Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • 1989 • 26 minutes
“The word was music before all else” -- Angelique Ionatos
What defines music? Soldiers marching in tandem create rhythms; Orthodox priests don’t simply speak when performing the liturgy, they chant and sometimes sing; the hammer banging on a board is not that different from the tug of a rope ringing a church bell.
In Greek mythology, Athena (whose symbol is the owl) invents music. This episode focuses primarily on composer Iannis Xenakis and singer Angelique Ionatos, as they delve into the multi-faceted natures of music, its intimate connection with the rhythms of the natural and human worlds, and the interface between technology, natural sound, and musical composition.
Directed by Léa Pool • Drama • With Céline Bonnier, Lysandre Ménard • 2015 • 103 minutes
Simone Beaulieu, better known as Mother Augustine, runs a convent school for girls in the Canadian province of Quebec in the 1960s. She has turned the little convent into a musical treasure where the student...
Directed by Kenneth Bowser • Documentary • With Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, Tom Hayden, Christopher Hitchens, Sean Penn, Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow • 2010 • 97 minutes
As our country continues to embroil itself in foreign wars, PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE is a timely and relevant tribute to an u...
Directed by Joe Angio • Documentary • With Fred Armisen, Jonathan Franzen, Mary Harron • 2014 • 96 minutes
Revenge of the Mekons charts the unlikely career of the genre-defying collective notorious for being—as rock critic Greil Marcus notes—“the band that took punk ideology most seriously.” Bor...
