --all examples of Jefferson's intention to have the finest kitchen possible in the White House. Claiborne and Franey explain and demonstrate the preparation this meal.
- An adaptation of the off-Broadway production of Nicolai Gogol's short story, "Diary of a Madman", about a clerk's disintegration into madness. Written in 1834, the story contains one of the earliest descriptions of schizophrenia, by turns bizarre, funny and sad. It represents the kind of cutting edge writing that placed Gogol in the forefront of Russian writers, with great influence on the generation that came after him.
- Artist, painter, photographer, filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt explains his aesthetic (voice only) and demonstrates his techniques. With many film excerpts, Burckhardt's own voice and comments by critic Faubion Bowers. Plus still pictures of Burckhardt at work on location and in his studio. Burckhardt was born in Switzerland and has worked in several media, including still photography, film, and paint. At this time he was experimenting with painting on images projected onto his canvas. He was one of the earliest "time lapse" photographers, a technique by which processes that may take weeks or months to achieve in real time are compressed to a few minutes. Included here are excerpts from his films "Pursuit of Happiness", documenting the patterns of pedestrians on a New York City street; "See Naples and..." examining ordinary moments in the life of a busy Italian city; "Haiti", images from the island nation; "Doldrums" about Jersey City, N.J.; "Trash Lives", glorifying the banality of what we leave lying on the streets; and "Caterpillar", a time-lapse view of a day-long journey by an inchworm -- presented in one minute.
- The pioneering film experimenter Stan VanDerBeek at home discusses his work, found images, toys, inventions, the importance of his family and friends, and tours his "moviedrome" for seeing films against the inside of a giant hemisphere. He reflects on "film as an experience, not an artifact". "It is the aesthetic of anticipation, as distinct from that of meditation." Includes excerpts from his films "Will", "See Saw Seams", "Image After Image After Image," and "Poemfield #1".
- Two of the greatest stars of Japan's kabuki theater reveal what has only rarely been seen: the actual acting techniques used in this most difficult and splendid of theater forms. Onoe Shoroku II and Onoe Baiko VII discuss and demonstrate their craft in conversation with the well-known author of works on Asian arts, Faubion Bowers. Includes film of great kabuki performances of the past. These great kabuki actors make the mechanics of theater kata (poses) clear and show some of the gestures and nuances of body language that communicate specific emotions and situations. Baiko, a famous player of women's roles, performs a classic woman's speech in full costume and heavy white-face make-up, and then does the same scene again in plain face and simple clothes. He shows how the Japanese fan speaks in its own language. He and Shoroku act out a fight scene; Shoroku demonstrates one of kabuki's elaborate exit walk sequences, and compares different ways of making stylized gestures.
- A presentation of blues singer Alberta Hunter, famous in the 1920s, 30s and 40s and then almost forgotten until she re-emerged for a celebrated comeback in 1974 in her mid-eighties. On this program she sings several of her favorite and best known songs. Whitney Balliett, music critic for The New Yorker, provides commentary. Miss Hunter's musicians are Gerald Cook (piano) and Al Hall (bass).
- Painter-draftsman-filmmaker-printmaker Alexander Alexeieff, with his wife and co-worker Claire Parker, discuss the use of their "pin-board" technique for illustration and film animation. With excerpts from their films, a demonstration of the pin-board, and film made on location in Paris about the reception of their art.