Tony Palmer's Films for The South Bank Show - 11-DVD Box Set ( Tony Palmer's Film About Callas / Tony Palmer's Film About Margot / Benjamin Britten - A Time There Was / William Walton - At The Haunted End Of The Day / Stravinsky: Once At A Border / Henryck Gorecki - The Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs ) ( John Osborne and the Gift of Friendship / I, Berlioz / The Fantastic World of Michael Crawford / Hail Bop! - A Portrait Of John Adams / Toward the Unknown Region: Malcolm Arnold - A Story of Survival )

Tony Palmer's Films for The South Bank Show - 11-DVD Box Set (DVD) (*)

$196.99

Original Title: Tony Palmer's Film About Callas / Tony Palmer's Film About Margot / Benjamin Britten - A Time There Was / William Walton - At The Haunted End Of The Day / Stravinsky: Once At A Border / Henryck Gorecki - The Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs
Alternate Title: John Osborne and the Gift of Friendship / I, Berlioz / The Fantastic World of Michael Crawford / Hail Bop! - A Portrait Of John Adams / Toward the Unknown Region: Malcolm Arnold - A Story of Survival
Screened, competed or awarded at:
BAFTA Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital Stereo )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/NTSC/Region 0 )

Running Time:
1213 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Box Set
Interactive Menu
Multi-DVD Set
Scene Access
Black & White
Remastered

Movie filmed in 1982 - 2009 and produced in:
United Kingdom ( Great Britain, Ireland )

Directed By:
Tony Palmer

Written By:
Tony Palmer

Actors:
Melvyn Bragg ..... Himself - Presenter / ... (152 episodes, 1978-2015)
Franco Zeffirelli
Giovanni Battista Meneghini
Aristotle Onassis
Rudolf Nureyev
Frederick Ashton
Robert Helpmann
Tony Palmer
Yehudi Menuhin
Julian Bream
Iona Brown

Synopsis:

***WARNING***'Malcolm Arnold - Toward the Unknown Region' is PAL/0***Melvyn Bragg has run The South Bank Show for over 30 years, producing in all over 250 films. Sadly, ITV has now decided to axe the show, so to celebrate the final season of The South Bank Show, a brilliant collection of Tony Palmer's films made for The South Bank Show is being released in a special commemorative boxset. The eleven films include the Italia Prize-winning definitive portraits of Benjamin Britten, William Walton and Maria Callas; the New York Film & TV Festival Gold medal winners about Stravinsky, Margot Fonteyn and Malcolm Arnold; and the controversial films about Gorecki, John Adams and Berlioz. Films about the great American soprano Renée Fleming and the original 'Phantom of the Opera' Michael Crawford complete the package. As Bragg says: 'Palmer's films for me have been one of the highlights of every season since we began.'
1: Maria Callas - Callas
2: William Walton - At The Haunted End of the Day
3: Margot Fonteyn - Margot
4: Stravinsky - Once At A Border
5: Benjamin Britten - A Time There Was...
6: John Adams - Hail Bop! A Portrait of John Adams
7: Renee Fleming - Miss Renee Fleming
8: Malcolm Arnold - Toward The Unknown Region
9: Henryck Gorecki - The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
10: I, Berlioz
11: Michael Crawford - The Fantastic World of Michael Crawford

Tony Palmer's Film About Callas (2007)
Through a combination of archival footage and interviews, filmmaker Tony Palmer profiles the at once soaring and tragic life of opera legend Maria Callas, 'La Divina Assoluta'. Filmed on location in Athens, Rome, Milan, New York and London.

Tony Palmer's Film About Margot (2008)
A celebration of the life of Margot Fonteyn commemorating the 40th anniversary year of Nureyev and Fonteyn's 'Romeo and Juliet'. Fonteyn is widely considered to be the nation's greatest ever dancer, yet her life story is as tragic as it is inspiring. Tony Palmer's film uses archive performance footage and fascinating interviews to explore the myths and truths of her legacy. It is a story of courage and tenacity, of unbelievable devotion to her art. Among the ballets featured are: 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Swan Lake', 'Giselle', 'The Sleeping Beauty', 'Marguerite and Armand', and 'The Nutcrcker'. Featuring Rudolf Nureyev, Frederick Ashton, Robert Helpmann, Ninette De Valois, Roland Petit, Monica Mason, Lynn Seymour, Antoinette Sibley, Anthony Dowell and Beryl Grey.

Benjamin Britten - A Time There Was (2006)
Made at the request of the Britten Estate, this film - thought to be the definitive portrait of the great composer - tells of one of the most profound love affairs of the 20th Century, between Britten and his lover and life-long companion and inspiration, Peter Pears. At a time when it was illegal to be openly homosexual, Britten & Pears faced up to a hostile world with unflinching dignity, producing a string of masterpieces that, together with the works of Vaughan Williams, established English music as internationally pre-eminent in the middle years of the 20th century.

William Walton - At The Haunted End Of The Day (2008)
This Italia prize-winning film includes the only full-length interview ever recorded with Walton. Filmed at his home on Ischia and in Oxford, London and Oldham, it includes contributions from Laurence Olivier, Sacheverell Sitwell and Lady Susana Walton. Specially performed extracts of his music are conducted by Simon Rattle in his first substantial contribution to television when he was in his early 20s, with Simon Preston, Julian Bream, Yvonne Kenny, Yehudi Menuhin, Iona Brown, John Shirley-Quirk, Elgar Howarth and Ralph Kirshbaum, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford and Los Paraguayos.

Stravinsky: Once At A Border (1982)
This highly-praised and award-winning film celebrates one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. This autobiographical film includes documents, photographs and film never seen publicly before. There are contributions from the late Madam Vera Stravinsky, his musical associates Robert Craft, Marie Rambert, Balanchine, Benny Goodman, Serge Lifar, Jean Cocteau and many family members, friends and colleagues. There is priceless film of Stravinsky himself, talking, remembering, conducting, at work and at home and in the room in which he actually composed 'The Rite of Spring', in this altogether unique portrait. Performances include: Les Noces, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, the Symphonies, the Violin Concerto, The Rake's Progress, The Symphony of Psalms and others. Featuring the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, Westminster Abbey Choir, the State Choir of Latvia, the National Radio Orchestra of the U.S.S.R. and the Royal Ballet.

Henryck Gorecki - The Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs (2007)
Widely acknowledged as Tony Palmer's masterpiece, this biopic of composer Henryck Gorecki features Dawn Upshaw, David Zinman and The London Sinfonietta. It won the gold medal at the New York Film & TV Festival. The Symphony actually dates from 1976 when Górecki was (as he tells us in the film) a 'non-person' in the political sense, when his music was banned in his native Katowice in Poland. Melvyn Bragg showed the film on The South Bank Show, and even managed to persuade the hierarchy of ITV that it would be an abomination to disrupt the film with any commercial breaks. The 53 minute film was shown uninterrupted, an acceptance perhaps of the urgency of its content. 'I wanted to express a great sorrow'', Górecki says. ''The war...the rotten times under Communism...our life today...the starving. What madness! This sorrow, it burns inside me. I cannot shake it off'.

John Osborne and the Gift of Friendship (2006)
Tony Palmer's biopic of John Osborne, the celebrated playwright, screenwriter and actor. Osborne saw himself as a lone voice screaming protest against successive governments destroying England. But this protest was maintained at a terrible cost. He made an epic journey from the most successful playwright of his generation to a forlorn and almost forgotten figure. A unique aspect of this film is the recent discovery of extracts from some of the original stage performances of Osborne's most famous plays - material of great historical importance not seen for almost 40 years. This documentary features footage of Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer; Albert Finney in Luther; Nicol Williamson in Inadmissible Evidence; and Jill Bennett in A Patriot for Me, featuring a young John Osborne as Reid.

I, Berlioz (2009)
Film directed by the acclaimed, award-winning director Tony Palmer and starring Corin Redgrave. 'I, Hector Louis Berlioz, composer, musician, citizen of France, tell you, in this my Last Will and Testament, that my subject is - and has always been - war.' So begins an epic journey through the terrible struggles that Berlioz endured to get his great opera The Trojans performed. He never succeeded, and the effort cost him his life.

The Fantastic World of Michael Crawford (2008)
A behind-the-scenes intimate portrait of one of the funniest and most versatile of actors. Michael Crawford has starred in some of the biggest box-office hits of all time. From Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, to the original Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, both in London's West End and on Broadway; from circus showman in Barnum to EFX, the multi-million extravaganza at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the biggest hotel in the world, which he dominated for over two years, playing Merlin, Houdini and H.G. Wells, and which broke all existing box office records. He is the only actor to have won an Olivier Award as 'Best Actor' at the same time as 'Best Actor in a Musical'. And then there was Hello Dolly with Barbra Streisand, The Knack, How I Won The War with John Lennon… And all this for a man whose first stage role was in an opera by Benjamin Britten!

Hail Bop! - A Portrait Of John Adams (2006)
This is an intimate portrait filmed over 12 months, of a great composer at work in his High Sierra log cabin and in rehearsal with soloists Emanuel Ax and Michael Collins. The dramatic landscapes of America, which Adams brings to life so vividly in his music, provide the visual backdrop. Contributors include stage director Peter Sellars and librettist Alice Goodman. The music has been specially recorded for the film by Edo de Waart and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.

Toward the Unknown Region: Malcolm Arnold - A Story of Survival (2008)
This documentary celebrates Malcolm Arnold, one of Britain's most underestimated and yet most popular composers, who wrote scores to altogether 132 films including 'Whistle Down the Wind', 'Hobson's Choice' and the Oscar winning 'Bridge Over the River Kwai'. Sir Malcolm also composed ballets, symphonies and operas. The DVD features interviews with friends and family, and includes extracts from his works, however, it does not shirk the darker side of Arnold's life full of complications caused by mental illness.

Long-running arts series.

This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 18 March, 2015.