Richard Leacock: Stravinsky

This one hour portrait of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), shot and edited by Leacock in 1966, and made in collaboration with Swiss composer and music administrator Rolf Liebermann, lives because of the close-up’s of the face of Stravinsky, a face always in movement with a smiling mouth out of which comes both interesting and funny remarks. Leacock is fascinated by the man and catches him at home and when he is conducting. It is obvious that it is more the man than the music, and the processes around rehearsals, that Leacock wants to convey and thanks for that. Leacock himself comes into the film now and then, with his voice, helping the audience with comments on who is who and where we are, very well made with no more info given than needed.

Funny to think that the year (in 1965) before two other cinema direct pioneers, the Canadians Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor also did a film on Stravinsky, made for the NFB, National Film Board of Canada. With some of the same side characters and with the same wonderful humour from Stravinsky as in Leacock’s film, but maybe a bit more rich on the music side, as I remember it.   

http://richardleacock.com/

http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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