Light Keeps Me Company (2000), It's All True (1993), Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001), Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin (2003), The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera (1996), Cameraman: The Life & Work of Jack Cardiff (2010), A Decade Under the Influence (2003), That's Entertainment! III (1994) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Film Legacy movies.
Storyline: Director Carl-Gustaf Nykvist visits colleagues and friends of his father, Swedish filmmaker Sven Nykvist.
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, cinematography, film history, director, interviews, black and white photography ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In 1942, fresh off the success of "Citizen Kane," director Orson Welles journeys to Brazil to make a documentary. The unscripted look at bullfighting, the samba and three fisherman making a voyage of protest on the open sea stuns the studio with its daring storytelling and politics. The unfinished film is scuttled, and so is the director's career. The story of the debacle is told through interviews with Welles and others involved in the project, plus rarely viewed scenes from the documentary.
Plot Keywords: documentary, 1940s, film history, hollywood, independent film, biography, filmmaking ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Narrated by Tom Cruise, "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" goes through each one of his movies and talks to various participants about their memories of working with Kubrick. For those who know very little about Kubrick, the documentary is an excellent career overview. Kubrick film clips include "Fear and Desire," "Killer's Kiss," "The Killing," "Paths of Glory," "Spartacus," "Lolita," "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "A Clockwork Orange," "Barry Lyndon," "The Shining," "Full Metal Jacket" and "Eyes Wide Shut." Those appearing include: Arthur C. Clarke, Keir Dullea, Shelley Duvall, James B. Harris, Richard Schickel, Michael Herr, Nicole Kidman, Anya Kubrick, Christiane Kubrick, Gert Kubrick, Katharina Kubrick, Paul Mazursky, Jack Nicholson, Malcolm McDowell, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Douglas Trumbull, Marie Windsor, Matthew Modine, Sydney Pollack and Peter Ustinov.—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: biography, documentary, director, filmmaking, film history, hollywood, behind the scenes ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Narrated by Sydney Pollack, film critic Richard Schickel's dazzling two-hour plus documentary to one of the towering figures in film: Charles Chaplin. Hardcore Chaplin fans may not find much new material here, but more unfamiliar admirers will gain some valuable information about one of the most famous personalities of the 20th century. Schickel has constructed the documentary as a chronological survey of Chaplin's work, starting with his most significant shorts and covering all of his features. Schickel supports his narration with testimony from artists familiar with Chaplin's work and family members who offer personal insights into the comedian's life. The documentary plays down but doesn't ignore the controversies that swirled around Chaplin's private life. But the main focus is on the films. They include some of the best-loved movies of all time. Clips from "Kid Auto Races at Venice," the 1914 Keystone short in which Chaplin first used his Tramp costume, reveal a startlingly modern technique and sensibility, as if the filmmakers were predicting and mocking reality TV. Subsequent shorts show Chaplin refining his 'Little Tramp' character while absorbing the essentials of filmmaking. By the time he made "Easy Street," in 1917, Chaplin had perfected a combination of knockabout farce and Victorian sentiment that still proves irresistible. Chaplin's early features, including "The Kid," "The Gold Rush" and "City Lights," were such blockbuster hits that he could essentially ignore the coming of sound for almost a decade. Those making appearances on the program include Woody Allen, Richard Attenborough, Jeanine Basinger, Claire Bloom, Geraldine Chaplin. Sydney Chaplin, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Milos Forman, Bill Irwin, Norman Lloyd, Marcel Marceau, David Raksin, David Robinson, Andrew Sarris, Martin Scorsese and Jeffrey Vance.—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: biography, documentary, film history, silent film, comedy, hollywood, filmmaking ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In a documentary about Samuel Fuller, the spectator gets different impressions about the Hollywood director and his films. The film is divided into the three sections: The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera. The first segment covers Fuller's past as a newsman where he began as a copy boy and ended as a reporter. Part two describes Fuller's experiences in World War II, in which he participated as a soldier. The last section focuses on Fuller as director. Tim Robbins interviews Samuel Fuller revealing the director's own memories and impressions. Beside the interview, Jim Jarmusch, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino accompany the documentary with their comments.—Gerhard Windecker <g.wind@mbox300.swipnet.se>
Plot Keywords: documentary, film history, independent film, director, filmmaking, biography, film criticism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.—Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Plot Keywords: biography, documentary, film history, hollywood, filmmaking, art, visual arts ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Between the death of the old Hollywood studio system and the rise of the counterculture, the late 1960s and early '70s were a near-revolutionary time in American filmmaking, as detailed in this documentary by Ted Demme and Richard LaGravanese. Equally influenced by the foreign films of art-house cinemas and the cheap B-movies of late-night TV, eager young filmmakers and actors rewrote Hollywood's rules. This film includes interviews with most of the era's leading figures.
Plot Keywords: documentary, film history, hollywood, 1970s, directors, producers, actors ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Some of MGM's musical stars review the studio's history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) to Brigadoon (1954), from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain (1952), are examined.—Kelly
Plot Keywords: musical, classic, song and dance, hollywood, golden age, mgm, documentary ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Directed and co-produced by Stephen La Riviere and hosted by Lady Penelope and Parker themselves, 'Filmed in Supermarionation' is a screen adaptation of his book of the same name and features a wealth of previously unseen archive footage, brand new interviews with the surviving casts and crews and clips from the shows themselves. A highlight of the film are ingenious and accurate recreations of the pioneering techniques used in the productions.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: documentary, special effects, puppetry, nostalgia, science fiction, film technology, behind the scenes ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.—Col Needham <col@imdb.com>
Plot Keywords: musical, classic, song and dance, nostalgia, hollywood, golden age, mgm ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The life of Robert Altman over the course of his career as a filmmaker is told in roughly chronological order. It is presented largely through archival footage, including of his interviews and of his and his longtime wife Kathryn Reed's home movies. It includes his rocky start in Hollywood as an aspiring screenwriter, which instead led to him working as a general filmmaker for an industrial film company. This work led to directing assignments for a number of television series back in Hollywood, where he butted heads with a number of studio executives and producers who did not appreciate his style of filmmaking in his desire to insert a sense a realism in whatever the project, that realism which includes hanging story-lines and overlapping dialogue, often in multiple equally important conversations in a single setting which forces the viewer to decide which conversation he/she wants to focus. This situation often led to him trying to achieve what he wanted either in not telling or flying beneath the radar of the studio executive and producers. Altman's cachet in Hollywood took a meteoric turn upward with the film M*A*S*H (1970) which all other directors approached had turned down, it which ended up being a box-office smash and critically acclaimed, including winning that year's coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Over the remaining course of his filmmaking life which included some highs and lows (including a string of box office and critical failures in the late 1970s and early 1980s), he tried to instill a sense of of family among the cast and crew of his sets. Beyond his marriage to Kathryn, the personal side to the story includes his being father to a number of children and step-children who would enter into the business, and some health issues, one which ended up in him having a heart transplant of which he did not tell the public until ten years after the fact. Interspersed with the archive footage is a number of celebrities - actors who have worked in his films and contemporaries influenced by his work - who give their definition of the adjective "Altmanesque".—Huggo
Plot Keywords: documentary, director, hollywood, film history, biography, filmmaking, independent film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Internationally renowned director Margarethe von Trotta takes a closer look at Bergman's life and work and explores his film legacy with Bergman's closest collaborators, both in front and behind the camera, as well as a new generation of filmmakers. The documentary presents key scenes, recurring themes in his films and his life, and journeys to the places at the center of Bergman's creative achievement and the focal points of his life such as the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, locations and landscapes from his masterpieces, and the stations from his career in Sweden, France and Germany. Explore the many layers of Bergman's work and life with INGMAR BERGMAN - LEGACY OF A DEFINING GENIUS.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: documentary, film history, biography, filmmaking, art film, classic cinema, film criticism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Great Directors, directed by Angela Ismailos, features conversations with ten of the world's greatest living directors: Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Liliana Cavani, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles. The film documents Ismailos' voyage of discovering the creative personalities behind the camera. She explores the filmmakers' artistic evolution and personal identity, the role of politics and history on their work, and the agony and dilemmas in the creative process. It also examines the challenges of being an artist in an age of commercialism and globalization. The film traces the influence of cinematic movements and iconic directors on these directors' work-from the role of Neo-Realism in Bertolucci's evolution to the influence of Federico Fellini on David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman on Catherine Breillat and Rainer Werner Fassbinder on Todd Haynes.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: documentary, film history, filmmaking, cinematic art, hollywood, independent film, film criticism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The movie is based on real events and deals with the background to the shooting of Lang's thriller "M - A City is Looking for a Murderer." It is 1930 and Fritz Lang has been successfully active in the film business for eleven years. He is looking for material for a new film, a sound film. He is tired of the large-scale projects, his next film is said to be significantly smaller. In addition, there is a crisis in his relationship with Thea von Harbou, who seems to be more and more enthusiastic about the ideals of National Socialism. During his research, he comes across reports about a serial killer from Düsseldorf. He travels from Berlin to the Rhineland and joins the crime commissioner Ernst, who heads the investigation. Peter is arrested as a suspect, Fritz is given the opportunity to interview him. When he meets Anna, friend of a victim and suspected eyewitness, he is overwhelmed by memories of his first wife Lisa, who looks immensely similar to Anna, and who shot Peter when she caught him with Thea von Harbou.
Plot Keywords: biography, documentary, film history, german cinema, film noir, expressionism, art film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Martin Scorsese shows excerpts of 30 pre-1961 classic Italian films, explaining their historical significance and how each influenced his work.
Plot Keywords: documentary, film history, italian cinema, director's perspective, film criticism, film analysis, film art ...
Movie Details Click Here !