C O R E Y P A R K E R
Documentaries on Acting
“Uta Hagen’s Acting Class”
Actors, directors, and teachers now have the opportunity to study with the legendary actress and teacher Uta Hagen for the first time on DVD. Shot over the course of two years, the interaction between Ms. Hagen and the actors and audience puts the viewer right in the room. All ten of her celebrated Object Exercises are clarified and performed. Jack Lemmon, Whoopi Goldberg and Christine Lahti, among others - all former students - recall their classes with Ms. Hagen and her enduring influence on their work.
As Ms. Hagen herself states, "When I believe that there is a human being in action up there, in that moment, alive - right there - then I get spellbound. When you really achieve that understanding of human nature, the ability to place yourselves in the shoes of another human being and reveal that life onstage, is to me the ultimate experience."
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Documentaries on Acting
“Special Thanks to Roy London”
Documentarist Christopher Monger's Special Thanks to Roy London profiles famed acting coach London (1943-93), a man with resounding professional success (including a litany of former pupils who graduated to A-list Hollywood triumph), but who remained guarded about his teaching methods and philosophies on acting.
In this program, Monger examines London through the eyes of many of the said pupils, including Jeff Goldblum, Hank Azaria, Garry Shandling, Geena Davis and Patrick Swayze. The title, of course, refers to the much-deserved "special thanks" that many of these celebrities have given London in speeches and credits.
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Documentaries on Acting
“Showing Up” (Watch the movie)
In this unprecedented look at the audition, some of our most accomplished working actors reflect on the process and how it affects them. On the surface, SHOWING UP explores the actor's audition. Looking deeper, it transcends the profession and examines what it takes for all of us to pursue what we most want to achieve in life. SHOWING UP offers a thoughtful and revealing narrative compiled from more than 50 interviews with notable artists including: Kristin Chenoweth, Richard Griffiths, Zoe Kazan, Nathan Lane, Chris Messina, Sam Rockwell, Bill Irwin and Eli Wallach.
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C O R E Y P A R K E R
Documentaries on Acting
“From Russia to Hollywood” (Watch the movie)
From Czarist Russia's Moscow Art Theatre to Hollywood's biggest film, narrator Gregory Peck joins an A-list of Hollywood stars to take us through the odyssey of two Russian born Hollywood legends: The great acting teacher Michael Chekhov and the amazing director George Shdanoff.
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Documentaries on Acting
“This So Called Disaster”
Shepard invited Almereyda to film the rehearsal process for his latest play, “The Late Henry Moss,” a 16-year labor of love for Shepard that relates a fictional recounting of the playwright's own relationship with his late father. Following the cast -- which includes such luminaries as Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Cheech Marin, and Woody Harrelson -- and the crew until the production's opening night, Almereyda observes the minutiae involved in leading up to the first curtain, as well as some private moments with Shepard as he recounts some of his personal history as related to +The Late Henry Moss.
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Documentaries on Acting
“Searching for Debra Winger”
Searching for Debra Winger is a 2002 American documentary film conceived and directed by Rosanna Arquette. The film presents an interview with actress Debra Winger, about why she suddenly retired from the film industry at the height of her career. It also features interviews with other leading actresses, who discuss the various pressures they face as women working in the film industry. They mention trying to juggle their professional commitments, with their personal responsibilities to their families and themselves.
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Documentaries on Acting
“Looking for Richard”
Al Pacino has a documentary film crew follow him as he works on a production of Shakespear’s “Richard III; conducting interviews with fellow actors and participating in scenes in the rehearsal process.
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Documentaries on Acting
“I Knew it Was You: John Cazale”
The documentary by Richard Shepard examines the short but brilliant career of American actor John Cazale, who starred in just five films before his death at age 42 of lung cancer. But what five films they were: The Conversation, The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter, which was released after Cazale's death. He was perhaps best known for his roles in the Godfather films, as Fredo Corleone, the weak, overwhelmed brother who resents being seen as the burden he is. I Knew It Was You refers to the famous line uttered by Al Pacino's Michael Corleone to his brother Fredo--a line that seals Fredo's fate and sends chills up the spine of the viewer. As I Knew It Was You shows, Cazale's amazing acting ability was to take a "less showy" and weak character like Fredo--one that most actors would shy away from playing--and embrace him and make him completely memorable. The interviews in I Knew It Was You are fascinating, including a long one with Pacino, who relates what it was like to work with Cazale in both Godfather films as well as Dog Day Afternoon.
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Documentaries on Acting
“Character” (Watch the movie)
A raw and candid dialogue about the life and craft of acting between longtime colleagues and friends Dabney Coleman, Peter Falk, Charles Grodin, Mark Rydell, Harry Dean Stanton and Sydney Pollack. Drago Sumonja's document takes us into the hearts, minds, and living rooms of some of America's greatest storytellers. This inside glimpse exposes as much about each individual as it does about acting.
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Documentaries on Acting
“Lee Strasberg’s Method”
A documentary film that investigates and clarifies Method acting and dispels some of the misconceptions that many people have about Lee Strasberg's work.
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Documentaries on Acting
“Listen To Me Marlon”
A documentary that utilizes hundreds of hours of audio that Marlon Brando recorded over the course of his life to tell the screen legend's story.
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Documentaries on Acting
“Raul Julia: The World’s A Stage”
He was fondly known to many as Gomez, the spooky gothic patriarch from the 1990s Addams Family movies. To others, he was Valentin, the Brazilian political prisoner in 1985's heartbreaking Kiss of the Spider Woman, the first independent film ever to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. But Puerto Rican-born actor Raúl Juliá's sprawling career extended far beyond those hallmark roles, and has yet to receive the retrospective attention it deserves. Breaking through discriminatory casting barriers during his early years working in New York City, he spent three decades on the stage and screen, until his unexpected death at the age of 54. Raul Julia: The World's a Stage celebrates that career and its impacts, as well as a personal life filled with activism and outsize humanitarian gestures.
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