Entertainment For Lively Minds
BBC 4's America Season
Posted by aging hippy on 3 December 2011 - 4:33pm.
Have just watched the third and final part of Andrew Graham-Dixon's "Art Of America" which has been a real treat. BBC 4 has once again thrown up a themed range of programmes which underlines what a "special" channel it is in regards to entertaining and educating.
Other highlights of this season, so far, have included "America on a Plate: the Story of the Diner" and "Arena: James Ellroy's Feast of Death" (which was riveting, and in places, extremely gory).
Yet to see "America in Pictures:The Story of Life Magazine"
Anyone else been watching?
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I watched the Life magazine programme...
and enjoyed it a lot, despite the best efforts of presenter Rankin, who is a cock.
Enjoyed it but...
wish it had been longer.
Yes...
...watched the Art of America and it was up to Graham-Dixon's usual high standard. Some of the usual suspects but some less well known aspects of American visual culture, too. Did you notice how uncomfortable he looked when he was way up that glass skyscraper, which I assume was the Sears Tower? Now that Robert Hughes doesn't seem to be around much on television, Graham-Dixon is perhaps the only critic/presenter who I'd want to watch. Waldemar Januszczak is too erratic - his series on the Impressionists was deeply irritating. Matthew Collings is too in thrall to YBA juvenilia and don't get me started on that tosser who presented the British Art series! Graham-Dixon's earlier series on Spain and Germany are available on DVD and well worth watching.
It was
the Sears (or as they would now like us to call it, Willis) Tower. There are four glass-floored pods which stick out of the viewing level on the west side: the view is straight down for more than 1000 feet - I didn't feel hugely comfortable in them either. In his recent series on Route 66, Billy Connolly looked quite happy in one.
Great series - I learned a lot from it, as well as seeing some familiar works.
Recorded
the 3 episodes to watch when I've remembered I have a life outside of work.
Worth the licence fee on its own ...
... or something. Just caught up with the final episode of Andrew Graham-Dixon's latest today. As always a pleasure but I'm still not convinced by Jeff Koons. It would be great to see AG-Ds History of British Art again.
If you didn't see it, I would recommend the Storyville film Bobby Fischer versus the World which was a fascinating account of chess and madness.
The great art critic Robert Hughes on Jeff Koons...
Brilliant. And so, so true.
American Nomads
I also enjoyed the "American Nomads" documentary, a programme crying out for a brilliant soundtrack. The presenter Richard Grant meets people who are living a life of train-hopping, or taking a beat-up old van across the States; rodeo riders, ageing hippies, lost souls. At times it's quite sad.