NYC's Early Days As The East Coast's Hollywood; 'Eyes On The Prize' of Racial Justice; Full Bio: Lorne Michaels; The Art of SNL Portriat Photography
In 1966 the Mayor's Office of Film was established to try and encourage local filmmaking, in the hopes that it might help boost the economy. What resulted were films that presented a raw and unfiltered version of the city on the edge of crisis. Starting April 1, the Criterion Channel will feature a collection of films under the headline "Fun City: NYC Woos Hollywood, Flirts with Disaster," featuring films like "Dog Day Afternoon," "Cotton Comes to Harlem," "The Panic in Needle Park," and more. Writer and film critic J. Hoberman, who served as a film critic for the Village Voice and curated the Criterion series, discusses this period of film history. Hoberman’s forthcoming book is called The 1960s New York Avant-Garde: Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop.
A 1987 series called "Eyes On The Prize" explored the contours of civil rights struggles in the U.S., including segregation and the voting rights. A new installment, called "Eyes on the Prize III" explores movements for racial justice from 1977 to 2015. Executive producer Dawn Porter and filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir discuss the film series, which is now streaming on MAX.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. For this month's Full Bio, we're going to learn more about Lorne Michaels, the show's creator and showrunner. For all of his power and influence in the industry, Michaels remains a bit of an elusive figure. Writer Susan Morrison attempts to get to the man behind the image in her new biography, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live. In today's installment, we learn about Michaels' early days in Canada, and how he first fell in love with comedy.
Photographer Mary Ellen Matthews is responsible for most of the cast portraits featured each week on Saturday Night Live. She shares her approach to capturing stills of the comedians, including how concepts like ‘comedic timing’ translate to still photography, and talks about her new book, Art of the SNL Portrait.
