The Last Straw is a film documenting the very last live poetry reading given by Charles Bukowski at The Sweetwater, a music club in Redondo Beach, California on March 31, 1980
Social & External
The people behind it
Charles Bukowski
Hosted by Keeley Hawes, star of the popular television series The Durrells, this documentary reveals the adventures of the eccentric Durrell family once they left Corfu, Greece.
Documentary tracing the extreme life of outlaw writer, performance artist and punk icon, Kathy Acker. Through animation, archival footage, interviews and dramatic reenactments, director Barbara Caspar explores Acker's colorful history, from her well-heeled upbringing to her role as the scribe of society's fringe.
Writers, publishers, fans, and friends share their perspectives and memories of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. In his career, Philip Kindred Dick (1928–82) published dozens of science fiction novels and short stories. His work has reached a wider audience due to such film adaptations as BLADE RUNNER (1982), TOTAL RECALL (1990), MINORITY REPORT (2002), and A SCANNER DARKLY (2006).
This in-depth program explores Philip K. Dick`s world, a universe full of mysteries and intrigues.
The film focuses on the exciting life journey of Swiss writer Katharina Zimmermann. She follows her husband on a mission to the jungle in Indonesia where she raises their four children and five foster children and lives through the military coup. Back in Switzerland Katharina discovers her voice and finds her path. Now, at eighty, she is writing her life story. Yet suddenly she faces another battle because her publisher is threatening to let her go.
At the crossroads of Black literary consciousness and political struggle, the ideas of Claude McKay, Jamaican poet and novelist, laid the foundations for major literary movements, including Négritude. Proudly wandering, both bohemian and politically committed, a chameleon with a magnetic personality, he traveled across the globe: New York’s literary scene, Parisian aristocracy, Communist intelligentsia in Russia, and Black diasporas in the port of Marseille. Using archival materials and texts read in voice-over by Gaël Faye and Manon Azem, the film traces McKay’s journey as he crosses paths with major figures of his time, from George Bernard Shaw to W.E.B. Du Bois, Trotski, and many others.
Emmy Award-winning chronicle of the history of Orchard House, the home in Concord, Massachusetts where Louisa May Alcott wrote and set Little Women.
One of the most controversial writers of our times, join Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh as he undergoes a remarkable trip to find new meaning in his work, life and legacy.
The elusive author of Waiting for Godot cooperated in the production of this portrait, which traces Beckett’s artistic life through his prose, plays, and poetry. Billie Whitelaw, Jack McGowran, and Patrick Magee—Beckett’s great dramatic interpreters—appear in selected extracts from the plays; Beckett specialist David Warrilow narrates a variety of texts.
"This film explores how freedom of speech — including dissent — is afforded to all Americans, and shows freedom of expression in art, music, dance, architecture, and science. The film also emphasizes the importance of the individual’s contribution to the whole of society and demonstrates how a productive and creative society is formed by the open and respectful exchange of ideas. The film was written, produced, and directed by William Greaves" (National Archives).
A look back at the troubled life of genius British writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
T. S. Eliot ends one of his most famous poems, "The Hollow Men", by repeating three times the sentence "This is how the world ends" - and then adding: "Not with a bang but a whimper."
Félix, a young, melancholic and secretive shepherd, leads a surprisingly timeless life. He lives alone and works along his father to raise the family herd. From autumn to spring, he looks after his animals, feeds them and keeps them in the dense forests of holm oaks of French Pre-Alps. In the summer, he travels on foot for more than two hundred kilometres, leaving his father to lead the herd to the mountains pastures, in the High Alps Ubaye valley. There, he lives far from everything for many long months, in a mineral and inaccessible world where an invisible being prowls: the wolf. Against the tide of his time, Félix has chosen a profession that isolates him and keeps him out of the world.
Parks makes himself the subject, tracing his development as a person and an artist through a non-narrative abstract self-portrait that combines his photographs with his poetry, musical compositions and scenes from his films. It also features footage of Parks, plus interpretations of his personal reminiscences performed by actors Avery Brooks, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Joe Seneca.
Samuel Beckett has fascinated Adrian Dunbar since he was a young student. Now, 30 years after Beckett's death in Paris, Dunbar explores what made the man who made Waiting for Godot.
An account of the life and work of the Spanish poet Luis García Montero; a journey through his experiences, his mentors, his influences and his contact with other artists, both from the literary world and from other disciplines.
A wordless, silent interview with Samuel Beckett for Swedish Television after Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Louisa May Alcott, author of "Little Women," leads a literary double life, writing under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, an identity that remains until the 1940s.
A highschool project recorded by father and son Ben (16) and Adam Black, consisting of documental shots of Warsaw during nighttime, accompanied by the teen-agers grandmother reading Wisława Szymborska's poem "Four in the Morning," as well as a score composed by his sister.
British author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the world's most translated author: her heroes, private detective Hercule Poirot and amateur sleuth Miss Marple, are known the world over. But who is the woman behind her bestsellers? A biographical search for clues, the unraveling of an iridescent personality whose existence and works were shaped by the tragic history of the 20th century: the eventful life of the Queen of Crime.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Over 35 years after Bob Lazar's revelations, this documentary exposes secrets of a facility the government still denies. Featuring Lazar's testimony, recreations, and new evidence, it reopens a case that continues to spark global curiosity
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
Alternately hilarious and horrifying, Overnight chronicles one man's misadventures of making a Hollywood movie. It starts out as a rags to riches story as Troy Duffy, a Boston-bred bartender, sells his first screenplay for The Boondock Saints.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Literary icon Joan Didion reflects on her remarkable career and personal struggles in this intimate documentary directed by her nephew, Griffin Dunne.
Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
A 1993 documentary film about Bruce Lee. The film includes interviews from some of his fellow students and opponents who worked alongside him in his movies.
A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.
Academy Award winner Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of David Cornwell, the former spy known to the literary world as John le Carré.
Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
Following his infamous championship as part of a marketing stunt for the film Ready to Rumble, David Arquette is widely known as the most hated man in pro-wrestling worldwide. Nearly 20 years after he "won" the initial title, through ups and downs in his career, with his family, and with his struggles with addiction, David Arquette seeks redemption by returning to the ring...for real this time.
Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.
A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.
An interview with film director Roman Polanski conducted during his period of house arrest, discussing his life and work.
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
