This fascinating 60s tour catches London's South Bank in the middle of a cultural metamorphosis.
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An insider’s look into the gritty reality of building the local live music scene, Rock This Town brings to life the exciting history of rock music concerts in KW from the 1960s & ‘70s. Rock stars come and go but live music is here to stay!
This film shows the kit and equipment that the 42nd of Foot, The Black Watch wore and used at Waterloo. The Battalion was in 9 Bde of Picton's 5th Division and fought at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. The 8 British Battalions in Picton's Division were all Peninsula Battalions and most probably the most relaible in Wellington's Army. Hence their use at Quatre Bras and their position at Waterloo. The Division lost 43% of its men as casualties at Waterloo including Picton himself, Wellington's greatest fighting general.
This final part takes us through the dramatic events when Wellington’s Anglo-Dutch Army aided by Blucher’s Prussians defeat Napoleon. The French army was outfought and Napoleon was out-generaled by Wellington. At Wavre Grouchy beat the Prussian rearguard before retreating to France. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Dutch army counted the bloody cost of the previous days fighting while Wellington wrote his controversial Waterloo Dispatch and the vengeful Prussians pursued the French towards Paris, leading to Napoleon's abdication and the occupation of the city by the Allies.
In David Grubin's NAPOLEON watch Napoleon's rise from obscurity to victories that made him a hero to the French people and convinced him he was destined for greatness. Learn of his love for Josephine Beauharnais, and his rise to Emperor. Witness his extraordinary achievements and ultimately his fall, his final battles, his exile to Elba, and his defeat at Waterloo. For nearly two decades he strode the world stage like a colossus -- loved and despised, venerated and feared. From his birth on the rugged island of Corsica to his final exile on the godforsaken island of St. Helena, NAPOLEON brings this extraordinary figure to life.
Following on from Hougoumont and D'Erlon's Attack, Part III starts just as the great battle reaches its crisis point. Marshal Ney launched thousands of France's finest heavy cavalry against Wellington's thinning lines who had already taken a terrible battering on the Mont St Jean Ridge. Wave after wave of armoured horsemen broke against the steady squares of British, Dutch/Belgian and German troops. The crisis, however, took a further turn for the worse as the key bastion in Wellington's centre, the fortified farm of La Haie Sainte, fell to the French onslaught. The way to Brussels was now open and Wellington muttered, 'Give me Blucher or give me night'. With the situation looking bleaker by the second for Wellington and his troops, Napoleon fatefully hesitated to complete the coup de grace as the Prussians had closed in on his right flank at the Village of Plancenoit. Would the Young Guard be able to hold Blucher's men? There was all still to play for.
This film gives an overview of Napoleons return to France in 1815 before covering in detail the Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras. Filmed on the Battlefields in Belgium using re-enaction footage expert Presenters follow the Emperors brilliant initial plan which however soon begins to fall apart due to flaws in the French staff, Napoleons arrogance and the courage and fighting ability of the Allied Troops. Both these battles deserve to be better known but they have been overshadowed by Waterloo the culmination of the Campaign
A gleaming giant of steam and its cute Lilliputian cousin are an even match in this newsreel battle of the trains.
Following on from Ligny and Quatre Bras, Part II starts by focusing on the concentration of the Allies on the ridge of Mont St Jean and the plans of the opposing armies. While the guns of the Grand Battery thundered in the centre, French columns bore down on the Hougoumont chateau and farm complex, which protected Wellington's flank held by the Guards and their German allies. Thus began an epic 'battle within a battle' that sucked away valuable troops from Napoleon's main attack, causing Wellington to declare that 'the battle turned on the closing of the gates at Hougoumont'.Meanwhile D'Erlons Corps attempted to bludgeon its way through Wellington's centre, not knowing that the British and Dutch line was in waiting on the reverse slope. Upon seeing the French advance, the British released a disciplined volley of musket fire that checked the French. A further brilliantly timed charge by the Household and Union Cavalry Brigades finally saw the French off.
In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.
Major John Peel returns to England, following Napoleon's Waterloo defeat, and renews his acquaintance with Lucy Merrall, but she tells him she is engaged to be married. He later learns that, Cravens, the man she is to marry already has a wife. He also learns that Craven cleaned out Lucy's father in a crooked gambling game, and Lucy is paying the price to hold the family home together.
Based on the novel by Bernard Cornwell, "Sharpe's Waterloo" brings maverick British officer Lt. Col. Richard Sharpe to his last fight against the French, in June of 1815.
For half of a millennium, First Nations women have been at the forefront of aboriginal peoples' resistance to cultural assimilation. Today, Native women are still fighting for the survival of their cultures and their peoples--in the rain forest and the city, in the courts and the legislatures, in the Longhouse and the media. Keepers of the Fire profiles Canada's Native 'warrior women' who are protecting and defending their land, their culture and their people in the time-honoured tradition of their foremothers.
The documentary starts with a diva of a tragic family history related to a history of migration. The rare archival footage reanimates her history reverberating with the current world crisis. Sound of Nomad: Koryo Arirang is a testimonial – a witness to injustice and tragedy, but it is also a declaration of survival – a survival that is not static but transformative – not brittle but fluid. The trains that displace, the deserts that separate form one harsh horizon – a historical limit – but within that limit, against it and across it are people, are a culture, not escaping but flourishing unofficially, with the affective majesty of a melody, a rhythm, an Arirang
Behind the scenes of 'The Spy Who Loved Me', produced by The Open University.
Looney Tunes Friz Freleng appears in interview segments in this excellent documentary, which spends nearly an hour examining Freleng's history, career, talent, comic timing and classic shorts.
50 years ago this week, on 1 June, 1967, an album was released that changed music history - The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In this film, composer Howard Goodall explores just why this album is still seen as so innovative, so revolutionary and so influential. With the help of outtakes and studio conversations between the band, never heard before outside of Abbey Road, Howard gets under the bonnet of Sgt Pepper. He takes the music apart and reassembles it, to show us how it works - and makes surprising connections with the music of the last 1,000 years to do so.
Over a decade in the making, Swagger of Thieves follows rock band Head Like a Hole from the top of the charts to the bottom of a needle. Staring down their age, two pals and the main guts of HLAH, frontman Nigel Booga Beazley and 'co- conspirator' Nigel Regan strut the hard road out of hell, fighting to reconnect and return their band to past glory, amidst disgruntled band mates, a changed music industry, and disappointed wives. Struggling to place past addictions and sabotaged dreams behind them in their continuing quest for rock music relevance, the ever-collapsing binary stars of any Head Like a Hole lineup, are certain (not) to polish their legacy here. Swagger of Thieves captures what it means to be in a band with a reputation. Unrelentingly raw, wild and honest, to the point of being one of the most insightful music documentaries ever made. Essential viewing. New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF), Melbourne International Documentary Film Festival (MIDFF)
In Hugh Macdonald’s fascinating and inspiring doco, his cousin, writer and illustrator Sheila Natusch retraces a long life dedicated to sharing her understanding and love of New Zealand’s nature and history.
In early 1945, the mother Elisabeth Paetzold flees from the Red Army from West Prussia towards the west with the two oldest of her four sons. Taking all the children at the same time seems too dangerous to her, so she leaves her two youngest in the hope of catching them up later, in the care of grandparents. In post-war Poland, she sets out in search of them, but she no longer succeeds in uniting them all. Only now, in this documentary, a reunion takes place. And there are five stories about the common family history audible that is so incredible, but not rare...
