Alan Bennett and The Habit of Art

Alan Bennett's hit play for the National Theatre is built around an imagined encounter between the poet W.H. Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten in Oxford in 1972. In fact the two men hardly spoke after their collaboration ended in the 1940s, and Auden said that Britten was the only friend he had ever lost. This documentary feature looks at the extraordinary relationship between England's finest poet and one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner (the artistic director of the National Theatre) talk for the first time about their own collaboration on five plays over 20 years, and reveal how The Habit of Art changed from a simple two-hander into a many-layered play-within-a-play that explores complex ideas about creativity in old age, the nature of collaboration, and the responsibilities of biography.

Produced in association with the National Theatre, Arts Council England and More 4. The film will launch More 4’s Arts Season in this autumn.

Directed: Adam Low

 

 

 

The Pervert's Guide To Ideology

The Pervert's Guide To Ideology picks up from where THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA left off, bringing together the highly acclaimed collaboration between Director Sophie Fiennes and Philosopher and Psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek. Working within Zizek's theoretical matirx, this 3-part, 90 minute film explores what psychoanalysis can tell us about ideology.

Produced in association with P Guide Limited
Directed: Sophie Fiennes

A REGULAR BLACK - The Hidden History of Wuthering Heights

In association with Professor Cassandra Pybus at the University of Sydney.
Director: Adam Low

“This film promises to enliven discussion of Brontë’s Wuthering Heights in the way that Chinua Achebe did for Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” Barbara Harlow, Louann and Larry Temple Professor of English, University of Texas

Soon to be available on DVD to education institurions

Moby-Dick in the Pacific: The Quest for Queequeg

Following in the successful wake of their BBC Arena film, The Hunt for Moby-Dick, Philip Hoare – winner of the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction – follows the extraordinary course of the Pequod into the Pacific.  The Quest for Queequeg will chart the fortune of both whale, crew and the tattooed, exotic figure of Queequeg the harpooneer - the first Pacific islander to feature in a work of literature.  Such voyages changed the men who undertook them as much as they altered the new world they uncovered. 

In association with Professor Iain McCalman and Professor Cassandra Pybus of the University of Sydney

Director: Adam Low