Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman goes behind the scenes at the National Gallery in a journey to the heart of a museum inhabited by masterpieces of Western art from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. This three-hour epic has no voiceover, no score and no added sound effects. Combining a vivid sense of how vast the gallery's many activities are with an eye for droll observational detail, the film reveals how the gallery works and its relations with its staff, public and paintings.
Julien Temple's epic time-travelling voyage to the heart of his hometown. From musicians, writers and artists to dangerous thinkers, political radicals and above all ordinary people, this is the story of London's immigrants, its bohemians and how together they changed the city forever. Reaching back to the dawn of film in London at the start of the 20th century, the story unfolds through film archive, voices of Londoners past and present and the flow of popular music across the century; a stream of urban consciousness, like the river which flows through its heart. It ends now, as London prepares to welcome the world to the 2012 Olympics.
Iconic writer, director, actor, comedian and musician Woody Allen allowed his life and creative process to be documented on-camera for the first time. With this unprecedented access, Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Robert B. Weide followed the notoriously private film legend over a year and a half to create the ultimate film biography.
The Joker, Lex Luthor, Catwoman, Doomsday, Bane. What makes them so thrillingly watchable? So terribly wonderful? So extremely vital to our super heroes and their worlds? This feature-length documentary explores these questions across seven decades of DC Comics’ hallowed Rogues’ Gallery of infamous evildoers. Narrated by esteemed film villain Christopher Lee,examines the tortured psyches of your favorite animation, comic book, game, TV and feature film baddies – both from the past and into the future – against the backdrop of culture, history and society. Insights from famed creators and storytellers, including Zack Snyder, Guillermo del Toro, Jim Lee, Geoff Johns and Richard Donner, shine a fascinating light on those malevolent, charismatic characters who thrive in the dark.
Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal. 'Ruling by the Book.' Janina begins her journey with the first Anglo-Saxon rulers to create a united England, encountering books in the British Library's Royal manuscripts collection which are over a thousand years old and a royal family tree which is five metres long. Janina finds out about a king who had a reputation for chasing nuns and reads a book created as a wedding gift for a ten-year-old prince. She roams from Westminster Abbey to other ancient English spiritual sites such as Winchester, St Albans and Malmesbury, and sees for herself how animal skins can be transformed into the finest vellum.
