Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm)

Jacinto Benavente-a member of the Generation of '98, the winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Literature, and one of the most influential Spanish dramatists of the entire 20th century-penned more than 170 plays. This program tells the story of Benavente's life and the turbulent times in which he lived as it sheds light on aspects of his writing. A critic of the bourgeois class, he nonetheless counted its members among his most loyal supporters. Readings...

After the death of Franco and during the transition to a parliamentary monarchy, Spain's cultural life blossomed once again. In this environment, the poetry movement known as "the other sentimentality"-named after the first book of Javier Egea and Luis Garcia Montero-was born, a movement known for its transformation of the personal experience into a collective one so that any reader might identify with the feelings evoked. This program discusses that...

It is a creative impulse as old as humanity itself: to depict life faithfully, accurately, in words or images. This program shows how that impulse led to Realism - a widespread artistic movement, born in the latter half of the 19th century, which rejected pretense, distortion, and sentimentality. Incorporating interviews with art historians and literary scholars, the program explores the sociopolitical origins of the phenomenon in the 1848 Revolution...

In the fullness of time, his failings have become obvious. Yet, even after the collapse of global Communism, Karl Marx stands undiminished as one of history's most influential thinkers. This program chronicles Marx's life and intellectual development, including the publication and impact of his major writings. Beginning with his birth and religiously confused childhood in Prussia, the video traces Marx's student years and his early affinity for Hegel,...

This program discusses the development, organization, and functions of the nervous system and the input organs that stimulate it. Beginning with an introductory overview of neural anatomy, the video outlines the organization of the central and peripheral nervous systems and the processes of sensation, transduction, and perception. In addition, the senses of vision, hearing, taste, smell, and equilibrium are analyzed, as well as sensitivities to temperature,...

To the European imagination, America was a tabula rasa, a virgin territory. As this program describes, narrative art forms were essential to making sense of this exotic Eden and the possibilities it offered. New Spain became a place for re-creating myths and legends of the Western literary canon, for transforming poetry, prose, and epic literature. The diaries of Columbus, Bartolome de las Casas' History of the Indies, Bernal Diaz' True History of...

The writer who best represents 20th-century Southern narrative led an existence every bit as colorful and dramatic as his fictional sagas. This program beautifully recounts William Faulkner's life and the great literary works it produced, exploring his affinity for the tragic and whimsical aspects of a decaying, racially fractured South. Beginning with the author's birth in New Albany, Mississippi, the video describes his early military and romantic...

The Battle of Teruel, the Munich Pact, the Republican government's flight to Barcelona, and the Nationalists' attack on Valencia and invasion of Catalonia loom large in this program as the Second Republic spirals toward surrender. Commentary by Jose Maria Sole i Sabate and Jose Maria Figueras of the Autonomous University of Barcelona; religious historian Hilari Raguer i Suner; Alfonso Casas, secretary of the Battle of Teruel Association; historian...

Hosted by Eli Wallach, this program dissects Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun through the sharp insights of Joe Morton (Walter Lee Younger); Kim Yancey (Beneatha Younger); Phylicia Rashad (Lena Younger); Ruby Dee, Audra McDonald, Starletta DuPois, and Ernestine Jackson (Ruth Younger); Ralph Carter (Travis Younger); John Fiedler (Carl Lindner); directors Lloyd Richards and Jack Hofsiss; Broadway producer Philip Rose; and Hansberry expert Lynn...

The history and social structures of Latin America's native peoples were neither simple nor peaceful before the arrival of Europeans. Wars were fought, empires were created and destroyed, and-as this program illustrates-narrative tapestries of fact and fiction were woven in the process. Underscoring the linguistic sophistication that flourished for thousands of years in the region, the program addresses the proliferation of Nahuatl and Quechua literature,...