Episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | The Sounds Of Early Cinema | 20130930 | 20140811 (R3) | The live music and sound effects, the unruly audiences, the performers paid to interpret mysterious foreign intertitles, the usherettes spraying the audience with disinfectant. Matthew Sweet explores the sound-world of cinema's beginnings, from the orchestras of big-budget epics to the small improvising bands of the fleapits - and discovers how their ghosts haunt the modern cinemagoing experience. First broadcast September 2013. Matthew Sweet discusses the sounds of cinema's beginnings. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 02 | Miklos Rozsa | 20131001 | 20140812 (R3) | Novelist Jonathan Coe explores how composer Miklos Rozsa came to write for film. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 03 | Camille Paglia | 20131002 | Writer Camille Paglia discusses the film music which has inspired her since childhood. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. | |
| 04 | David Thomson | 20131003 | Writer and film critic David Thomson explores how film composers create mood. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. | |
| 05 | Matthew Sweet | 20131004 | What happens when cinema shuts up? Matthew Sweet explores those moments when the talkie stops talking and cuts the music dead: the final minutes of William Wyler's Roman Holiday; the heist in Rififi; Oliver Hardy's long despairing look into the camera lens. He also listens hard to those cinematic sounds being silenced by digital technology from the fizz of a reel-change to the wear and tear on a film's soundtrack and asks what we have lost now that cinema is no longer a physical, photochemical medium. Matthew Sweet explores silence in film and the effect on sound of digital technology. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |