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Murray Grigor

Murray Grigor

Directing

Biography

William Alexander Murray Grigor OBE (born 1939) is a Scottish film maker, writer, artist and exhibition curator who has served as director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. He has made over 50 films with a focus on arts and architecture documentaries.

Known For

Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet
6.8

Billy Connolly was, in the 1970s, a sort of Scottish Lenny Bruce, who, with devastating humour, sliced through the hypocrisies he perceived. This 1976 documentary follows the singer-comic during his 1975 Irish tour. Made in a cinema verité fashion, the performer appears to be completely unaware of the presence of the camera in his off-stage and backstage moments.

Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet

1977
The Sean Connery Paradox
7.3

Having become a world star thanks to James Bond, Sean Connery, who died in 2020, has never stopped trying to shed the image of a sexy and slightly brutal macho that stuck to 007. A look back at an eclectic career, carried out with panache.

The Sean Connery Paradox

2022
BLAST
N/A

Overview of Vorticism, a radical art movement of the early 20th Century.

BLAST

1975
Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner
7.3

Infinite Space, a documentary feature film, traces the lifelong quest of visionary genius John Lautner to create “architecture that has no beginning and no end.” It is the story of brilliance and of a complicated life – and the most sensual architecture of the 20th century.

Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner

2008
Sean Connery’s Edinburgh
7.7

The screen legend conducts a personal tour of the great city that shaped him.

Sean Connery’s Edinburgh

1982
In Search of Clarity: The Architecture of Gwathmey Siegel
7.0

Charles Gwathmey has held steadfast to the spirit of modernism in his architecture from the day he successfully built his parents' home in 1967 based on the theories of Le Corbusier and American individualism. Avoiding the nostalgia of fashionable postmodernism throughout the eighties, Gwathmey partnered with Robert Siegel, and their firm continues to create innovative houses, corporate, institutional and university buildings across America. This documentary ranges from the deMenil villa on the dunes of Easthampton to their Guggenheim Museum addition. We hear from such leading architects as Philip Johnson and Peter Eisenman, and from filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who describes how a journey through a Gwathmey Siegel house creates the same sense of drama as a well-made movie.

In Search of Clarity: The Architecture of Gwathmey Siegel

1995
The Great Wall: Lovers at the Brink
N/A

In the twilight years of the Cultural Revolution, a Chinese filmmaker slowly becoming blind tours the country screening her last film to peasants. In it, the woman imagines two "alien" lovers walking from end-to-end along the Great Wall to join each other in the middle, one last time. This documentary is an adaptation of Ulay and Marina Abramovic's final collaborative project, the 1988 performance "The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk."

The Great Wall: Lovers at the Brink

1989
Space and Light
9.0

An award-winning wordless documentary that explores the architecture of the then new St. Peter's Seminary which is now seen as one of the most important post-war buildings in the United Kingdom. The film was made in celebration after architect Jack Coia was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1969. Winner of the Medalla de Bronce at the Fifth Union of International Architects Festival in Madrid (1975).

Space and Light

1972
Clydescope
7.0

A panorama of the Clyde, from Biggar to Brodick, with Billy Connolly as your guide. Directed by Murray Grigor for the Films of Scotland Committee.

Clydescope

1974
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N/A

Scottish Television's film on the 40th Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1986, starring Robbie Coltrane (a former EIFF chauffeur) and featuring interviews with Bill Forsyth, Samuel Fuller and Barry Norman, among many others.

Hooray For Holyrood

1986
Mackintosh
7.0

The life and work of the Scottish architect and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Mackintosh

1968
The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright
9.0

Documentary on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture.

The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright

1983
Ever to Excel
N/A

The history and development of St Andrews University, Scotland, on the occasion of its 600th anniversary, and the story of how its graduates have shaped the modern world.

Ever to Excel

2012
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N/A

Travelling the Scottish Highlands by bus.

Travelpass - It's Just the Ticket

1973
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N/A

Sequence of animations and random footage (Olympic torch lighting, rituals etc) which were "based on ideas of Hans Hollein; created for the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt Museum's opening exhibition: Man transForms", 1976. Nine designers worked with Hans Hollein in the "MAN TRANSFORMs" exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design: Nader Ardalan, Peter Bode, Buckminster Fuller, Murray Grigor, Arata Isozaki, Richard Meier, Karl Schlamminger, Ettore Sottsass, and Oswald Ungers.

Oasis

1976
Sir John Soane: An English Architect, An American Legacy
8.0

All great art engages in a dialogue with the past. Architecture is no exception, as this film shows in its examination of the legacy of Sir John Soane (1753-1837), an English architect of rare genius whose influence on a generation of America's foremost architects is profound.

Sir John Soane: An English Architect, An American Legacy

2005
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N/A

A look at the traditional industries of the areas surrounding the Scotland/England border.

The Borders: Where Scotland and England Meet

1970
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N/A

No description available.

Being a Scot

2008
Designed Beings
N/A

Sequence of animations and random footage (Olympic torch lighting, rituals etc) which were "based on ideas of Hans Hollein; created for the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt Museum's opening exhibition: Man transForms", 1976. Nine designers worked with Hans Hollein in the "MAN TRANSFORMs" exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design: Nader Ardalan, Peter Bode, Buckminster Fuller, Murray Grigor, Arata Isozaki, Richard Meier, Karl Schlamminger, Ettore Sottsass, and Oswald Ungers.

Designed Beings

1976
Cumbernauld HIT
N/A

A James-Bond type fiction film about an evil woman's plans to 'hi-jack' the New Town of Cumbernauld. Sponsored by Cumbernauld Development Corporation, this film is an original take on the 'promotional' films produced for Scotland's New Towns during the 1970s.

Cumbernauld HIT

1977