The Art of Discovery • 2015 • episode "3/9" • Curiosity Retreats: 2015 Lectures

95:15

Now 88 and battling illness, the visionary Mikhail Gorbachev, the former General Secretary of the U.S.S.R., is still gently but resolutely pushing towards his goals. Herzog celebrates Gorbachev's three remarkable accomplishments: negotiations with the U.S. to reduce nuclear weapons, cessation of Soviet control of Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc. All of this in six years!

2018 • People

47:05

Why does an atheist bother to get up in the morning? That's the question Richard Dawkins seeks to answer as he continues his exploration of the big questions of life in a world shaking off religious faith. In a journey that takes him from the casinos of Las Vegas to Buddhist monasteries in the foothills of the Himalayas, Dawkins examines how both religious and non-religious people struggle to find meaning in their lives. He looks at how our existence is ruled by chance, meeting people whose fate was to be born into extreme poverty in India's slums and the survivors of a natural disaster in Joplin, Missouri, which was ripped apart in 2011 by a tornado on a random course.

Part 3 • Dawkins: Sex Death and the Meaning of Life • 2012 • People

68:50

Internationally known graffiti artist, Banksy, left his mark on San Francisco in April 2010. Little did he know that this act of vandalism would spark a chain of events that includes one of his rats being removed from a wall, Museums ignorantly turning down a free Banksy street work, and a NY gallerist who has made it his business model to remove Banksy street works from all over the globe doing whatever it takes to get the rat in his possession.

2017 • People

114:47

Uniquely adept at art as well as commerce, Walt Disney was a master filmmaker who harnessed the power of technology to tell stories of outsiders struggling for acceptance and belonging, while questioning the conventions of class and authority. As Disney rose to prominence and gained financial security, his work became increasingly celebratory of the American way of life that made his unlikely success possible. A polarizing figure - though true believers vastly outnumber his critics - Disney's achievements are indisputable. In this two-part, four-hour film, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE examines Disney's complex life and continuing legacy, featuring rare archival footage from the Disney vaults, interviews with biographers and historians, as well as the animators and designers who helped turn his dreams into reality. Both an inspiring story and a cautionary tale about the price of ambition, Walt Disney offers an unprecedented look at the man who created a world and built an empire.

1/2 • American Experience • 2015 • People

46:28

Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela use violence and guile to turn the Cali Cartel into a $7 billion-per-year criminal operation.

S1E2 • Drug Lords • 2017 • People

94:05

Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center and is based on Philippe Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds, which has recently been released in paperback with the new title Man on Wire. The film is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside reenactments (with Paul McGill as the young Petit) and modern-day interviews with the participants. Native New Yorkers know to expect the unexpected, but who among them could've predicted that a man would stroll between the towers of the World Trade Center? French high-wire walker Philippe Petit did just that on August 7th, 1974. Petit’s success may come as a foregone conclusion, but British filmmaker James Marsh’s pulse-pounding documentary still plays more like a thriller than a non-fiction entry--in fact, it puts most thrillers to shame. Marsh (Wisconsin Death Trip, The King) starts by looking at Petit's previous stunts. First, he took on Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral, then Sydney's Harbour Bridge before honing in on the not-yet-completed WTC. The planning took years, and the prescient Petit filmed his meetings with accomplices in France and America. Marsh smoothly integrates this material with stylized re-enactments and new interviews in which participants emerge from the shadows as if to reveal deep, dark secrets which, in a way, they do, since Petit's plan was illegal, "but not wicked or mean." The director documents every step they took to circumvent security, protocol, and physics as if re-creating a classic Jules Dassin or Jean-Pierre Melville caper. Though still photographs capture the feat rather than video, the resulting images will surely blow as many minds now as they did in the 1970s when splashed all over the media. Not only did Petit walk, he danced and even lay down on the cable strung between the skyscrapers. It competed in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary and the World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary. In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

2008 • People