Note: Air Dates subject to change.

Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About

2-hours
Air Date: February 18, 2009

In a life that inspired controversy, no one disputes the place that Jerome Robbins holds as the preeminent director/choreographer of American musical theater. He transformed Broadway with shows such as West Side Story, Gypsy and Fiddler on the Roof and he forged a career in ballet, first at American Ballet Theatre, then at New York City Ballet. This son of an immigrant deli owner was known for his often ruthless perfectionism and was dogged by his decision in 1953 to name names in his House Committee on Un-American Activities testimony. He was, nevertheless, universally respected for his unparalleled artistry. The program features excerpts from Robbins’ work, including never-before-seen rehearsal footage, and interviews with many of his colleagues, both from ballet and Broadway, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Suzanne Farrell, and Chita Rivera.

Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts

90-minutes
Air Date: April 8, 2009

The filmmaker Scott Hicks – director of the 1996 award winning feature film Shine and the recently released No Reservations, for which Glass wrote the score – documents an extremely eventful, but apparently typical, year in the career and personal life of the distinguished composer, as he interacts with family, friends and colleagues. Romping with his young children on the Nova Scotia coastline, cooking pizza and deconstructing philosophy in the farmhouse kitchen, creating new works in his cluttered home studio or collaborating with Chuck Close, Ravi Shankar and Woody Allen, this film follows Glass across three continents – from his annual ride on the Coney Island “Cyclone” in Brooklyn, to the world premiere of his new opera in Germany and in performance with a didgeridoo virtuoso in Australia. It is an intimate, often verité, portrait of artistic sensibility.

Hollywood Chinese

90-minutes
Air Date: May 27, 2009

From the first Chinese American film produced in 1916, to Ang Lee’s triumphant Brokeback Mountain nine decades later, Hollywood Chinese brings together a fascinating group of actors, writers, directors – and iconic film images – to examine how Chinese people have contributed to and been portrayed in an industry that was often ignorant and dismissive about race. Moving far beyond the stereotypical and exotic images of Suzy Wong and Bruce Lee, such artists as Wayne Wang, Joan Chen, David Henry Hwang, Nancy Kwan and Amy Tan, among many others, share their experiences of being “the other.” Often humorous, sometimes maddening, but always inspiring, these storytellers and film clips from more than 90 films – some dating back to the 1890s – weave a rich tapestry and complex history.

Neil Young: Don’t be Denied

Air Date: June 10, 2009

Neil Young grants rare and unprecedented access for this documentary in which he traces his musical journey in his own words. The film was made from three hours of interview shot in NY and California and utilizes previously unseen performance footage from the star’s own extensive archives. It also features cohorts Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Nils Lofgren and James Taylor. From his early transcontinental American quest for recognition, through the first flush of success with Buffalo Springfield to the bi-polar opposites of mega-stardom with Crosby, Stills and Nash and the soulful rock of Crazy Horse, Young’s career has enjoyed many guises. The film takes Young through his rise in the ’60’s, his solo artist period in the ’70’s, his ’80’s embrace of the New Wave and Devo collaboration, and ends with Young still refusing to be denied, pursuing a more eclectic musical approach but also touring in the USA with Crosby Stills Nash Young and teaming on occasion with Crazy Horse.

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes

90-minutes
Air Date: July 1, 2009

Lake Wobegon – where the women are strong, the men are good looking and all the children are above average – has become America’s collective hometown, visited weekly for the past 40 years on a fictional radio program that creates authentic nostalgia. With his Prairie Home Companion, Keillor became our national philosopher, filling the empty shoes of Will Rogers and Mark Twain, through his running commentary about the human condition and the social politic. With biting wit, a quirky perspective and an uncanny ability to hone in on the pulse of America, Keillor’s themes and characters are somehow familiar to us all, resonating a shared experience. For more than a year, our camera has followed this great raconteur – and his motley crew of actors, musicians and technical staff – as he criss-crosses the country, broadcasting, recording and revealing himself.

Trumbo

90-minutes
Air Date: Fall 2009

Adapted from his son Christopher’s 2003 play and based on the remarkable letters Dalton Trumbo wrote during the devastation wrought by the ‘Red Scare’ in mid-20th century. With credits for Kitty Foyle and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo to his name – and the anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun – the young Trumbo was one of the highest paid Hollywood writers. Refusing to testify before HUAC in ‘47, he was part of the group known as the Hollywood Ten – convicted for contempt, he spent 11 months in federal prison and lost all right to ply his craft. Writing 30 scripts under pseudonyms – he won an Oscar in ’56 for The Brave One as Robert Reich – he was not recognized publicly again until 1960, when Otto Preminger credited him on Exodus and Kirk Douglas did so on Spartacus – actions considered to mark the end of the blacklist. As late as 1993, Trumbo was awarded a posthumous Acadamy Award for Roman Holiday (’53.)

Joan Baez

90-minutes
Air Date: October 2009

Told often from her perspective, but supported by a rich performance and historical archive, the centerpiece of this film is Baez’ many years as a musician, her power as an artist, those who influenced her and those she influenced. From her earliest recordings, Baez introduced ever wider audiences to the songs of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Johnny Cash and, of course, Bob Dylan – before she began writing her own music. The thread of the film is a series of pointed, intimate, unscripted conversations between Baez and those whose lives paralleled hers, revealing the details of her story organically and in context. With Bonnie Raitt, we see how a Quaker upbringing shaped their world views; with Vaclav Havel, we learn of their work with Amnesty International. Without gimmicks, this film is true to the purity of Baez’ voice and illuminates her music.

Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women

90-minutes
Air Date: December 28, 2009

The author of Little Women is an almost universally recognized name. Her reputation as a morally upstanding New England spinster, reflecting the conventional propriety of late 19th century Concord, is firmly established. However, raised among reformers and Transcendentalists and skeptics, the intellectual protégé of Emerson and Hawthorne and Thoreau, Alcott was actually a free thinker, with democratic ideals and progressive values about women – a worldly careerist of sorts. Most surprising is that she led, under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, a literary double life, not discovered until the 1940s. As Barnard, Alcott penned scandalous, sensational works with characters running the gamut from murderers and revolutionaries to cross-dressers and opium addicts – a far cry from her familiar fatherly mentors, courageous mothers and appropriately impish children!