Category: arts

05
May

Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet

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Sir Ian McKellen reads the poetry, Michael Wood traces the journey on the ground. Together they conjure up the extraordinary life, times and words of China’s greatest poet, Du Fu.

From the Yellow River to the Yangtze Gorges, and down to the forested hills of Hunan, Michael Wood travels in the footsteps of China’s most-loved poet. Born in 712, the age of Beowulf in Britain, Du Fu lived through the violent fall of China’s brilliant Tang dynasty. As rebel armies sacked the capital, and floods and famine wrecked the country, he was forced to flee, taking his family on the roads as refugees.

But out of these events he produced what Harvard’s Stephen Owen calls ‘the greatest poems in the Chinese language’, words that ever since have been seen as an expression of what it means to be Chinese. ‘There is Dante, there’s Shakespeare, and there’s Du Fu,’ says Owen. ‘These poets create the very standard by which great poetry is judged.’ But though in the east Du Fu is an immortal, in the west, even today, few have even heard of him.

In this film, the first to ever be made about Du Fu in the west, Michael follows his tracks by road, train and riverboat. Along the way, he meets ordinary people, dancers and musicians, who help to tell the amazing story of a poet whose words have resonated through the centuries, describing the experiences of ordinary people caught up in war, corruption, famine and natural disasters. ‘I am one of the privileged. If my life is so bitter, then how much worse is the life of the common people?’

In China, poets have always been seen as the trusted chroniclers of the people’s hearts and the nation’s history. And for the Chinese, Du Fu is ‘more than a poet,’ says Wood. ‘For generations he has been the guardian of the moral conscience of the nation.’

COMMISSION AND CREW

Written & Presented by Michael Wood
Produced & Directed by Rebecca Dobbs
Edited by Aleksandar Nikolic
Featuring Sir Ian McKellen

TRANSMISSION AND AVAILABILITY

First broadcast April 2020 on BBC4

BBC website

10
May

Ovid: The Poet & The Emperor

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Ovid, one of the world’s greatest poets, died 2,000 years ago. His Metamorphoses is the most influential secular book in European literature, and, unique among ancient poets, he also wrote an autobiography, full of riveting intimacy.

Born in Sulmona, Ovid moved to Rome and rose to spectacular fame with his poems about sex, seduction and adultery. By his twenties he was a literary superstar and a thorn in the side of the powerful and puritanical Emperor Augustus. Then in the midst of a sensational scandal involving the Emperor’s daughter, Ovid was banished forever to the farthest edge of the empire. The exact reason is still a mystery, as Ovid put it, ‘my downfall was all because of a poem and a mistake, and on the latter my lips are sealed forever.’

In this film Michael Wood traces Ovid’s footsteps from the beautiful town of Sulmona, to the bright lights of Rome and into exile in Constanta in today’s Romania. The poems, the mystery and Ovid’s immense legacy are discussed with leading experts, while Ovid’s own words are brought to life by Simon Russell Beale.

COMMISSION AND CREW

Written & Presented by Michael Wood
Producer: Rebecca Dobbs
Executive Producer for BBC: Mark Bell
Camera: Peter Harvey
Editor: Aleksandar Nikolic

TRANSMISSION AND AVAILABILITY

First broadcast November, 2017 on BBC4

Visit the site →

19
May

Sappho: Love & Life on Lesbos

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Papyrology expert, Margaret Mountford goes in search of the truth behind the legend of Sappho – the most controversial writer of the ancient world and the first authentic woman’s voice in western history.  The mysterious discovery of a lost papyrus containing the words to songs unheard for seventeen hundred years sends Margaret on a journey to explore the truth about Sappho. Was she indeed the first lesbian, a priestess, prostitute, a stern schoolmistress or an aristocratic lady of leisure as readers over the centuries have variously alleged? We ask how each generation’s view of the archetypal liberated woman of letters tells us as much about us and our fears and concerns as it does about her.

PRAISE FOR PROGRAMME

“Erudite and illuminating”

The Sunday Times

“Excellent collection of experts” 

The Daily Mail

“Fascinating. Mountford is splendidly knowledgeable and bursting with enthusiasm”

The Guardian

“This trip to Lesbos was too chaste”

The Telegraph

TRANSMISSION,  AND AVAILABILITY

1 X 60 mins for BBC 4. Producer: Sally Thomas. Director: Jack MacInnes.

First broadcast May 2015 on BBC 4

Read and interview with Margaret here

Hear Kalia Baklitzanaki singing the Brother’s Poem and view unseen scenes here.

Read Margaret’s Q & A on Sappho