Episodes
1. The Mysterious Mr Hopper
June 2, 2004
50 min
The mid 20th-century realist Edward Hopper’s enigmatic depictions of everyday Americana are celebrated for their ambivalence, dealing in not only the prosaic but also existentialist themes of loneliness and alienation - yet despite their popularity, surprisingly little is known about the artist's private life. For the first in a new run of the arts documentary strand, Alan Yentob travels to America to meet biographer Gail Levin and explore his love of cinema, the landscape of Cape Cod, and his complex relationship with wife and muse Jo.
2. Sitting for Lucian Freud
June 9, 2004
50 min
Now in his 80s, British artist Lucian Freud has always been at pains to preserve his privacy. Reasoning that the next best thing to interviewing the artist would be to talk to those with whom he has isolated himself day and night, director Jake Auerbach spent two years filming the often famous subjects of Freud's portraits - and gained an intimate insight into one of Britain's greatest living painters.
3. Saint John Coltrane
June 16, 2004
50 min
Forty years on from the release of the landmark album A Love Supreme, Alan Yentob charts the life of hugely influential jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Lol Lovett’s film looks at how his improvisational technique impacted not only on jazz but also on other art forms - his innovations have been felt in performance art and even in contemporary dance music - and shows how his profound spirituality entered into every area of his life and work.
4. Dirty But Clean Pierre
June 23, 2004
With Vernon God Little, his 2003 Booker Prize-winning debut novel, writer and self-confessed conman DBC Pierre, aka Australian-born Peter Finlay, became the most controversial character to win the award. Alan Yentob joins the enigmatic novelist on a road trip across Texas and Mexico, exploring locations central to the book and the house where Pierre grew up, in a bid to find out the truth behind the bizarre stories of serial mendacity and drug addiction.
5. Unsuitable for Children?
December 15, 2004
Is modern children's fiction a dangerously influential portrayal of a degraded culture or an instruction manual for life in the 21st century Along with contributions from authors including Salman Rushdie, Alan Yentob analyses the aptness of material that covers sex, drug taking, racial murder and the death of God.
6. The Smoking Diaries
December 15, 2004
Playwright and author Simon Gray 's recent autobiography offers a turbulent mixture of memoir and anecdote and charts his addictions to smoking and alcohol. To mark its publication and the opening of his latest play The Old Masters, Alan Yentob presents a rare insight into the 50-year career of one of Britain's foremost dramatists.
