Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist | |
---|---|
Directed by | Saul J. Turell |
Written by | Saul J. Turell |
Produced by | Jessica Berman Saul J. Turell [1] |
Starring | Paul Robeson Sidney Poitier |
Narrated by | Sidney Poitier |
Edited by | Donald P. Finamore |
Distributed by | Janus Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 30 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist is a 1979 American short documentary film directed by Saul J. Turell. [2] In 1980, it won an Oscar at the 52nd Academy Awards for Documentary Short Subject. [3] It was released alongside Robeson's other films on a Criterion Collection box set in 2007. [4] [5]
This article needs a plot summary.(January 2024) |
The film was directed by Saul J. Turell, a filmmaker most well known for his work in preservation, distribution, and celebration of older films through his work in the companies Sterling Films and Janus Films. [6] Turell had decided to create the film after feeling a frustration that Robeson was so little known in the 1970's. Following research, he decided to focus on the changing meaning and lyrics of Robeson's performances "Ol' Man River" as a guiding point for the story. [7]
Robert Jonathan Demme was an American filmmaker, whose career directing, producing, and screenwriting spanned more than 30 years and 70 feature films, documentaries, and television productions. He was an Academy Award and a Directors Guild of America Award winner, and received nominations for a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three Independent Spirit Awards.
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind reality. It is sometimes called observational cinema, if understood as pure direct cinema: mainly without a narrator's voice-over. There are subtle, yet important, differences between terms expressing similar concepts. Direct cinema is largely concerned with the recording of events in which the subject and audience become unaware of the camera's presence: operating within what Bill Nichols, an American historian and theoretician of documentary film, calls the "observational mode", a fly on the wall. Many therefore see a paradox in drawing attention away from the presence of the camera and simultaneously interfering in the reality it registers when attempting to discover a cinematic truth.
The War Room is a 1993 American documentary film about Bill Clinton's campaign for President of the United States during the 1992 United States presidential election. Directed by Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker, the film was released on December 5, 1993. It was eventually nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award.
Donn Alan Pennebaker was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award. Pennebaker was called by The Independent as "arguably the pre-eminent chronicler of Sixties counterculture".
Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos.
The Criterion Collection, Inc. is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A de facto subsidiary of arthouse film distributor Janus Films, Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and documentary content about the films and filmmakers. Criterion most notably pioneered the use of commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than 1,000 special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via The Criterion Channel, an online streaming service that the company operates.
Janus Films is an American film distribution company. The distributor is credited with introducing numerous films, now considered masterpieces of world cinema, to American audiences, including the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sergei Eisenstein, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, François Truffaut, Yasujirō Ozu and many other well-regarded directors. Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) was the film responsible for the company's initial growth.
William Garfield Greaves was an American documentary filmmaker and a pioneer of film-making. After trying his hand at acting, he became a filmmaker who produced more than two hundred documentary films, and wrote and directed more than half of these. Greaves garnered many accolades for his work, including four Emmy nominations.
Les Blank was an American documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of American traditional musicians.
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 American documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it.
Show Boat is a 1936 American romantic musical film directed by James Whale, based on the 1927 musical of the same name by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, which in turn was adapted from the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.
The Times of Harvey Milk is a 1984 American documentary film that premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and then on November 1, 1984, at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. The film was directed by Rob Epstein, produced by Richard Schmiechen, and narrated by Harvey Fierstein, with an original score by Mark Isham.
Saul J. Turell was a producer and maker of documentaries, and a distributor for classic film. He founded Sterling Films in 1946. In the early sixties, Sterling Films merged with the Walter Reade Organization, becoming Reade-Sterling, of which Turell was president.
Overlord is a 1975 black-and-white British war film written and directed by Stuart Cooper. Set during the Second World War, around the D-Day invasion, the film is about a young British soldier's experiences and his meditations on being part of the war machinery, including his premonitions of death. The film won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival. “Overlord is not about military heroics; on the contrary, it is about the bleakness of sacrifice”, Cooper said.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a Canadian-Pakistani journalist, filmmaker and political activist known for her work in films that highlight gender inequality against women.
Hitler Lives is a 1945 American short documentary film directed by Don Siegel, who was uncredited. The film won an Oscar at the 18th Academy Awards in 1946 for Documentary Short Subject. The film's copyright was renewed.
The animated documentary is a moving image form that combines animation and documentary. This form should not be confused with documentaries about movie and TV animation history that feature excerpts.
Native Land is a 1942 docudrama film directed by Leo Hurwitz and Paul Strand.
Collage film is a style of film created by juxtaposing found footage from disparate sources. The term has also been applied to the physical collaging of materials onto film stock.
Time is a 2020 American documentary film produced and directed by Garrett Bradley. It follows Sibil Fox Richardson and her fight for the release of her husband, Rob, who was serving a 60-year prison sentence for engaging in an armed bank robbery.