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Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel: Watch the Full Documentary

colin fitzpatrick — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:23:23 +0000

Watch the full documentary Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel here on the American Masters web site.

Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel engages leading historians, biographers and personal friends to reveal a complex woman who experienced profound identity shifts during her life and struggled with the two great issues of her day: the changing role of women and the liberation of African Americans. A charismatic force until a tragic accident lead to her death at age 48, Mitchell rebelled against the stifling social restrictions placed on women: as an unconventional tomboy, a defiant debutante, a brazen flapper, one of Georgia’s first female newspaper reporters, and, later, as a philanthropist who risked her life to fund African American education. Emmy®-winning executive producer/writer Pamela Roberts uses reenactments based on Mitchell’s personal letters and journals to show how her upbringing and romantic relationships influenced the creation of Gone With the Wind. The film also explores Scarlett and Rhett’s place as two of the world’s greatest lovers and the public’s initial reception to the book and David O. Selznick’s 1939 epic film – from racial lightning rod to model for survival. 2012 marks the 75th anniversary of Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize win for the only book published during her lifetime and Gone With the Wind’s lasting popularity seems permanently etched in the American cultural landscape.

Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel: Outtakes: The Grand Premiere

colin fitzpatrick — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:42:29 +0000

The premiere of the blockbuster movie Gone With the Wind took place in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. With crowds swelling to the hundreds of thousands, it was apparent the South had been waiting a long time for this moment. For many, Margaret Mitchell’s story of survival helped to redeem the South from decades of pain and suffering experienced after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel premieres nationally on Monday, April 2 from 9-10 p.m (check local listings).

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Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel: Outtakes: Pat Conroy – My Mother and Gone With The Wind

colin fitzpatrick — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:36:57 +0000

One of the great writers of our time, Pat Conroy tells a poignant story of growing up in the South and listening to his mother read Gone With the Wind with heartfelt emotion and joy. The author of The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini and The Lords of Discipline attributes his mother’s impassioned love of Gone With the Wind to his decision to become a novelist. Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel premieres nationally on Monday, April 2 from 9-10 p.m (check local listings).

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Harper Lee: Hey, Boo: About the Documentary

colin fitzpatrick — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:39:32 +0000

One of the biggest bestsellers of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) is the first and only novel by a young woman named Nelle Harper Lee, who once said that she wanted to be South Alabama’s Jane Austen. Lee won the Pulitzer Prize and became a mystery when she stopped speaking to press in 1964. Harper Lee: Hey, Boo premieres nationally Monday, April 2 at at 10 p.m. preceded by Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel at 9 p.m. (check local listings).

Watch a preview:

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More than 50 years after its publication, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages worldwide, still sells nearly one million copies each year and is required reading in most American classrooms, making it quite possibly the most influential American novel of the 20th century. The 1962 film version, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, won a trio of Academy Awards.

Harper Lee: Hey, Boo chronicles how this beloved novel came to be written, provides the context and history of the Deep South where it is set, and documents the many ways the novel has changed minds and shaped history. For teachers, students or fans of the classic, Hey, Boo enhances the experience of reading To Kill a Mockingbird.

Containing never-before-seen photos and letters, Hey, Boo features insightful interviews with friends and an exclusive interview with Lee’s sister, Alice Finch Lee (age 99 at filming), who share intimate recollections, anecdotes and biographical details for the first time, offering new insight into the life and mind of Harper Lee, including why she never published again. Oprah Winfrey; Tom Brokaw; Pulitzer Prize-winners Rick Bragg, Anna Quindlen, Richard Russo, Jon Meacham, and Diane McWhorter; and civil rights leader Andrew Young address the novel’s power, influence, and popularity, and the many ways it has shaped their lives.

Interviewees (in alphabetical order):

Mary Badham – actress, played Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Boaty Boatwright – casting director, To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Rick Bragg – author
Tom Brokaw – news anchor, journalist and author
Joy Brown – Lee’s friend
Michael Brown – Lee’s friend
Reverend Thomas Lane Butts – Pastor Emeritus of Lee’s church
Rosanne Cash – musician and author
Mark Childress – author
Jane Ellen Clark – former director, The Monroe County Heritage Museum
Allan Gurganus – author
David Kipen – former director of literature, National Endowment for the Arts
Wally Lamb – author
Alice Finch Lee – Lee’s sister
James McBride – author and musician
Diane McWhorter – historian
Jon Meacham – historian
James Patterson – author
Anna Quindlen – author
Richard Russo – author
Lizzie Skurnick – author
Lee Smith – author
Adriana Trigiani – author
Mary Tucker – educator and Monroeville, Alabama resident
Scott Turow – author
Oprah Winfrey – TV and film producer, founder of O, The Oprah magazine, radio programmer, actress, philanthropist, and chairman of Harpo Inc.
Andrew Young – civil rights leader

Harper Lee: Hey, Boo is a production of Mary Murphy & Company, LLC. Mary McDonagh Murphy is producer, writer and director. Rich White is director of photography. Christopher Seward is editor and producer. Susan Lacy is the series creator and executive producer of American Masters.

American Masters is made possible by the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding for American Masters is provided by Rosalind P. Walter, The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, Rolf and Elizabeth Rosenthal, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Jack Rudin, Vital Projects Fund, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Michael & Helen Schaffer Foundation, and public television viewers.

I.M. Pei: Interview with Anne Makepeace, the Director/Writer of I.M. Pei: Building China Modern

colin fitzpatrick — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:07:10 +0000

Anne Makepeace, who previously worked with American Masters as writer/producer/director of Robert Capa: In Love and War as well as Edward Curtis: Coming to Light, answers questions about the making-of I.M. Pei: Building China Modern. In this interview she talks about the challenges of filming in China, her creative process when interviewing subjects and documenting a story, and her admiration for Pei’s body of work.

What first got you interested in doing a film on I.M. Pei?

When Eugene Shirley, the producer of I. M. Pei: Building China Modern, contacted me back in 2003 to ask I would be interested in directing a film about Pei, I was very excited about the idea. I had seen Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre and other buildings done by him – CAA in LA, the East Wing of the National Museum of Art – and was eager to find out more about the man behind these great works. Eugene had been directing as well as producing up until that time, but found that producing itself was more than full time, especially in China. I was very happy to be asked to take over that role.

While making the film, did you learn anything that surprised you about Pei?

I was amazed at the sheer number and variety of buildings Pei had designed and built. And I found the story of his exile from China very compelling. Pei left China in 1935 at age 17 to study engineering, intending to return home at the end of his studies. For decades his return was interrupted by war and revolution, keeping him in the United States for his whole adult life. Then at the age of 85, he was asked to design an art museum for his hometown city of Suzhou. The story of the “Return of the Native” was very compelling for me.

Are there any interesting anecdotes about the filming or the interviewees?

Suzhou Museum, Night View, I.M. Pei Architect with Pei Partnership Architects. Photo by: Kerun Ip

Filming in China presented huge challenges for the production. We were constantly shadowed by friendly but strict representatives of the Communist Party, including our translators, so we were not able to hear any negative points of view about the museum, which after all was extremely controversial in that it required destroying neighborhoods in an area protected by UNESCO, which had designated that part of Old Suzou as a World Heritage Site. When interviewing officials, we were required to adhere to a very strict list of questions. Filming Pei at the Louvre was a joy, however – he seemed very free and happy to be there, and that shoot provided an opening to the film that enabled audiences to enter into the story of tradition vs. modernism, our focus in China.

Please describe your approach to the film.

During interviews, I like to prepare a list of questions, but then to be spontaneous and open to following interesting threads that I may not have foreseen. I also like to get as much verité footage of everything that is happening around the subject of the film, and then to discover the story in the footage during editing.

What were some of the obstacles in achieving your vision of the film?

This was one of the rare films that I directed but did not produce, and Eugene’s and my visions were not always the same. I was more interested in the biographical and personal aspects of Pei’s life and how these influenced his design of the museum; while Eugene’s focus was very much on the theme of the film – tradition vs modernism – as reflected in the in the creation of the Suzhou museum. In the end, we created a film that we are both very proud of.

Please describe your background credits, how maybe they led to this film.

Eugene contacted me in 2003 after seeing my recently completed documentary, Robert Capa: In Love and War, which I had written, produced and directed for American Masters. Apparently, he liked what he saw there, and I had also been recommended to him by people at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and elsewhere. The Capa film, as well as my previous film on Edward S. Curtis, which was also broadcast on American Masters, gave him confidence that I could direct a strong film about an artist and his work.