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John Berger

John Berger

Writing

Biography

John Peter Berger (/ˈbɜːrdʒər/; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to the BBC series of the same name, is often used as a university text. He lived in France for over fifty years.

Known For

Apostrophes
8.5

Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.

Apostrophes

1975
The Play on One
6.0

A series of plays specially written for television.

The Play on One

1988
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A BBC TV cultural review show featuring celebrity interviews.

Saturday Review

1984
Heartland
6.5

This "Play on One" story depicts Jack and his farming family in West Wales. They have built up their dairy herd with vast loans and are then told they must cut back on milk production and slaughter some of the herd. The community launches a campaign against the quotas, but Jack takes the law into his own hands.

Heartland

1989
Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000
6.8

A look at the lives of several men and women in their 30s as they confront the slim gains of the "revolutionary" sixties. Max, a dissatisfied copy editor; Myriam, a redhead into tantric sex; and Marie, a supermarket checker who gives unauthorized discounts to the elderly, search for renewed meaning on a communal farm. The title character, a six-year-old child, is the carrier of their hopes for the future.

Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000

1976
The Salamander
6.8

Pierre and Paul, journalist and writer respectively, team up to write a screenplay based on the real story of a young woman accused by her uncle of trying to kill him. They decide to meet her.

The Salamander

1971
Ways of Seeing
7.5

John Berger's Ways of Seeing changed the way people think about painting and art criticism. This watershed work shows, through word and image, how what we see is always influenced by a whole host of assumptions concerning the nature of beauty, truth, civilization, form, taste, class and gender. Exploring the layers of meaning within oil paintings, photographs and graphic art, Berger argues that when we see, we are not just looking - we are reading the language of images.

Ways of Seeing

1972
Return from Africa
6.3

A young Swiss couple, Vincent and Françoise, plan to leave Geneva and settle in Africa: a friend of theirs living in Algeria promises to give them a job there.

Return from Africa

1973
Right to Work March
N/A

They're young, unemployed and on the march - from Glasgow, Liverpool and Swansea to London.

Right to Work March

1972
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Series of four programmes in which writer John Berger and photographer Jean Mohr question the nature and practice of photography. GB. Annalogue, for the BBC. BBC2 tx 07/05/1989 - 28/05/1989

Another Way of Telling: Views on Photography

1989
The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger
5.7

The Ways of Seeing writer is celebrated by Tilda Swinton and her fellow admirers in an unorthodox four-part documentary that visits him at his Alpine home

The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger

2017
W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult
N/A

The war in the South Pacific, a country doctor in Colorado, victims of industrial pollution in a Japanese village — all were captured in unforgettable photographs by the legendary W. Eugene Smith. This program showcases over 600 of Smith’s stunning photographs and includes a dramatic recreation in which actor Peter Riegert (Crossing Delancey, Local Hero) portrays the artist using dialogue take from Smith’s diaries and letters. Interwoven through the program are archival footage and interviews with family and friends of this brilliant, complicated man, whose work developed from twin themes of common humanity and social responsibility.

W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult

1989
A City at Chandigarh
6.3

Documentary on the construction of Chandigarh, the new capital of the Indian Punjab region, planned by Albert Mayer and Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

A City at Chandigarh

1966
Play Me Something
5.8

A group of individuals are stranded at a small island airport when the flight from the mainland is delayed. At that moment, a stranger appears and begins telling the story of a summer romance in Venice.

Play Me Something

1989
John Berger or The Art of Looking
5.2

Art, politics and motorcycles - on the occasion of his 90th birthday John Berger or the Art of Looking is an intimate portrait of the writer and art critic whose ground-breaking work on seeing has shaped our understanding of the concept for over five decades. The film explores how paintings become narratives and stories turn into images, and rarely does anybody demonstrate this as poignantly as Berger.

John Berger or The Art of Looking

2016
The Middle of the World
6.2

Paul is married, a successful engineer, and a conservative candidate in an upcoming local election. He falls in love with Adriana, a café waitress from Italy. Paul's party is very critical of foreign labour and wants to keep Switzerland to the Swiss. Where Paul falls deeper and deeper into the relationship and is ready to leave his wife, Adriana feels the social pressure growing and has to make her own decision.

The Middle of the World

1974
12.Août.2002
7.0

12 August 2002 is the date which was printed on every shot in this film by the memory of the camera. On that day a huge tower which disrupted the north wing of an abandoned castle was torn down, floor by floor. The film is a record of the methodical disruption of this building by inhuman and all-powerful machines. The voice-over consists of a phone call by the author John Berger (1926), who has written numerous and radical opinion pieces in favour of the people of Palestine.

12.Août.2002

2012
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A creative documentary about becoming a parent... and how to reconceive yourself. Fiction director Josh Appignanesi turns the camera on himself and his wife as they undergo the ordeal of becoming parents in the era of man-children and assisted reproduction. Faced with fatherhood, Josh spirals comically into an envious career funk. But life-threatening complications emerge- the couple are tested to the brink, confronting shattering losses. It's a portrait of our generation going through a revolution in reproduction- forced to find new ways to think about ourselves as creative beings. We hear from Slavoj Žižek, John Berger, Darian Leader (20,000 Days) and Zadie Smith. Universal yet still taboo, it's a film for everyone who has children, wants them, or still feels like a child themselves.

The New Man

2016
Walter, retour en résistance
7.0

No description available.

Walter, retour en résistance

2009
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Short super-8 film capturing the changes taking place in Soho and questioned by John Berger's essay on twelve theses on the economy of the dead.

The Economy of the Dead

2017