Tony Palmer Movies

This documentary explores the life and career of drummer Ginger Baker, a well-respected musician who famously discovered Fela Kuti's Afrobeat during a trip to Nigeria. After a period of addiction and self-destruction, Baker moved to South Africa, where he remarried and cares for a number of polo ponies. Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Carlos Santana are interviewed. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

Cause-célèbre British documentarian Tony Palmer helmed this biographical documentary on the life and work of English composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934. Though best known for his orchestral suite The Planets (1914-16), Holst in fact led one of the most colorful lives of any composer in history - one that witnessed him living among brothels in Algiers, cycling in the Sahara Desert, teaching himself Sanskrit, distributing Socialist newspapers, and much more. Palmer explores the major events of Holst's life chronologically, then discusses his death from cancer as a lonely and broken man, before his 60th birthday. Tamas Vasary and Sian Edwards conduct the film's musical score. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

This classical concert film finds the beautiful and incomparably talented Russian pianist Valentina Igoshina interpreting numerous pieces by Frédéric Chopin. Selections include: Waltz No. 1 in E Flat Major, Op. 18, Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 20 , Impromptu No. 4 in C Sharp Minor, Op. 66 and many more. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

 

This in-depth, feature length documentary explores the controversial life of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Often dismissed as a happy folk hero, Williams was in fact often frustrated and unhappy with both his small town life and his obligations to care for his invalid wife. Exploring both his musical and personal legacy, the film paints a multidimensional portrait of the artist. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

Don't Look Now director Nicholas Roeg steps back behind the camera for the first time in fifteen years to weave this macabre tale of a young architect who finds her unborn child in danger after moving deep into the Irish countryside. Liffrey (Kelly Reilly) has had enough of the big city, and now she's looking to escape her overbearing boss (Donald Sutherland) by moving to the hills of Ireland with her American boyfriend Richard (Oscar Pearce) and restoring a crumbling cottage. The previous inhabitants of the cottage are the Tuckers, who have since taken up residence at a nearby farm. Mabs Tucker (Miranda Richardson) is mother to three ethereal daughters, though her desire to have a son is evident from the first moment she meets her new neighbors. Something about the Tuckers just doesn't seem right to Liffrey and her suspicious beau, and when Liffrey becomes pregnant the mood around their cottage becomes downright ominous. It seems that Mabs' mother Molly (Rita Tushingham) has been dabbling in magic in order to ensure herself a grandson, and soon it's revealed that eldest daughter Audrey (Leona Igoe) possesses some strange, otherworldly powers. As the word about Liffrey's pregnancy begins to spread, the Tucker women become convinced that the unborn child was actually intended for Mabs, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to claim the baby as their own. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Tony Palmer, music aficionado, occasional rock performer (the albums See You at the Knee, Long Time Comin' Home), and director of classic performance films from multiple musical genres such as Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (1971), the massive Wagner (1983), and Maria Callas: La Divina (1987), helms the 3 hour documentary Tony Palmer's Film About the Salzburg Festival (aka The Salzburg Festival). The Austrian Film Commission granted Palmer nearly limitless access to their archives, from which he collected and assembled over 85 years' worth of footage of the world's foremost opera venue, studded with oratorios from the most accomplished practitioners of the craft - everyone from Toscanini to Callas to Anne-Sophie Mutter to Mitsuko Uchida. Some of the dozens of highlights include: Brandauer and Schell's distinct interpretations of Federmann; Furtwanger's 1954 performance in Don Giovanni; Nazi footage at Salzburg, shot during the Hitler regime; and interviews with everyone from Domingo to Levine to Rattle. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

What sort of man kills one of the most beloved musicians in the world, and what prompts him to pull the trigger? Filmmaker Andrew Piddington explores these questions in this fact-based drama which examines several weeks in the life of Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon. Chapman (played by Jonas Ball) is a self-obsessed young man who has an emotionally distant relationship with his parents and a failing marriage to Gloria (Mie Omori). Unable to hold down a job, Chapman spends a lot of time at the public library, where he rereads J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and browses though a photo book on John Lennon, and the two begin to fuse in his imagination, as he links Holden Caulfield's grousing about "phonies" with the fame and wealth of one-time activist Lennon. Chapman hops a flight to New York City and visits the sights Caulfield talked about in the novel when not busy standing vigil outside the Dakota, the luxury apartment building Lennon calls home, with a gun in his possession. The first time Chapman crosses paths with Lennon as he's leaving the Dakota, he asks the former Beatle to sign a copy of Double Fantasy, Lennon's new album; several hours later, Lennon returns home and Chapman approaches him with a very different intent. The Killing of John Lennon was primarily filmed in the locations where the real-life events took place, and all of Chapman's dialogue in the film was taken from his diaries or interviews he's given since his arrest and imprisonment. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This documentary profiles the internationally respected violinist Ivry Gitlis who has played with some of the biggest names in music history including Eric Clapton, John Lennon, and Dizzy Gillespie. In addition to performance footage, the filmmakers include interviews with Gitlis in which he discusses how his style fits into the grand tradition of his instrument. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Stanley Kubrick was one of the most acclaimed and controversial filmmakers of his generation, but he was also an intensely private man who rarely gave interviews and produced most of his films under a shroud of secrecy, which tended to foster a great deal of rumor and speculation about his working methods. Jan Harlan, who worked as Kubrick's assistant and executive producer on several projects (and was also his brother-in-law), directed this documentary, which offers a rare in-depth look into Kubrick's career as a filmmaker, structured around interviews with a number of actors, writers, technicians, composers, friends, and family who speak on the record about his relentless perfectionism, his creative vision, his life both on and off the set, his relationships with actors, his unrealized projects, and his importance and influence as an artist. Among those who share their thoughts in Stanley Kubrick -- A Life In Pictures are actors Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Malcolm McDowell, Peter Ustinov, and Keir Dullea; writers Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Herr; special effects artist Douglas Trumbull; composers Wendy Carlos and Gyorgy Ligeti; filmmakers Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Paul Mazursky, and Sydney Pollack; and Kubrick's spouse Christiane Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick -- A Life In Pictures was originally produced as a television project, to be aired in three parts, though the project was shown in its entirety at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Richard Wagner's operatic retelling of the story of the search for the Holy Grail receives a lavish production in this video, which records performances held in Bayreuth, St. Petersburg, and Ravello, Italy. Internationally renowned tenor Placido Domingo leads the distinguished cast; Tony Palmer directs. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi