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Art and Culture

DEMOCRACY

DVD / 2020 / 50 minutes

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FAMOUS AUTHORS: JOHN DONNE

John Donne was born into a fascinating and creative period of human history. He got the best education on offer in the England of Queen Elizabeth and hardly out of his teens he was recognised as a poet of astonishing ability. In a period when the pace was set by no less a mortal than Shakespeare Donne had a unique way with words and ideas which delighted and amazed his brightest contemporaries. But it was an age of terrible religious division and as a Roman Catholic by birth he was at once at odds with the prevailing Protestant faith. It was a problem that coloured his whole life and this film covers the course of his work and the struggles he had to make his way. It includes several of his delightful poems and we see how in spite of his travails Donne's positive spirit rose above them all.

DVD / 2020 / 51 minutes

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ARISTOTLE

Undoubtedly one of the most remarkable men who ever lived Aristotle was so industrious in so many fields of science and philosophy that he can be daunting to approach. Film maker Malcolm Hossick here presents him as a warm human being like the rest of us but also someone of remarkable integrity - totally committed to getting at the truth of things and making sense of our lives on earth. Without Aristotle it's difficult to see how we would have got to the level of human development we have. In the complex world of today knowing something more of him can only help each individual to live out a fruitful life. The film covers such details of his everyday life as we have and sets him into the remarkable times in which he lived. When Aristotle arrived in Athens in 383 bc the democracy established there for over eighty years had already been driven out. But the philosopher Plato was there with his Academy and the new views on human life and the rights of the individual were still in place and the astounding evidence of the effect of the democracy in the arts was all around. Staggeringly beautiful buildings, statuary, paintings were everywhere. The new playwrights were thrilling their audiences in the theatres. It was an amazing time to be alive and Aristotle's astonishing talents helped him to make sense of it all and lay the groundwork for all who have followed in his wake trying to understand the remarkable world in which we humans find ourselves. Philosophy in its essence has to be expressed in terms we can all of us grasp otherwise its not much use: here we turn over some of the essential elements of the matters that concerned Aristotle most of all - human behaviour - and the responsibilities towards society we all carry. It's a gripping and fascinating tale and the film makes quite clear why Aristotle made such a mark in his own day and speaks so powerfully to our own times.

DVD / 2019 / 58 minutes

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FAMOUS AUTHORS: GREEK DRAMATISTS

The dramatists of ancient Greece, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides had a huge influence on their own times but they are arguably just as significant today. In this film Malcolm Hossick uncovers how they worked and why their ideas and methods were so revolutionary.

DVD / 2018 / 49 minutes

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LEONARDO

It is 500 years since the death of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most complicated and unusual artists of all time. This film explores the extraordinary world of the renaissance into which he was born and uncovers the main events of his life and the paintings and drawings which have brought him to the astonishing pinnacle of regard he occupies in the world today. Nothing he did was straightforward and without implications for our own times. With all his talent he had to live in the world as it was and deal with it's changing values. The film is a glorious celebration of someone who valued life and gave it his astonishing all.

DVD / 2018 / 48 minutes

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MYSTERY OF ART

The film traces how humans beings have made 'art' from the earliest recorded times. Until the fundamental changes in the way human societies viewed themselves we know as the Renaissance, artists were the servants of the rulers. This is true of all human groups throughout the world. Now in the age of individual freedom artists have come to enjoy a new role. The film explores this change and how art has come to be such a powerful and fruitful force in our daily lives.

DVD / 2018 / 43 minutes

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RENAISSANCE

The Renaissance which began in Italy 600 years ago is probably the most important and astonishing event in human history. Until that time throughout the world tyrants and authoritarian religions controlled the lives of most human beings. War was the means of settling disputes. The lives of the majority of people counted for nothing. The Renaissance changed everything and its effect is now felt in every corner of the globe. This film explores how it began and how it is effecting all our lives today.

DVD / 2018 / 67 minutes

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VAN GOGH

Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 the 5th child of a respected Dutch Protestant priest. Largely self taught he only settled on becoming an artist in his late twenties. He was very practical and knew the difficulties of what he wanted to do. He suffered from depression but in a working career of a dozen or so years he produced some of the best loved paintings of any age. This film introduces some of his greatest works and through some of the letters he wrote to his brother and friends we learn of his approach to his work. Uncomplicated, astonishingly talented and extraordinarily confident Van Gogh was a master of his craft and a great believer in human worth. He produced work which touches the heart of all who see it and the film is a celebration of the man and his art.

DVD / 2018 / 30 minutes

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JANUS EFFECT, THE

We all live with contradictions in our lives. This film explores how contradictions affected the lives of three remarkable men, the Scottish philosopher and ecnomist Adam Smith, an early President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson and the english Scientist Charles Darwin. Their stories are absorbing and have had considerable consequences for the rest of us.

DVD / 2017 / 55 minutes

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NOVEL, THE

The novel is a relatively new art form which has arrived on the scene since the renaissance. However storytelling has always it seems been a part of human culture. This film traces the development of the novel and how it has come to have a huge impact on our lives.

DVD / 2016 / 31 minutes

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FAMOUS AUTHORS: MONTAIGNE

Montaigne was a French aristocrat born in the midde of the 16th century a while before Shakespeare. . He wrote essays about his views on life and in particular about himself. They are wise and amusing and just as pertinent today as they were in this own times. This film ollows his unusual and fascinating life. The programme begins by giving a sense of Montaigne's views on life suggesting why they are so prescient for today. It follows his unusual education and gives a background of the history of France of which he was for a time actually an intimate part. His brief friendship with a man called La Boetie colours his understanding of mankind and probably plays a part in his deciding to write down all he could think of about himself which forms what we know of as his essays. The film ends with some of the topics which so engaged him and which make him such a charming candidate for our attention in the twenty first century!

DVD / 2015 / 31 minutes

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GHOSTS

By Henrik Ibsen

In this production of Ibsen's ghosts you will not see 'a new version specially prepared for modern audiences.' Ibsen is either digestible as he stands or he is not. It is fairly unlikely that he would enjoy his work being modified or tampered with by opinionated directors. Modern audiences are just as intelligent and probably better informed than audiences of Ibsen's day. There is nothing to equal a live performance, however not many people are able to see Ibsen's plays well acted in a theatre, because theatres are few and far between. We certainly hope that in giving a complete performance of this play Ghosts we are enabling a lot more people to see Ibsen's work more or less as he intended.

DVD / 2008 / 128 minutes

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