Sight & Sound: The Cinema of Walter Murch (2020)

Actors of Sound

Since the 1930’s, sound gurus referred to as Foley artists have recreated the sounds that infuse a film with life. During a film’s post-production, Foley artists recreate sound that will match the moving image on-screen, using whatever objects are at their fingertips, from hundreds of pairs of old shoes to clunky old tools and squeaky mattresses. But how will Hollywood’s low-tech sound artists survive as digital technology consumes modern movie-making?

Shirley Maclaine: Kicking Up Her Heels

Shirley MacLaine was the product of a strict middle-class background from which she and her brother, the future actor Warren Beatty, escaped into the fantasy world of show-biz. Her ballet training and her long-legged pixie charm led to rapid success on Broadway in musical comedy. Inevitably, Hollywood called and by 1955 Shirley was cast in Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry." It wasn't too long before the fine dramatic roles also came to her opposite the most popular leading men of the time, like Fred MacMurray, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Clint Eastwood and Robert Mitchum.

Writing Heads

They are the first and the last, those who imagine stories and give voice to the characters who live them. However, they never speak. But now, they emerge from the shadows of a poorly lit room and tell their secrets, their tricks, their influences; they tell their own story, that of those who face the blank page, the absolute nothingness; that of those who are the true authors, those who create and destroy entire universes. They are the screenwriters.

Stewart & Mitchum: The Two Faces of America

With his naïve air, his rangy and reassuring silhouette, James Stewart symbolizes success, someone who everybody wants to look like. Behind his legendary nonchalance, Robert Mitchum is the figure of the bad boy, the kind-hearted hooligan who anyone would like to have for accomplice. What is the legacy left by these two big myths of the Hollywood cinema and in which way they fed the American dream?

So Unreal

A cinephile collage, both historical and philosophical, of films on artificial intelligence, cyberspace and virtual reality, from 1981 to 2001: cinema as a way and an instrument to cope with humanity's euphoria, anxiety, fear and obsession with technology.

Emmanuelle: Queen of French Erotic Cinema

France, 1974. The erotic film Emmanuelle, directed by Just Jaeckin, breaks all records for cinema attendance: the story of the creation of a sensual epic that marked a turning point in the struggle for sexual emancipation.

Shine a Light

Martin Scorsese and the Rolling Stones unite in "Shine A Light," a look at The Rolling Stones." Scorsese filmed the Stones over a two-day period at the intimate Beacon Theater in New York City in fall 2006. Cinematographers capture the raw energy of the legendary band.

El Cepa Returns

Forty years later, Guillermo Montesinos, the actor who played José María el Cepa in The Cuenca Crime (1980), directed by Pilar Miró, returns to the various locations where the shooting of the mythical film, narrating the infamous Grimaldos case (1910), took place.

A Fuller Life

Friends and admirers of iconoclastic film director Sam Fuller read from his memoirs in this unconventional documentary directed by Fuller's only child, Samantha.

Life Itself

The surprising and entertaining life of renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert (1942-2013): his early days as a freewheeling bachelor and Pulitzer Prize winner, his famously contentious partnership with Gene Siskel, his life-altering marriage, and his brave and transcendent battle with cancer.

The Pixar Story

A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.

Only Blockbusters Left Alive: Monopolizing Film Distribution in Turkey

Turkish film industry has been experiencing a breakthrough in the last ten years. According to 2015 figures, there is a bold uptrend in terms of viewers and film production. Yet without any regulations at work, this growth only made injustices in distribution bigger. While a single cinema chain controls more then 50% of the market, it also started to control distribution and production. In this monopolized environment, there seems to be no country for independent production. With the guidance of producers, distributors, and economists, the film traces the distortion created by the bad economy that has become an obstacle for freedom of choice.

Volker Schlöndorff: The Beat of the Drum

The life and work of the brilliant German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff, a cross-border artist who, by leaving Germany and making the whole world his place of work, acquired the objective perspective necessary to portray his country's society better than anyone else while providing a unique and original point of view on the troubled history of the European continent.

Republic of Silence

They grew up in the land of dictators and surveillance, where images are censored, photos are burned, thoughts are discreet, and mouths are kept shut. They grew up in Syria.

Trespassing Bergman

In the sixties, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) built a house on the remote island of Fårö, located in the Baltic Sea, left Stockholm and went to live there. When he died, the house was preserved. A group of very special cinephiles, came from all over the world, travel to Fårö in search of the genius and his legacy. (An abridged version of Bergmans video, 2012.)

Making 'The Shining'

Directed and edited by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian Kubrick, this film offers a look behind the scenes during the making of The Shining.

Journey to Somewhere

A young woman, who has inherited her grandparents' huge house, a fascinating place full of amazing objects, feels overwhelmed by the weight of memories and her new responsibilities. Fortunately, the former inhabitants of the house soon come to her aid. (An account of the life and work of Fernando Fernán Gómez [1921-2007] and his wife Emma Cohen [1946-2016], two singular artists and fundamental figures of contemporary Spanish culture.)

Paul Naschy: la sonrisa del lobo

Legendary Spanish actor and director Jacinto Molina, also known as Paul Naschy, tells the mythical story of Waldemar Daninsky, the cursed werewolf, his most iconic character; a relationship that began in 1968.

Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin

The story of French filmmaker Jean Rollin (1938-2010), one of the most singular voices of European cult cinema, deeply misunderstood and widely misrepresented.

Cult of Terror

A journey of years through many countries and film festivals; a nostalgic, adrenaline-fueled and rock-spirited immersion into the universe of cinephilia, in search of genre specialists, fans and filmmakers who speak of their shared passion for fantastic cinema; a whole international spiritual community united under the cathartic shadow of horror.

Barefoot in the Kitchen

What was the role of women in Spanish cinema from the 1930s to the present explained through fragments of different films, both fiction and non-fiction. (Followed by “Manda huevos,” 2016.)

La corte de Ana

She appeared when Spain was waking up from a long post-war period and crying with melodramas starring children, a child prodigy unlike any other; a girl who, in time, would become a symbol of freedom and a total artist. Actress, singer, friend, lover. This is the story of Ana Belén.

Sex, Maracas & Chihuahuas

A joyful tale filled with music. The rise of radio. The jazz big bands. The legendary clubs and ballrooms. The soundtracks of the great musical films and TV shows. Sex and romance, gangsters, luxury cars and palm trees. From Barcelona to New York, with a stop in Cuba. The birth of Las Vegas. The sound of the maracas. Chihuahuas everywhere. The incredible life story of Xavier Cugat (1900-90).

Becoming Marilyn

Marilyn wasn't born Marilyn, she became it. This unique portrait reveals her in her own words: a lucid and determined woman, shifting image of the diktats that still define feminity.

Making 'Taxi Driver'

A behind the scenes snapshot of the making of one of the greatest films ever made. Filled with trivia, interviews from cast and crew, and more.

John Ford: The Man Who Invented America

Over a 50-year career and more than a hundred movies, filmmaker John Ford (1894-1973) forged the legend of the Far West. By giving a face to the underprivileged, from humble cowboys to persecuted minorities, he revealed like no one else the great social divisions that existed and still exist in the United States. More than four decades after his death, what remains of his legacy and humanistic values in the memory of those who love his work?

Boulevard! A Hollywood Story

Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley, two young composers and romantic partners, are caught in the web of silent film star Gloria Swanson when she hires them to write a musical version of Sunset Boulevard, her 1950 film directed by Billy Wilder.

The Untameable Kirk Douglas

The story of actor Kirk Douglas, the man and the legend, one of the last stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. An epic journey through the 20th century and the entire history of Hollywood. A testimony of the huge scope of his life and the scale of the myth. The untameable Kirk Douglas, the ragman's son.

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

The Fire Rises: The Creation and Impact of The Dark Knight Trilogy

This feature-length documentary delves into the trilogy, opening with the inspiration and vision for the new Batman films and inching its way toward the Rises finale and the culmination of nearly a decade of creative blood, sweat and tears. Candid, thoughtful and extensive, and comprised of revealing behind-the-scenes footage, countless interviews, audition tapes (with Christian Bale and Cillian Murphy doning the cape and cowl), and a narrative grip and momentum all its own, it leaves no stone unturned.

A. K.

In 1985, Chris Marker traveled to Japan to attend the filming of Ran, directed by Akira Kurosawa. Marker analyzes the progress of filming; the infinite patience of a team under the orders of a meticulous director down to the smallest detail; the antithetical mixture of the modern with the traditional; of the real with the fictitious; of life with cinema… and literature.

Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade

An account of the life and work of American film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-84), a tortured artist whose genius and inner demons changed the Western genre forever.

Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History

The history of Hollywood musical movies, from the very beginning until the 21st century, hosted by Shirley Jones.

Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living

Through an interview with Kiarostami in the Aran Islands and interviews with film critics and scholars at Cannes, the director examines Kiarostami's themes and methods. The director also profiles Kiarostami as a poet and a photographer.

[REC]: Horror Without Pause

The horror film [REC] — directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, and released in 2007 — was an unprecedented triumph for Spanish fantasy cinema. Fifteen years later, those responsible for the creation and worldwide success of this cinematic milestone decode its keys and resurrect the myth.

The Concavenator Valley

Three researchers work on a paleontological project focusing on two dinosaurs: one fictional, the one created by special effects genius Ray Harryhausen for the film The Valley of Gwangi (1969); the other real, the Concavenator corcovatus, whose remains were discovered in 2003 at the Las Hoyas site, in the province of Cuenca (Spain), very close to where the filming took place.

Boundless

As Hong Kong's foremost filmmaker, Johnnie To himself becomes the protagonist of this painstaking documentary exploring him and his Boundless world of film. A film student from Beijing and avid Johnnie To fan, Ferris Lin boldly approached To with a proposal to document the master director for his graduation thesis. To agreed immediately and Lin's camera closely followed him for over two years, capturing the man behind the movies and the myths. The result is Boundless, a candid profile of one of Hong Kong's greatest directors and a heartfelt love letter to Hong Kong cinema.

Sergio Leone: cinema, cinema

The life and work of one of the great masters of Italian cinema, Sergio Leone (1929-89); a rich and fascinating portrait through unpublished testimonies of collaborators, actors, directors and critics who reconstruct every aspect of his creative activity.