Adjoa Andoh
1) Episode 7
Description
18 BODIES: Bodies in cinema can be enticing, dancing or brutalised. Jane Fonda narrates this chapter about how the great directors—including Agnes Varda, Andrea Arnold, Iran’s Marva Nabili, Finland’s Pirjo Honkasalo, Marta Meszaros and Poland’s Wanda Jakubowska—have filmed bodies. 19 SEX: From bodies to sex – the most controversial aspect of film. In this chapter Diane Kurys, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Jamie Babbit, Safi Faye, Athena Rachel...
2) Episode 14
Description
38 DEATH: The biggest subject in life, the most universal subject –no wonder that Japan’s Kinuyo Tanaka, Canada’s Caroline Leaf, Spain’s Ana Mariscal, Holland’s Paula Van der Oest and other great filmmakers in this chapter embrace it. 39 ENDINGS: We begin to end our epic road movie withfilms from Sonja Heiss, Larisa Shepitko, Ida Lupino, Lizzie Borden, Claire Denis and Maya Deren. 40 SONG AND DANCE: End with a song, they say, so our story...
3) Episode 10
Description
26 MELODRAMA: A genre as popular as comedy, but what are some of the great scenes in melodrama? Sharmila Tagore narrates a story that takes us from the silent American film Shoes, to Kira Muratova’s brilliant Chekov’s Motifs, to Binka Zhelyazkova’s visually remarkable We Were Young. 27 SCI-FI: Kathryn Bigelow, the Wachowski siblings, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, Lori Petty’s Tank Girl, the TV version of Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s tale....
4) Episode 8
Description
20 HOME: Refuge, shelter, or prison? Sharmila Tagore narrates the story of home on screen in the great films of Edith Carlmar, Lynne Ramsay, Mai Zetterling, Liu Jiay-in, Forough Farrokhzad, Antonia Bird and others. 21 RELIGION: Narrator Sharmila Tagore takes us on a global tourof great films about religion. We start in America in the 1910s, go to Sri Lanka in the 70s, and dip into thework of Lucretia Martel, Jessica Hausner and Marjane Satrapi. 22...
5) Episode 4
Description
09 STAGING: Scene staging is an element of film form pointing clearly to cinema’s origin – theatre. Kinuyo Tanaka in The Moon Has Risen uses staging to shape the scene’s invisible geometry, accentuating the tension between characters. Maren Ade in Toni Erdmann stages the scene through depth, facilitating the tragicomic punchline. And in Maria Schrader’s Stefan Zweig: A Farewell to Europe, the criss-crossing complex staging in the final scene...
6) Episode 3
Description
06 CONVERSATION: A basic human interaction – how to make it cinematic? Angela Schanelec directs us to focus on body language in Places in Cities, Cecile Tang uses the zoom as guide through the emotional shifts in The Arch, and Sofia Coppola in The Virgin Suicides shows us an unspoken conversation through division with songs and split screens telling a story of impossible longing. 07 FRAMING: Frames describe and paint the scenes. They can make sport...
7) Episode 2
Description
03 BELIEVIBILITY: Easy to spot, but not so easy to understand. Believability is about simple human stories, truth about life, real emotions, responding to the world. Howdo directors create a reality without it feeling fake? True stories can help, but what’s the trick? Here are some answers, with a masterclass in believability from Lois Weber’s The Blot to Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann. 04 INTRODUCING CHARACTER: Going to a house, overhearing people,...
8) Episode 1
Description
01 OPENINGS: With examples from 1943 to 2013, from China to Iran, Australia to Finland, we look at how to open a film: from mysterious, direct, floating, foreboding to plunging straight in. All are instructive in how to create an immediate world. Learning from example. 02 TONE: What’s the tone of a film – not its story or theme, but what its world feels like? Back to Hollywood and director Dorothy Arzner with Merrily We Go to Hell and its glamorous...
9) Episode 5
Description
12 ADULT/CHILD: The famous movie genres – war pictures, westerns, etc – are about adults, but in this chapter Jane Fonda narrates the story of 18 films about children in film, from Germany, Belgium, Mongolia, Sweden, Russia, Canada, Senegal, Argentina and Scotland. 13 ECONOMY: We’ve all seen overblown films, but what are the visual and story lessons we can learn from Claire Denis, Maria Louisa Memberg, Kinuyo Tanaka, Agnes Varda, Valeska Grisbach...
10) Episode 9
Description
23 POLITICS: Another aspect of everyday life. From silent cinema to the 21 st Century, movies from the visually astonishing The Enchanted Desna to Divorce Iranian Style to Bigelow’s Strange Days have gained their energy and attack from their politics. 24 GEAR CHANGE: We like to be taken by surprise in films. This short chapter, narrated by Sharmila Tagore, looks at such surprises. 25 COMEDY: Is comedy universal? Who have been the great comedy filmmakers...
11) Episode 12
Description
32 REVEAL: Paired with chapter 31, is this one, it’s opposite. How does Lynne Ramsay do a reveal in Morven Caller? How does the great actor-director Kinuyo Tanaka? Or Sarah Polley? Or Italy’s Alice Rohrwacher? 33 MEMORY: As cinema is a kind of time machine, it’s no surprise that it’s great at memory. In this chapter we look at rare movie gems about memory directed by filmmakers including Petra Costa, Greece’s Maria Plytya, Poland’s Dorota...
12) Episode 11
Description
29 TENSION: Thrillers, but much more. We look at gripping scenes in films as diverse as Joel DeMott’s documentary Demon Lover Diary, Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel, Carol Morley’s Dreams of A Life, Mimi Leder’s Peacemaker, and Marleen Gorris’ remarkable A Question of Silence. 30 STASIS: Cinema is an action art, isn’t it? Or is it? Directors Angela Schanelec, Anouk Leopold, Kira Muratova, Chantal Akerman, Sharon Lockhart, and Pakistan’s...
13) Episode 13
Description
35 LIFE INSIDE: Novels are great at describing thoughts, but how do films do so? In this chapter, we see how great directors from France, Ukraine, the UK, America, New Zealand and Algeria used time in their movies. 36 THE MEANING OF LIFE: In the last chapters of our story, we look at the biggest things in life. Here we see how great filmmakers across the world, and from many decades, try to getto the essence of life. 37 LOVE: Movies soar with love,...
14) Episode 6
Description
15 POV: Is cinema the art of point of view? Jocelyn Moorhouse, Ida Lupino, Norway’s Edith Carlmar, Sofia Coppola, Italy’s Liliana Cavani, Kelly Reichart, the great Larisa Shepitko, Jennifer Kent and other great directors demonstrate the art of POV in films. 16 CLOSE UP: If close ups give movies their intensity, films from Belgium, Hungary, Australia, Finland, China, America, France, Germany and Ukraine, shot over ten decades, show how best to...
15) Women Make Film
Description
WOMEN MAKE FILM is an epic exploration of cinema history through the lens of some the world’s greatest directors – all women. Official Selection at the **Venice Film Festival**, **Toronto International Film Festival**, and **Telluride Film Festival**.