If you're on the look out for some vintage culture, look no further than the Monitor Season at BFI Southbank.
Monitor was the BBC's flagship arts show in the 1950s and 1960s, hosted by Huw Weldon and featuring a hosting of 'cutting edge' cultural figures of the day, not to mention a team of directors for the short films that included the likes of John Schlesinger and Ken Russell.
The BFI's season will feature themed compilations of the shows, featuring surviving archive material – Monitor Interviews the Artist, Monitor on Film, Monitor: Humorists, Novelists and Angry Young Men and Monitor Miscellany. It runs from 9th to the 23rd April, see over the page for the full details.
Monitor Interviews the Artist
c90min
One of the most fascinating and valuable strands within the Monitor archive is the interviews with, and films about, living artists. Here we present a few of those highly original portraits including sculptors Julius Epstein (from 1958) and Henry Moore (from 1960), and artists Max Ernst (from 1961), Marcel Duchamp (from 1962), Rene Magritte (from 1965) and enfant terrible Andy Warhol (also from 1965).
Thu 9 April 18:20 NFT2
Monitor on Film
c90min
In this round-up of some of Monitor’s examinations of the world of film we feature a hand-picked selection of reports and interviews, including a look at the Cannes Film Festival (1958); interviews with directors Orson Welles (1960) and Alfred Hitchcock (1964) about their unique styles; actor Rod Steiger on ‘The Method’ (1960) and an interview with Peter O’Toole on the set of Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
Thu 23 April 18:20 NFT2
Monitor: Humorists, Novelists and Angry Young Men
c90min
A rare collection of idiosyncratic talents. Three years after their first film with him, Portrait of a Goon, (shown recently in our Ken Russell season) Monitor revisited Spike Milligan (1962); David Wheeler interviews P G Wodehouse at his New York home (1960); Evelyn Waugh reflects on life at 60 (1964), Kenneth Tynan, Colin Wilson and John Wain (among others) discuss Angry Young Men – Cult or Myth (1958) and from the very first Monitor, Kingsley Amis patiently explains that he is not Lucky Jim (1958)
Mon 20 April 18:15 NFT2
Monitor Miscellany
c90min
Monitor had many moods and styles and in this miscellany of its most diverse moments we feature an elegiac look at Brighton Pier (1958); the (then) current craze with guitar music (1959); John Betjeman reminiscing on the great exhibitions of the past (1960); London Moods a musical look at the capital’s many forms of transport (1961); The Lonely Shore a fantasy in which archaeologists from the future try to build up a picture of modern day life (1962) and haunting music as Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill (1961).
Wed 15 April 20:40 NFT 2
