A documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, responsible for creating some of the most memorable television and radio music in British popular culture, including "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and Doctor Who (1963).
A portrait of the life and work of the great Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, exploring both his music and his passionate interest in his country's folklore.
Pop Goes the Easel was Ken Russell’s first full-length documentary for the BBC’s arts series Monitor. It focused on 4 British Pop Artists - Peter Blake, Peter Philips, Pauline Boty and Derek Boshier.
Ken Russell directed a short document of German actress (and widow of famed composer Kurt Weill) Lotte Lenya performing many of Weill's best known compositions for BBC TV series "Monitor."
The Preservation Man is about useless objects but here they're part of the artist Bruce Lacey's collection of random junk that is incorporated into his art with their original function is irrelevant. Sensibly, Russell and commentator Huw Wheldon keep analysis to a minimum, preferring to use the...
A study of Antoni Gaudí's architecture (especially the Church of the Holy Trinity in Barcelona), his sources of inspiration and his influence on Picasso. (BFI)
On a cold February night in 1944, two British frogmen crawled on to a Normandy beach from the freezing sea to take samples of sand for scientific analysis from under the noses of German sentries. It was one of the most audacious of all the incredible operations that went into the planning of the...