Videos on Literature and Philosophy

Brace up! 2009

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The Wooster Group began with a small group of people in 1975, and is a constantly evolving, full-time, ongoing ensemble, and member in good standing of New York City's art avant-garde. Brace Up! is Chekhov's Three sisters on-stage, as re-imagined through the prism of the Group's developing aesthetic. An assemblage made from three performances in April, 2003. In this filmed performance, the setting incorporates close-up recordings of the performers with continuous wide-angle footage, while simultaneously those same performers are in the background. 1 videodisc (106 min.)

MEDIA 10-4641

 

Charles Mingus epitaph 2008, c1989

"On June 3rd, 1989, the Alice Tully Hall at New York's Lincoln Center was the venue for the world premiere performance of Charles Mingus' masterpiece "Epitaph." Conductor Gunther Schuller directed 30 musicians in what the New York Times described as "One of the most memorable jazz events of the decade." The piece had been discovered after Mingus' death in 1979 and painstakingly restored and copied."--Container. 1 videodisc (130 min.)

MEDIA 10-4915

 

Dom Juan, ou, Le festin de Pierre c2004

Moli©·re's play based on the legend of Don Juan. 2 videodiscs (145 min.)

MEDIA 10-5538

 

La due©la de los vientos 2007

In a distant future, the Puerto Rican government distributes air to the population due to the contamination of its' natural air. A commentary on the Puerto Rican fight for independence, the play concentrates on three siblings. The brother, a policeman, doesn't allow his sisters to leave the enclosed area in which the country lives. A sister manages to leave and takes off her breathing mask to discover the power of the winds. 1 videodisc (66 min.)

MEDIA 10-4907

 

The Emperor Jones c2009, c2000

An ambitious black man deposes the ruler of a Caribbean Island and declares himself emperor. 1 videodisc (39 min.)

MEDIA 10-4642

 

Faust c2009

Filmed stage performance of Goethe's version of the tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil.  1 videodisc (123 min.)

MEDIA 10-5541

 

Inferno 2006

A modern, Puerto Rican spin on the travels of Dante and Julia across the distinct levels of Hell, where they comment on the worst aspects of our society. 1 videodisc (137 min.)

MEDIA 10-4909

 

Into the woods  1999

The fairy tale characters of Little Red Ridinghood, Cinderella, and Jack (and the Beanstalk) are linked together with the characters of a baker and his wife. Their stories intertwine as they all search for something different in the woods. After they have all found happiness, they must band together to fight a giant. 1 videodisc (153 min.)

MEDIA 10-4759

 

Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris 2003

Denis Héroux, Paul Marshall, Eric Blau, Jacques Brel, Mort Shuman, Elly Stone, Joe Masiell, Gérard Jouannest, Ely Landau Organization, Cinevision (Firm), Ciné Vision Productions, American Film Theatre, Filmel (Firm), and Kino International Corporation

A plotless four-person musical revue based on the songs of Belgian balladeer Jacques Brel, the show opens on a dark and rainy Parisian night. Three strangers--a cab driver, a soldier, and a meek woman--find themselves in a theater. After watching a puppet show, they venture backstage and then onto a beach, where they sing songs during increasingly surreal events. 1 videodisc (97 min.) :

MEDIA 10-3347

 

Nixon in China  2012, c2011

Opera depicting U.S. President Richard Nixon's historic state visit to mainland China in February 1972. 2 videodiscs (176 min.)

MEDIA 10-5298

 

The shadow of a gunman 2003

Norman Lloyd, Joseph Hardy, Frank Converse , Brendan Dillon, Richard Dreyfuss, Jack MacGowran, Allyn Ann McLerie, Donnelly Rhodes, Sean O'Casey, Kultur International Films, Broadway Theatre Archive, KCET (Television station : Los Angeles, Calif.), and Community Television of Southern California

Sean O'Casey's two-act play about a slovenly peddler and a self-engrossed poet who live in a tenement room in Dublin in 1920 during a time of guerrilla warfare and martial law. 1 videodisc (80 min.)

MEDIA 10-991

 

The tempest Story of the sorcerer, Prospero, and his daughter who have been stranded on an island for twelve years. 1 videodisc (126 minutes)

MEDIA 10-4706

 

To you, the birdie! (Ph©·dre) 2011

The Wooster Group's OBIE-winning production of Paul Schmidt's version of Racine's Ph©·dre, re-set in a mobile modernist landscape of sliding plexiglass panels, omnipresent monitors, and hidden cameras. The disc presents the recording with magnified overlays of the action, designed by Ken Kobland. 1 videodisc (ca. 180 min.)

MEDIA 10-4643

 

La vida en Marte y otras crueles realidades 2007

The filmed play dramatizes the biography of Percival Lowell and his studies on Mars. 1 videodisc (118 min.)

MEDIA 10-4908

 

La Celestina 198-

Fernando de Rojas and Jesús Fernández SantosDerived from the Latin comic tradition in which love conquers all, the author asserts its Spanish character in the moralizing lessons he draws from sins he has so exquisitely described. 1 videocassette (60 min.)

MEDIA 2-275

Everyman a moral play 1991

Bob Morris, Pierre Brulatour, Umit Celebi, and Johnny Kline

A live performance of the the medieval play in which Everyman, summoned by Death to go on a pilgrimage, entreats all of his friends, Fellowship, Kinship, Goods, Knowledge, Strength and other abstractions, to go with him, but finds that only Good Deeds will accompany him. 1 videocassette (53 min.)

DANA. MEDIA 1510 2-2855

Having our say the Delany sisters' first 100 years 2000

Lynne Littman, Diahann Carroll, Ruby Dee, and Amy Madigan

Based on the true story of the Delany sisters, who lived well beyond the age of 100 after having built successful careers at a time when most women, and most African Americans, were being denied opportunities. 1 videocassette (96 min.)

DANA 1864

King Richard II 2005, c1991

Michael Bogdanov, John Paul Chapple, Andy Ward, Michael Pennington, Michael Cronin, Colin Farrell, Roger Booth, William Shakespeare, ITEL (Firm), Portman Classics (Firm), Contracts International (Firm), Windmill Lane Productions, English Shakespeare Company, and Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm)

Shakespeare's historical play about the dynastic struggle between Richard II and the usurper, Henry Bolingboke (later Henry IV). 2 videodiscs (145 min.)

MUSIC 147

Krapp's last tape 1988

Samuel Beckett, Alan Schneider, and Jack MacGowran

Jack McGowran, a well-known Beckett actor, appears in a restored 1971 television version of "Krapp's last tape", the tale of an aging, dehumanized man  reliving his life of thirty years before as he prepares his memoirs with the aid of an old tape recorder. 1 videocassette (54 min.)

DANA.  MEDIA 1571            2-1764

Miss Julie 198-?

Peter J Thompson, Martin C Schute, Robin Phillips, John Glenister, Helen Mirren, Donal McCann, and Heather Canning

A noblewoman allows her butler to seduce her after her engagement is broken.  Her actions lead to an exploration of how the woman's disgrace begins to destroy her. 1 videocassette (105 min.)

MEDIA 2-1417

Platonov 2008

Christopher Morahan,  John Elliot, Cedric Messina, Rex Harrison, Siân Phillips, Clive Revill, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Michael Frayn, Ian McKellen,  Elizabeth Bell, Elizabeth Garvie, Michael Pennington, British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Video (Firm), 2 Entertain (Firm), and Warner Home Video (Firm)

Platonov is a shortened version of Chekhov's early, unfinished and six-hour play, about a notorious Russian philanderer. Wild honey is Michael Frayn's adaptation of the same play. 1 videodisc (116 min.) :

MEDIA 10-2525

The seagull 2008

Michael Lindsay-Hogg, David E Jones, Melvyn Bragg, Gavin Millar, David Jones, Jeremy Brooks, Zoe Caldwell, Michael Gambon, Julia Schofield, Anthony Bate, Stephen Rea, Patrick Stewart, Meg Wynn Owen, Ewan McGregor, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, British Broadcasting Corporation, 2 Entertain Video (Firm), BBC Video (Firm), and Warner Home Video (Firm)

The seagull is a "play adapted for TV in which a struggling writer Konstantin becomes enamored by a visiting young actress Nina"--distributor's web site. An artist's story: "A film adaptation of the Chekhov short story in which an artist bored with country life challenges a charity worker's ideals"--Distributor's web site. 1 videodisc (165 min.) :

MEDIA 10-2527

The shadow of a gunman 2003

Norman Lloyd, Joseph Hardy, Frank Converse , Brendan Dillon, Richard Dreyfuss, Jack MacGowran, Allyn Ann McLerie, Donnelly Rhodes, Sean O'Casey, Kultur International Films, Broadway Theatre Archive, KCET (Television station : Los Angeles, Calif.), and Community Television of Southern California

Sean O'Casey's two-act play about a slovenly peddler and a self-engrossed poet who live in a tenement room in Dublin in 1920 during a time of guerrilla warfare and martial law. 1 videodisc (80 min.)

MEDIA 10-991

Six characters in search of an author c1997

Luigi Pirandello, John Hurt, Brian Cox, Tara Fitzgerald, Susan Fleetwood, Bill Bryden, Simon Curtis, British Broadcasting Corporation, and Films for the Humanities (Firm)

A director and a group of actors shooting a film are interrupted by the arrival of six fictional characters in search of the writer who has abandoned them.They are demanding that their story be finished. 1 videocassette (96 min.)

MEDIA 2-6538

Six characters in search of an author 2001?

Stacy Keach, Paul Avila Mayer, Andy Griffith, John Housseman, Julie Adams, Beverly Todd, and James Keach

Actors in rehearsal are replaced by six strangers who appear mysteriously and who convince the director their story is more interesting than the play in rehearsal. 1 videocassette (ca. 96 min.)

MEDIA 2-5675

The skin of our teeth c2000

Jack O'Brien, Sam Paul, Sada Thompson, Harold Gould, Blair Brown, Rue McClanahan, John Houseman, Thornton Wilder, Broadway Theatre Archive, Kultur Video, WNET (Television station : New York, N.Y.), Limelight Productions, Educational Broadcasting Corporation, and Old Globe Theatre

Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play brings to life the fate and foibles of the celebrated Antrobus family-- a bold and brassy embodiment of Wilder's vision of the American people. 1 videocassette (125 min.)

MEDIA 2-7675

The sorrows of gin 2000

John Cheever, Ann Blumenthal, Peter Weinberg, Jack Hofsiss, Edward Herrmann, Sigourney Weaver, Eileen Heckart, Mara Hobel, Rachel Roberts, Wendy Wasserstein, WNET (Television station : New York, N.Y.), Broadway Theatre Archive, and Educational Broadcasting Corporation

The story of an eight year old girl's search for a sense of family amid the sophisticated and detached whirl of her parents' lives in suburban America. 1 videocassette (60 min.)

MEDIA 2-1398

Three sisters 2008

Cedric Messina, Elisaveta Fen, Gerald Savory, Janet Suzman, Eileen Atkins, Michele Dotrice, Anthony Hopkins, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, British Broadcasting Corporation, 2 Entertain Video (Firm), BBC Video (Firm), and Warner Home Video (Firm)

A universal story about yearning, decay, and searching for meaning. Olga, Masha and Irina dream of returning to Moscow, which symbolizes their hope for a better life. But as the play proceeds, their drab provincial existence tightens its hold. 1 videodisc (130 min.) :

MEDIA 10-2529

Uncle Vanya 2008- 1970, 1991

Cedric Messina, Christopher Morahan, David Mamet, Simon Curtis, Gregory Mosher, Freddie Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Ann Bell, Roland Culver, David Warner, Ian Holm, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Ian Bannen, Rebecca Pidgeon, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Oleg Efremov, David Jones, Richard Denton, British Broadcasting Corporation, WNET (Television station : New York, N.Y.), 2 Entertain Video (Firm), BBC Video (Firm), and Warner Home Video (Firm)

Vanya is a bitter, sarcastic man, obsessed with his wasted years and what might have been. He has spent his life toiling for the benefit of the scholar, Serabryakov, who has turned out to be a charlatan. To make matters worse, Vanya has fallen in love with Serabryakov's beautiful, young, new wife, who does not return his ardor. In a 1987 Bookmark episode called A visit from Vanya, Oleg Efremov (director of the Moscow Art Theater on a visit to Oxford) rehearses and discusses scenes from Chekhov plays with director David Jones, and with Russian, British and U.S. actors & directors. 1 videodisc (255 min.) :

MEDIA 10-2528

Waiting for Godot 1976

Samuel Beckett, Alan Schneider, Jack Kuney , Milo O'Shea, Burgess Meredith, Zero Mostel, Kurt Kasznar, Alvin Epstein, and Luke Halpin

World War II seemed to show that the old answers to the question why were no longer adequate ; new theories of everything are springing up all around us.  The formulators of these theories, or perhaps all modern men, are epitomized by Samuel Beckett's non-heroes, Didi and Gogo.  Waiting for Godot abandons sequential action, excluding everything in the nature of plot and creating an atmosphere of non-logic.  The important thing about Godot is what does not happen. 1 videocassette (102 min.)

MEDIA 2-295

The women of Brewster Place 1998

Oprah Winfrey, Robin Givens, Cicely Tyson, Patricia K Meyers, Reuben Cannon, Karen Hall, Donna Deitch, and Gloria Naylor

Mattie Michael, whose life has been plagued by misfortunes, is alone in a ghetto tenement on Brewster Place.  She gradually unites the other tenement women to help them struggle for a new life. 2 videocassettes (155 min.)

DANA. DANA 1126 cassette 1 1126 cassette 2

The wood demon 2008.  Filmed 1959-1991

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Ian Holm, Francesca Annis, Ronald Fraser, Harry Moore, Anne Robson, David Bird, Dennis Edwards, Robert Gillespie, Donald McWhinnie, Cedric Messina, Rosemary Hill, Ralph Fiennes, Wilfrid Lawson, Catherine Bailey, David Hare, John Tydeman, British Broadcasting Corporation, 2 Entertain Video (Firm), BBC Video (Firm), and Warner Home Video (Firm)

The wood demon: A rich landowner wants to sell his house and forest, much to the displeasure of the wood demon, an ecologically minded doctor whose passion is to preserve Russian forests; The proposal: The wealthy landowner Lomov seeks to marry his neighbor Chubukov's 25-year old daughter Natalia. Lomov is entirely at ease with Chubukov, who quickly gives his consent, but Lomov proves completely inept at actually proposing to Natalia; The wedding: A bridegroom's plan to have a general attend his wedding backfires when the general turns out to be a lowly naval captain. 1 videodisc (171 min.) :

MEDIA 10-2526

Wozzeck 2007

Georg Büchner, Joachim Hess, Rolf Liebermann, Toni Blankenheim, Richard Cassilly, Peter Haage, Gerhard Unger, Hans Sotin, Kurt Moll, Franz Grundheber, Kurt Marschner, Sena Jurinac, Elisabeth Steiner, Martina Schumacher, Bruno Maderna, Alban Berg, Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Chor, and Arthaus Musik (Firm)

The story encompasses the gruesome detail, horror, passion, and torment that characterized works of the German Expressionist movement. Wozzeck is an impoverished soldier driven insane by his manipulative superiors and his mistress' infidelity. In a jealous rage, he stabs her, then drowns when he tries to wash the blood from his hands. 1 videodisc  (106 min.) :

MUSIC 301