At his Long Island beach house, and on the occasion of the publication of his masterful nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, reporter Karen Dennison interviews celebrated writer Truman Capote, who displays his exuberant personality, makes witty jokes, shares his thoughts on writing, reflects on various aspects of the book and, in a sweet and endearing voice, reads and explains some of its highlights.
Beginning as a city-symphony of Newark streets, buildings, and people set to wordless chanting, The New-Ark quickly arrives at its political imperatives: Black Power must be accomplished through nationalism, and "a nation is organization." The film focuses on black education, urban public theater, and political consciousness-raising inside and outside of Spirit House - director Amiri Baraka's Black nationalist community center.
A collection of ten vignettes by Tennessee Williams offering various viewpoints on life, love, and death.
A filmed version of Aaron Copland's most famous ballet, with its original star, who also choreographed.
Workers in an auto parts warehouse in 1933 New York City inhabit a bleak, dead-end world in the depths of the Depression where, at least, they have jobs. Introduced by its playwright, Arthur Miller, it was the first in a series of NET Playhouse programs concerning life in America during the Depression years.
A short documentary subject made for National Educational Television's Black Journal television program documenting a political rally in Newark, the 1970 mayoral campaign of Ken Gibson, and an African-American voter registration drive with special musical performance by Stevie Wonder.
In 1967, Canadian documentarian James Beveridge traveled to Kolkata to film director Satyajit Ray at work. The resulting program, produced for the American public television series “The Creative Person,” features interviews with Ray, several of his actors and crew members, and film critic Chidananda Das Gupta.
Documentary of the Symposium on the Dialectics of Liberation and the Demystification of Violence, held in London, July 1967, organized by R.D.Laing, with Stokely Carmichael, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Goodman, Herbert Marcuse, John Gerassi, and many others. An important record of the spectrum of left-wing politics and personalities during the turbulent Sixties.
Reconstructs the case of United States vs. Darby Lumber Company, which, in 1941, resolved long struggles over the question of whether Congress had the right to set minimum wages, limit child labor, and in other respects legislate employment standards.
A poet-astronaut is shot through an area of space called the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum. He is duplicated into infinite copies of himself, each of whom finds himself in a bizarre situations on a different world.
A commemoration of the four-year anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, featuring an intimate interview with his wife, Betty Shabazz.
This program profiles Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, two of pop art's greatest icons. Back-to-back interviews highlight their differences. The voluble Lichtenstein, interviewed in his studio, discusses his methods and the use of familiar objects in his art. The reticent Warhol baits the interviewer, who attempts to extract concrete statements from the elusive artist. The Warhol segment is supplemented by footage of his band, the Velvet Underground; a clip of one of his short films, "Nancy Worthington Fish"; and brief comments from Edie Sedgwick, one of Warhol's proteges.
In this intimate portrait—produced for a segment of National Education Television's "Black Journal" television program—legendary jazz musician Alice Coltrane plays the harp and discusses her thoughts on music, spirituality, family, and the legacy of her late husband, John Coltrane.
Brothers Grimm tales like "The Golden Goose," "The Bremen Town Musicians" and "The Blue Light" come to life in this stripped-down stage production, which forgoes elaborate sets and costumes in favor of creative acting techniques and storytelling.
Piri Thomas, a painter, poet, author, ex-con, and ex-junkie, describes the life of a Puerto Rican in the Spanish Harlem ghetto in New York City.
This documentary reflects on the lives and aspirations of an African American family - the Johns - who moved to West Oakland from Louisiana, focusing on Robert Lee Johns and his mother Agnes.
The 1960s black student movement at Duke University evolved into a separate institution to study and engage with the history and culture of the African diaspora. This film was produced for the National Educational Television (WNET) Black Journal.
Shows the relationship of the Constitution to organized labor. Presents the case of Whitaker et al. v. North Carolina, in which a group of unions challenged the constitutionality of a state ban on the closed shop, the union shop, and other union security provisions. Traces the role of the fourteenth amendment in labor struggles.
A series of programs designed for the adult layman who has a curiosity about the skies and the makeup of the universe in which we live. The terms used during the series are fully explained and materials from a number of great observatories and institutions of learning are used for visual illustration. It begins with the solar system and works outward, stimulating interest in this area and awakening a desire for further study and investigation.
Take This Hammer features KQED's mobile film unit following author and activist James Baldwin in the spring of 1963, as he's driven around San Francisco to meet with members of the local African American community.
