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This documentary series uses drama and commentary to shed light on the lives and works of Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, T. S. Eliot, Henrik Ibsen, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Luigi Pirandello, Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf.

The French philosopher, writer and Nobel Prize winner died in a car crash in 1960, at the age of forty-six. Despite the unremitting seriousness of his intellectual stance as an Existentialist and his concern for the human condition, Camus had a zest for life and was a notorious womaniser. Jack Bonds fully dramatised film, a dreamlike vision set in the moment between life and death itself, evokes the man and his ideas.

A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.

Human, All Too Human is a three-part 1999 documentary television series co-produced by the BBC and RM Arts.[1] It follows the lives of three prominent European philosophers: Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre.[1] The theme revolves heavily around the school of philosophical thought known as Existentialism, although the term had not been coined at the time of Nietzsche's writing and Heidegger declaimed the label. The documentary is named after the 1878 book written by Nietzsche, titled Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (in German: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister).[2]

An opera by Benjamin Britten, on a libretto by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier, adapted from the story by Herman Melville. Billy Budd is a young sailor aboard a British man-o'-war, persecuted by his master-at-arms, Claggart. Accused of mutiny, Budd accidently strikes Claggart dead, leaving Captain Vere with no choice but to hang him.

Set in a British pub, eight men have their night out. Blokish fun is balanced on a knife-edge of tension, where weakness is exploited and violence covers up vulnerability. Originally created for the stage by DV8 Physical Theatre.

On 8th January 1735 at the Covent Garden in London, Georg Friederich Handel presented his new opera Ariodante on a libretto by Antonio Salvi adapted by Paolo Rolli and inspired by Ariosto. The opera did not immediately win public favour and thus failed to furnish a definitive solution for the fate of Handel's company, but with time it was to be understood and appreciated and has remained on playbills among the more successful and interesting titles. Handel's particular attention to the expressive aspect was most probably the reason for the opera's limited commercial success: the characters fit only partially into the customary types of opera of the day. The tendency to formulate autonomous patterns in the expressive genre is also underlined by an illustrious contemporary, John Mainwaring, in his Memoirs of the life of George Frederick Handel. Extraordinary is also the strength of the instrumental composition, which again in Ariodante is intended now as support to the voices now as independent, coinciding with steps in the sinfonia and with delightful dance motives. In this production of the Spoleto Festival, at his 50th anniversary, Alan Curtis conducts the Complesso Barocco and an extraordinarily agile Ann Hallenberg in the title role. Scenes and costumes by John Pascoe. Together with Giulio Cesare and Rodelinda, Ariodante is considered one of Handel's operatic masterpieces. It was composed for London's Covent Garden theatre, where it was first performed on January 8th, 1735. Alan Curtis and his Complesso Barocco rank among the best specialists in baroque music, and regularly record for Virgin, Deutsche Grammophone and now also for Dynamic. Thanks to the interesting and personal touch of the director Alan Pascoe, this production comes across as a very credible show. Pascoe and Curtis, incidentally, already gained remarkable success with Vivaldi's Ercole sul Termodonte, published by Dynamic in 2007

The child prodigy turns 60. Anne-Sophie Mutter from Wehr in the Black Forest was discovered by Herbert von Karajan at the age of 13. Since then, she has had an unprecedented global career. "If you want to get to know me, you have to see me on stage," says star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. She doesn't appreciate questions about her private life. How do you portray a woman like that? Filmmaker Sigrid Faltin thought that if she put the artist in unusual conversation situations, she would probably open up the most. For this reason, the author arranged to go on a long hike with the star violinist on the Wilder Kaiser in the Austrian mountains - together with her dachshund Bonnie. When asked who she would like to talk to, Ms. Mutter spontaneously said: tennis star Roger Federer. She also named New York magician Steve Cohen, her musician friends Daniel Barenboim, John Williams, Jörg Widmann and her long-time piano accompanist Lambert Orkis, "my best musical buddy." In her discussions with these men (women didn't really come to mind), she explains in the film why she identifies with top athletes, how she got her concert robes and why she regrets having stopped playing the piano. She speaks in detail about the early death of her husband and her life as a single mother with a breathtaking global career that is unparalleled. Enough material to experience Anne-Sophie Mutter not only as a musician, but also as a woman who is active in sports, politics and social affairs. Archive material from five decades complements the unusual film about one of the greatest musicians of our time.

Ken Russell's film about the composer Bruckner, spending time at a sanatorium because of his obsessional counting.

A historical adaptation of John Gay's 18th Century ballad opera, exuberantly performed for BBC television. With its story of a condemned highwayman, it brings to life the greed, lust and corruption of low-life London.

Eugène Marais is Afrikaner intellectual, naturalist, poet, author, rebel and morphine addict who publicly attacked the repressive Transvaal Government. On a remote farm, trying to overcome his drug habit, Marais observes the animal world to understand the essence of dependency.

Hungarian director Laszlo Kovacs (László Szabó) goes to Hollywood, where his compatriot Agi (Ágnes Bánfalvy) tries to get him started on a film document about the late movie director Orson Welles. She sends him the issue #82 of American Film magazine, November 1983, with several pages marked on controversial statements of Wells and other personalities. He gets curious, meets the young woman Agi, and she suggests a number of people to interview, who had known the late film director. Like his model, he is engulfed in the world of movies, alcohol, sex, film stardom and unfinished or inconclusive movies. A docudrama told in the style of Wells himself, with interviews presented and re-enacted so that ambivalence prevails over what is true and what is fake.

The opera tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen.

This opera is set in Persia (present day Iran) in 480 BC and is very loosely based upon Xerxes I of Persia. Apart from the reported infatuation of King Xerxes with a plane tree and his reported construction of a bridge, this tale is pure supposition. Xerxes is engaged to Amatris, but wishes to marry Romilda, the daughter of his successful general. Romilda wants to marry Arsamenes, the brother of the King, but Atalanta - Romilda's sister - wants Arsamenes to be her husband.

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka's magical masterpiece in its entirety, inspired by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin's poem of a Russian tale. An evil sorcerer Chernomor casts a spell over wedding celebrations for Ruslan and Lyudmila at the court of Svetozar, the Prince of Kiev. Lyudmila vanishes and her father promises her hand and half his kingdom to the knight who rescues her. Ruslan on this quest of rescue encounters the knights Ratmir and Farlaf, the wise wizard Finn, the slave of Ratmir, Gorislava and sorceress Naina before confronting Chernomor in his magic garden. After all the challenges for Ruslan, true love prevails.

Ken Russell's biopic on his own life and career.

The Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, is hot-blooded and jealous of anyone who might win the Queen's favour. He provokes a fight with the tournament victor, Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, but then the Queen and her entourage arrive. She orders the two men to make up, but later she discusses the rivalry of Mountjoy and Essex with her chief adviser, Sir Robert Cecil. She admires Essex, but Cecil warns her of the political dangers of showing affection for him. He also reports that a new Armada may be on the way. Essex comes in and requests permission to go to Ireland to suppress the Tyrone rebellion. He accuses Cecil and Sir Walter Raleigh of intriguing against him. The Queen resists and sends him away. Essex complains to his wife Frances about the way Elizabeth thwarts his desire to go to Ireland. Lady Essex gives a ball at which she dresses extravagantly and looks finer than her queen, but when the ladies return from changing their dresses after a dance, Lady Essex says that her dress was stolen, and it is clear that the larger woman, Queen Elizabeth, is wearing it. Essex is furious about his wife's humiliation, but the Queen says he will be appointed Lord Deputy in Ireland. In the final act, however, Essex has failed to put down the Irish rebellion. Though Elizabeth likes him, she cannot approve his failure or his paranoia and political battles at court. The Queen orders him imprisoned, and some citizens sympathize with Essex though others declare him a traitor and call for his death. Queen Elizabeth must now ponder her relationship with Essex in order to come to the best decision.

The widow, Anna Glawari, faces a dilemma. Pontevedro, her native country, will be left bankrupt if she weds a foreigner. An Embassy plot to marry her off to the debonair Count Danilo Danilovitch is complicated by the secret affair which has developed between the French attaché, Camille de Rosillon, and the Ambassador's wife, Valencienne. This light-hearted tale of political and amorous intrigue unfolds amidst the gaiety of high society in turn-of-the-century Paris.

A collection of 220 ten-minute programs, each one focusing on a painting, appraising its character and content. Host Edwin Mullins examines works in some of the world's finest art collections, galleries and museums, per 20 thematic groups.