The Noble Savage: Percy Grainger
Synopsis
"Grainger is music's natural man... a noble savage of music." That quote describes Percy Grainger, the Australian-born composer and pianist. Grainger is remembered as the composer of Country Gardens but there was much more to him than this well-known tune. He was a great pianist who hated playing the piano, a famous composer convinced his best works were neglected, a man of deviant behavior remembered everywhere with respect and love. His contradictory character is explored through his letters, interviews with those who knew him, film and archive recordings, and his music.
You might also like

Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.
Shine

A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.
The Conversation

A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.
The Glenn Miller Story

Famed composer Gustav Mahler reflects on the tragedies of his life and failing marriage while traveling by train.
Mahler

A Los Angeles journalist befriends a homeless Juilliard-trained musician, while looking for a new article for the paper.
The Soloist

One of the most spectacular and renowned conductors of the 1930s, Wilhelm Furtwangler's reputation rivaled that of Toscanini's. After the war, he was investigated as part of the Allies' de-Nazification programme. In the bombed-out Berlin of the immediate post-war period, the Allies slowly bring law and order to bear on an occupied Germany. An American major is given the Furtwangler file, and is told to find everything he can and to prosecute the man ruthlessly. Tough and hard-nosed, Major Steve Arnold sets out to investigate a world of which he knows nothing.
Taking Sides

William Hundert is a passionate and principled Classics professor who finds his tightly-controlled world shaken and inexorably altered when a new student, Sedgewick Bell, walks into his classroom. What begins as a fierce battle of wills gives way to a close student-teacher relationship, but results in a life lesson for Hundert that will still haunt him a quarter of a century later.
The Emperor's Club

After a tragic event happens, composer John Russell moves to Seattle to try to overcome it and build a new and peaceful life in a lonely big house that has been uninhabited for many years. But, soon after, the obscure history of such an old mansion and his own past begin to haunt him.
The Changeling

The illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Joseph Bologne rises to improbable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, complete with an ill-fated love affair and a falling out with Marie Antoinette and her court.
Chevalier

Ben Hall is drawn back into bushranging by the reappearance of his old friend John Gilbert. Reforming the gang, they soon become the most wanted men in Australian history.
The Legend of Ben Hall

A traveller by the name of Crossley forces himself upon a musician and his wife in a lonely part of Devon, and uses the aboriginal magic he has learned to displace his host.
The Shout

In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.
Fences

The life story of Italian violinist and composer, Niccolò Paganini, who rose to fame as a virtuoso in the early 19th Century.
The Devil's Violinist

The life story of Elvis Presley as seen through the complicated relationship with his enigmatic manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
Elvis

During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.
Paris Blues

From Paris to Venice to Broadway to Hollywood, the lives of Cole Porter and his wife, Linda Lee Thomas were never less than glamorous and wildly unconventional. And though Cole's thirst for life strained their marriage, Linda never stopped being his muse, inspiring some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.
De-Lovely

Film telling the untold story of John Lennon's 1971 album Imagine, exploring the creative collaboration between Lennon and Yoko Ono and featuring interviews and never-seen-before footage.
John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky

The life of Al Roberts, a pianist in a New York nightclub, turns into a nightmare when he decides to hitchhike to Los Angeles to visit his girlfriend.
Detour

12-year-old Henry Rowengartner, whose late father was a minor league baseball player, grew up dreaming of playing baseball, despite his physical shortcomings. After Henry's arm is broken while trying to catch a baseball at school, the tendon in that arm heals too tightly, allowing Henry to throw pitches that are as fast as 103 mph. Henry is spotted at nearby Wrigley Field by Larry "Fish" Fisher, the general manager of the struggling Chicago Cubs, after Henry throws an opponent's home-run ball all the way from the outfield bleachers back to the catcher, and it seems that Henry may be the pitcher that team owner Bob Carson has been praying for.
Rookie of the Year

A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.