Michael Blackwood Productions

A documentary film about the life of pianist and jazz great Thelonious Monk. Features live performances by Monk and his band, and interviews with friends and family about the offbeat genius.

This documentary explores the creation of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Reaction of the German public to the completed memorial is also shown.

"Marking Infinity", Lee Ufan's recent retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim charts the artist's creation of a visual, conceptual, and theoretical language that has radically expanded the possibilities for sculpture and painting over the past forty years. Deeply versed in modern philosophy, Lee is also an influential writer and is recognized as the key theorist of Mono-ha, an anti-formalist, materials-based art movement that developed in Tokyo in the late 1960s. Active internationally over the last four decades, Lee is acclaimed for an innovative body of Post-Minimalist work that promotes process and the experiential engagement of viewer and site.

For the first 50 years of film history, the newsreel was a fixture in American movie theaters. From 1911 to 1967, these shorts proved an influential source of information – and misinformation – for generations of American moviegoers. Television news and public affairs programs became a great improvement over the scanty information offered by the newsreels. This documentary offers insight into a medium which has disappeared.

Japan's establishment as an economic superpower led to a Golden Age of Japanese architecture. Six innovators stand out particularly, fusing Japanese traditions with modern materials and technology.

A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.

Documentary examining the life and career of producer/director Roger Corman. Clips from his films and interviews with actors and crew members who have worked with him are featured.

Made in 1980, this film explores the contemporary dance scene through the work of seven New York-based choreographers. They discuss the nature of dance and the evolution of their own work. Filmed at rehearsals, performances, and during interviews, the film is a unique primary source. The artistic roots of these seven artists can be found in Martha Graham's concern with modern life as a subject for dance and in Merce Cunningham's emphasis on the nature of movement. In the 1960s, the interaction of art forms generated choreographic innovations. Especially influential was John Cage, whose radical ideas served as a point of departure for much of the new choreography. Each of the choreographers in Making Dances draws inspiration from the Graham/Cunningham tradition, yet each makes a highly distinctive statement. Structure, movement in non-fictive time and space, and the nature of movement itself are recurring themes.

For his five Cremaster films Matthew Barney's created a multitude of sculptural forms and structures. Recently both the sculptures and the films traveled to museums in Cologne, Paris and New York's Guggenheim. In THE CREMASTER CYCLE: A Conversation with Matthew Barney, the artist guides the camera through this remarkable creation at the Guggenheim Museum while being questioned by Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic of the New York Times.

Architect Peter Zumthor lives and works in the remote village of Haldenstein in the Swiss Canton of Graubünden where he can keep the politics of architecture at a comfortable distance as he enjoys status and praise for his unique modernist buildings. In "The Practice of Architecture", critic Kenneth Frampton visits Zumthor at his studio where the two are surrounded by models, designs and plans for current and future projects throughout Europe and the United States. Frampton questions the renowned architecture on the motives and methods behind some of his most famous works, including his Zinc-Mine-Museum in Norway and the highly acclaimed Therme Vals, a stunning hotel and spa built over the thermal springs in Graubünden. While walking us through his career, Zumthor discusses his penchant for minimalism, the importance of landscape, light and material, and the architectural theory behind his stunningly precise style

American composers have long struggled against the momentum of the Western European classical tradition and the prestige it has held in America's cultural life. "I did not want to have any stricture at all, I wanted to be completely free." So spoke Harry Partch, describing not only his own path, but also that of two other influential American composers: Lou Harrison and Terry Riley. They were attracted to musical ideas and sounds outside of the surrounding classical mainstream. Together they offer a deeper understanding of what those alternatives are and how they have affected American culture.

"Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis" is a visually striking film portrait shot on location in Japan with the participation of the major Butoh choreographers and their companies. Although Butoh is often viewed as Japan's equivalent of modern dance, in actuality it has little to do with the rational principles of modernism. Butoh is a theater of improvisation which places the personal experiences of the dancer on center-stage. By reestablishing the ancient Japanese connection of dance, music, and masks, and by recalling the Buddhist death dances of rural Japan, Butoh incorporates much traditional theater. At the same time, it is a movement of resistance against the abandonment of traditional culture to a highly organized consumer-oriented society.

"The New Clark: Bringing the Ando Experience to the Berkshires" is a revealing insight into a long-term radical expansion of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The film follows the close collaboration between the museum and its internationally-acclaimed Japanese architect, Tadao Ando. Both Ando and the director of the Clark Art Institute, Michael Conforti, ponder the complexities of the project and the challenges involving aesthetic, setting, and community impact during the difficult twelve-year period. Determined to honor the institute's original buildings while introducing the modern elements associated with his unique style, Ando's design evokes a classic tranquility that seamlessly blends the Clark Art Institute with its stunning surroundings.

Through a blend of Japanese history and Western influence, Arata Isozaki has built a career around his boldly distinctive architectural style. Constantly challenging the concepts of space, form and tradition, Isozaki’s work dares us to imagine a merging of cultures where artistic movements and methods bind together in riveting new forms. "ARATA ISOZAKI II: INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS" follows the architect to many of his most famous sites including the Barcelona Olympic Sports Palace, Disney’s Team Building in Orlando, New York’s Palladium nightclub, as well as the newly completed Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Art historians and critics talk with Philip Guston about his ideas and new work of the 1970's. Filmed during the making of "Philip Guston: A Life Lived."

With the participation of famed architects such as Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind and Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman: Making Architecture Move provides an intimate look into the work of the daring and controversial creator. Filmed in the U.S. and Germany, Eisenman takes the viewer through several of his buildings, including the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, while explaining his upcoming projects such as the Rebstockpark community in Frankfurt and the Max Reinhardt monument in Berlin. His predecessors and contemporaries offer praise and commentary on Eisenman's complex body of work including their own thoughts and theories surrounding his unique style.

Crewdson is observed and questioned closely during his work on ten new images in as many different sets.

When Brooklyn's Kings Theater -- one of five "Wonder Theaters" in the New York area -- closed its doors in 1977, the neighborhood mourned. In a series of interviews, local aficionados of the palace as well as its projectionist, its organist, and former employees, reminisce about the Kings and its charmed days gone by.

A visit to the studio of Ernst Wilhelm Nay, a remarkable, if somewhat solitary German artist, who established his status at age 30, just before the advent of the Nazi takeover. Nay belonged to the persecuted generation of German artists who, just as their work began to blossom, were forced out by Hitler's art dictatorship. Labeling the art "decadent", the Hitler regime called for the removal of Nay's paintings from museum collections and the artist was banned from showcasing his new work. After the end of World War II, Nay returned to painting and worked tirelessly to make up for lost time, producing new pieces year after year and quickly becoming one of Germany's leading painters. Ernst Wilhelm Nay died in 1968 at the age of 65 yet his studio, still intact, offers a retrospective of his work starting from the 1920s. His wife, Elisabeth Nay walks us through the studio, offering insights into her husband's process and creative intent.

"Solid States: Concrete in Architecture and Structural Engineering" offers examples and insights into the ever-adapting possibilities of concrete. With the participation of prominent architects and engineers such as Steven Holl, Toshiko Mori and Bernard Tschumi, the lectures consist of footage and theories pertaining to the developments of concrete as a material within the architectural world.