The Story of Film: An Odyssey

Season 12011

A worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made and the story of international cinema through the history of cinematic innovation.

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15 Episodes

E01 Birth of the Cinema

Mark Cousins tells the story of cinema, starting in this episode with the birth of the movies, telling the glamorous, surprising stories of early moviemaking and the first film stars.

September 3, 2011

E02 The Hollywood Dream

Movies in the Roaring Twenties: Hollywood became a glittering entertainment industry with star directors like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. But the gloss and fantasy was challenged by movie makers like Robert Flaherty, Eric Von Stroheim and Carl Theodor Dreyer, who wanted films to be more serious and mature. This was a battle for the soul of cinema. The result: some of the greatest movies ever made.

September 10, 2011

E03 The Golden Age of World Cinema

The 1920s were a golden age for world cinema. The programme visits Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai and Tokyo to explore the places where movie makers were pushing the boundaries of the medium. German expressionism, Soviet montage and French impressionism and surrealism were passionate new film movements, but less well known are the glories of Chinese and Japanese films and the moving story of one of the great, now largely forgotten, movie stars, Ruan Lingyu.

September 17, 2011

E04 The Arrival of Sound

The coming of sound in the 1930s upends everything. We watch the birth of new types of film: screwball comedies, gangster pictures, horror films, westerns and musicals, and discover a master of most of them, Howard Hawks. Alfred Hitchcock hits his stride and French directors become masters of mood.

September 24, 2011

E05 Post-War Cinema

Mark Cousins explores how the trauma of war led to more daring creations for cinema, focusing on the darkening of American film and the drama of the McCarthy years. Screenwriters Paul Schrader and Robert Towne discuss the era and Stanley Donen - director of Singin' in the Rain - talks about his career.

October 1, 2011

E06 Sex & Melodrama

Sex and melodrama in the movies of the fifties: James Dean, On the Waterfront and glossy weepies. We travel to Egypt, India, China, Mexico, Britain and Japan to find that movies there were also full of rage and passion. Exclusive interviews include associates of Indian master Satyajit Ray; legendary Japanese actress Kyoko Kagawa, who starred in films by Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu; and the first great African director, Youssef Chahine.

October 8, 2011

E07 European New Wave

The explosive story of film in the late fifties and sixties: The great movie star Claudia Cardinale talks exclusively about Federico Fellini; in Denmark, Lars von Trier describes his admiration for Ingmar Bergman; and Bernardo Bertolucci remembers his work with Pier Paolo Pasolini. French filmmakers plant a bomb under the movies, and the new wave it causes sweeps across Europe.

October 15, 2011

E08 New Directors, New Form

The dazzling 1960s in cinema around the world: In Hollywood, legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler reveals how documentary influenced mainstream movies. Easy Rider and 2001: A Space Odyssey signal a new era in America cinema. We discover the films of Roman Polanski, Andrei Tarkvosky, and Nagisa Oshima. Black African cinema is born, and we talk exclusively to the Indian master director Mani Kaul.

October 22, 2011

E09 American Cinema of the 70s

The maturing of American cinema of the late sixties and seventies: Buck Henry, writer of The Graduate, talks exclusively about movie satire of the time. Paul Schrader reveals his thoughts on his existential screenplay for Taxi Driver. Writer Robert Towne explores the dark ideas in Chinatown, and director Charles Burnett talks about the birth of Black American cinema.

October 29, 2011

E10 Movies to Change the World

The movies that tried to change the world in the seventies: Wim Wenders in Germany; Ken Loach and Britain; Pasolini in Italy; the birth of new Australian cinema; and then Japan, which was making the most moving films in the world. Even bigger, bolder questions about film were being asked in Africa and South America, and the story ends with John Lennon’s favourite film, the extraordinary, psychedelic The Holy Mountain.

November 5, 2011

E11 The Arrival of Multiplexes and Asian Mainstream

Star Wars, Jaws and The Exorcist created the multiplexes, but they were also innovative. In India the world’s most famous movie star, Amitabh Bachchan, shows how Bollywood was doing new things in the seventies too. And we discover that Bruce Lee movies kick-started the kinetic films of Hong Kong, where master Yuen Woo-ping talks exclusively about his action movies and his wire fu choreography for The Matrix.

November 12, 2011

E12 Fight the Power: Protest in Film

Protest in the movies of the 1980s: brave filmmakers spoke truth to power. American independent director John Sayles talks exclusively about these years. In Beijing, Chinese cinema blossomed before the Tiananmen crackdown. In the Soviet Union, the past wells up in astonishing films, and master director Krzysztof Kieslowski emerges in Poland.

November 19, 2011

E13 New Boundaries: World Cinema in Africa, Asia & Latin America

Film in the 1990s enters a surprise golden age. In Iran we meet Abbas Kiarostami, who rethought movie making and made it more real. Then, in Tokyo, we meet Shinji Tsukamoto, who laid the ground for the bold new Japanese horror cinema. In Paris one of the world’s greatest directors, Claire Denis, talks exclusively about her work. The story ends in Mexico.

November 26, 2011

E14 New American Independents & The Digital Revolution

Brilliant, flashy, playful movies in the English speaking world in the nineties. We look at what was new in Tarantino’s dialogue and the edginess of the Coen Brothers. The writer of Starship Troopers and Robocop talks exclusively about the films’ irony. In Australia, Baz Luhrmann talks about Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge, and we plunge into the digital world to see how it has changed the movies forever.

December 3, 2011

E15 Cinema Today and the Future

Movies come full circle: They get more serious after 9/11, and Romanian movies come to the fore. But then David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive becomes one of the most complex dream films ever made and Inception turns film into a game. In Moscow, master director Alexander Sokurov talks exclusively about his innovative films. Then, a surprise: The Story of Film goes beyond the present, to look at film in the future.

December 10, 2011

The Story of Film: An Odyssey

E01 Birth of the Cinema

E02 The Hollywood Dream

E03 The Golden Age of World Cinema

E04 The Arrival of Sound

E05 Post-War Cinema

E06 Sex & Melodrama

E07 European New Wave

E08 New Directors, New Form

E09 American Cinema of the 70s

E10 Movies to Change the World

E11 The Arrival of Multiplexes and Asian Mainstream

E12 Fight the Power: Protest in Film

E13 New Boundaries: World Cinema in Africa, Asia & Latin America

E14 New American Independents & The Digital Revolution

E15 Cinema Today and the Future

Life Story

Smash

Catterick

Unprecedented

Presumed Guilty

Exterior Night

Legend of the Three Caballeros

Through the Wormhole

True Story

An Idiot Abroad

The Tatami Galaxy

Salem's Lot

Trainwreck: Woodstock '99

Frozen Planet

Reply 1988

Suburra: Blood on Rome

The Blue Planet

Pantheon

The West Wing

Planet Earth

E01 Birth of the Cinema

E02 The Hollywood Dream

E03 The Golden Age of World Cinema

E04 The Arrival of Sound

E05 Post-War Cinema

E06 Sex & Melodrama

E07 European New Wave

E08 New Directors, New Form

E09 American Cinema of the 70s

E10 Movies to Change the World

E11 The Arrival of Multiplexes and Asian Mainstream

E12 Fight the Power: Protest in Film

E13 New Boundaries: World Cinema in Africa, Asia & Latin America

E14 New American Independents & The Digital Revolution

E15 Cinema Today and the Future