Summary: In this introduction to George Orwell's life and work from the Famous Authors series, viewers follow Orwell through his privileged education, during which he nurtured his writing talents from an early age. He joined the Burmese military police but grew disillusioned with his role as an oppressor, returned to depression-era England, and committed himself to writing, notwithstanding stints in...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: This program from the Famous Authors series begins by contextualizing W.B. Yeats' early life in 19th century Ireland and introducing the Yeats' artistic family and the Irish legends that were so influential in his life and work. Yeats eventually became a ring leader of a group of artists in London called the Tragic Generation. Yeats became known as a political and literary voice of Ireland and...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: This program from the Famous Authors series traces James Joyce's life from his childhood and university days in Ireland, during which he was strongly religious, through his time in Paris where he denounced Catholicism, studied medicine, and began writing poetry, articles, and book reviews. The film introduces viewers to the city of Dublin, the background of Ulysses, Dubliners, and his other...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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Summary: Until recently, the serious works of Russian avant-garde writer Daniil Kharms-his absurdist pieces, the ones laced with irony and steeped in trenchant wit-were known only to the Soviet Union's literary underground. This production, reset in modern-day America, is the first film adaptation of Kharms' novella The Old Woman, a dark comedy about a man trying to get rid of a dead body.

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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Kurtz, Jane.

Summary: In 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech that proclaimed that it was time -- long overdue -- for all people to be treated as equals. Today his beliefs are more important than ever, and author Jane Kurtz explains Dr. King's words in language even the youngest reader can understand.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Aladdin 2008

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Summary: Ridiculed by some, admired by others, and ignored by no one, Yukio Mishima has remained a paradox in both life and death. This program combines extensive archival footage of Mishima; interviews with colleagues, including his biographer, Henry Scott Stokes, and two of his translators; and readings by actor John Hurt to portray Japan's immensely popular novelist, playwright, actor, and patriot of...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: The German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer who developed the drama as a social and ideological forum is the subject of this program, in which those who knew him discuss his life and many works. Excerpts from plays such as Mother Courage and Her Children, The Life of Galileo, The Good Woman of Setzuan, and Antigone highlight the development of Brecht's austere form of irregular verse....

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: In 1925 Luigi Pirandello brought his troupe to England as part of a worldwide tour. This program re-creates one day in London as "The Einstein of the Theater" watches his plays and, away from the footlights, confronts the paradoxical nature of his life. Portions of Six Characters in Search of an Author; Henry IV; Right You Are, If You Think You Are; and The Rules of the Game are meticulously...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: Read by noted actors Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land powerfully expresses the disillusionment and disgust of the post-World War I era in Europe. In this program, Professor Frank Kermode, of Cambridge University; Eliot biographer Peter Ackroyd; and poets Sir Stephen Spender and Craig Raine examine the complex nature of Eliot's influential poem, analyze...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: My role as a writer is to create positive myths, says Amin Maalouf. The Lebanese-born novelist and journalist also acknowledges "the material that history gives me." This program features conversations with Maalouf about his imaginative, historically grounded novels and his identity as a Christian Arab living in Paris. On-screen readings by the author present excerpts and themes from Leo...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: Culture and multiculturalism are the dominant recurring themes in this program as Spanish writer Antonio Gala reflects on his heritage and the value of integrating immigrants into the fabric of society. The author of Poemas de Amor, Los Verdes Campos del Eden, El Manuscrito Carmesi, La Regla de Tres, and numerous other books also talks about how he first started writing and the process of...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: Forced to flee Chile after the military coup in 1973, Ariel Dorfman has focused his writing on the trials of tyranny and exile. This program looks at how he has fought for human rights as a novelist, playwright, essayist, journalist, and professor of literature and Latin American studies. Many of the works of this multi-genre author are examined, including Death and the Maiden, his successful...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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Summary: This story captures a man's journey to the mystical house of a father, son, and daughter, where strange events bring the traveler to a better understanding of the redemptive power of Christ's suffering and death.

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: Addressing themes too often neglected in our technology-worshiping global culture, Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas exemplifies the complexity of 20th-century Latin American literature. This program records Rojas' musings on his life in poetry and the manifold settings and circumstances in which he has worked. The Cervantes Prize winner and author of The Misery of Man, Against Death, and Dark...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: Jacinto Benavente-a member of the Generation of '98, the winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Literature, and one of the most influential Spanish dramatists of the entire 20th century-penned more than 170 plays. This program tells the story of Benavente's life and the turbulent times in which he lived as it sheds light on aspects of his writing. A critic of the bourgeois class, he nonetheless...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: Probing the relationship between political and artistic identity, Spanish-born author Juan Goytisolo investigates rarely explored concepts at the heart of Spanish and Latin American culture. This program presents an overview of Goytisolo's outlook on past and present social dilemmas and their connection with his self-exile from his home country. The author of The Young Assassins, Marks of...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008

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Summary: She was the sort of woman who spared neither herself nor others-and arguably qualifies as 20th-century France's greatest femme de lettres. In this interview, the late novelist and filmmaker talks openly about the hardship and the romance of her childhood in French Indochina, sharing how this period haunted her life and shaped her work. Excerpts from her films and readings from her books by...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: From a poor goatherd in youth to a defeated soldier languishing in prison, the story of poet Miguel Hernandez is as romantic as it is tragic. Filmed on location, this program chronicles the life of Hernandez, a casualty of the Spanish Civil War whose poetry reflected all the beauty and sorrow of his native country. Manuscripts, photos, and documentary footage complement a thorough survey of his...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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Summary: In this story, a descendant of famous ancestors dreams of more heroic times .. until a serious accident takes him to the doors of death, where the past and the present mingle-and where he meets his final destiny.

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: The life of Boris Pasternak-crowned by a Nobel Prize he dared not accept-is a story of success soured by political oppression. Drawing on previously unavailable footage, this program parts what was the Iron Curtain to profile the renowned author, from his early achievements as an upcoming avant-garde poet to the humiliations and threats heaped upon him, late in life, as a result of writing the...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD