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.

"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.

In the silent film era, movies were never really silent. In the background of films that made figures like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton into cultural icons, were the musical giants whose compositions defined the very films that captivated a generation of movie-goers. Arthur Kleiner converses with the still-living legends from that bygone golden age of cinema.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

The Imaginary Solutions of Thomas Chimes presents a conversation with the artist as he reminisces about his career, influences and artistic intuitions. Director of the museum, Anne d'Harnoncourt, joins Chimes to revisit the galleries of Thomas Eakins, Duchamp and Van Gogh, all of whom were deeply influential throughout his artistic journey. Just as many other American artists, Chimes spent time in Paris and discovered writers such as Antonin Artaud, James Joyce and most notably Alfred Jarry, whose writings on pataphysics dominated Chimes' work for two decades.

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.

Known for his bold, abstract and stark white buildings, American architect Richard Meier now takes on the challenge of building the Jubilee Church in Rome. Holding the location in high regard, Meier praises the vibrant visual layout of the city and tells us, "Rome is a city of architecture; it's a city of walls and columns and spaces and places and defined places and wherever you look there's architecture" (Richard Meier). Staying true to his signature design style, Meier has created a structure resembling grand soaring sails which appear steady and peaceful as they stand in striking opposition to the city's landscape. Three curved walls separate three distinct spaces: the main sanctuary, the weekday chapel and the baptistry, each with its own entrance. As a contrast he shows us his favorite churches in Rome by his famous colleagues from earlier times.

Renowned English painter, David Hockney, takes us on a visual journey as he shares with us his treasured photo diaries. Consisting of polaroids Hockney has been collecting since 1967, the diaries act as both a tribute and an artist's notebook, often times including images the painter used for his large canvas works. A fine example of Hockney's pictorial inspiration are several photographs of castles he took during a boat trip down the Rhine that were later adapted for a suite of etchings to accompany six Grimm's fairy tales. Seeing his projects long before the work begins, Hockney used his camera to slow time and capture images that would go on to boast his unique style of realism. In David Hockney's Diaries the artist is seen at work on a large canvas of his friends Celia and Ossie Clark and their cat Percy, commissioned by the Tate Gallery.

In 1943 Herbert and Lotte Strauss made the courageous decision to escape from Germany and almost certain extermination in a Nazi concentration camp. This is a personal account of their dramatic flight, building a new life in the United States, and coming to terms with the Holocaust. "We Were German Jews" grapples with the torment of living with the legacy of the Holocaust. The film chronicles Herbert and Lotte Strauss' return visit to Germany. They were not trying to assuage any sense of guilt over having survived; they wanted to confront the past by going back to where they had lived before the onslaught that claimed most of their relatives. This understated, very personal story adds significantly to the body of evidence that explores human behavior in the face of genocide and insists that we remember the past and learn from it.

Architects Lebbeus Woods and Steven Holl have been friends for many years, brought together by their creativity, philosophy and visionary architectural pursuits. While both are theorists, Woods finds himself preoccupied with bold, speculative designs that push back against notions of time and space, not waiting or searching for any kind of commissions but instead forming his own aesthetical world through the freedom of drawing. This approach stands in direct contrast with Holl's body of work, which consists of many physical buildings both in the United States and abroad. This known order between the two architects has recently been interrupted by Holl commissioning Woods to design a four-story pavilion for his large-scale multi complex Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, China. Getting together at Woods' workspace in downtown Manhattan, the longtime friends recall their careers while discussing the current project and their mutual architectural practices.

Narrated by the architect himself, Frank Gehry: The Formative Years explores his long standing career and unique eye. The film looks at a number of Gehry's projects from private homes to complex public institutions, all of which echo his experimental style and vision. Works such as The Norton House, The Aerospace Museum and Loyola Law School demonstrate Gehry's eccentric and distinctive touch. The Formative Years is a survey of his beginnings when Gehry experimented with his own house in Santa Monica, giving him notoriety in the architecture scene.

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

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, abstraction - that most quintessentially modernist innovation - maintains a peculiarly contradictory position. Used, on one hand, by post-modernist artists as just one more quotable style amongst many, it is on the other hand still considered an elitist or hermetic language by audiences intimidated by its lack of recognizable subject matter. Yet ultimately, abstraction continues to be a viable creative path for contemporary artists of all generations, many of whom embrace it as the most inclusive and fundamentally resonant of artistic languages. Filmed at the artists' studios, the Dia Center for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Museum during their exhibition, "Abstraction in the Twentieth Century."

In Alvaro Siza: Transforming Reality Portugal's renowned architect reviews his work with architectural historian, Kenneth Frampton. While touring his projects Siza discusses his approach to architecture, explaining that it is centered around the idea that setting is integral to design and that a structure should be reinforced by surroundings that both enhance and highlight its potential.

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.

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.