Directing

Christian Blackwood

Born 1942-07-07 · Berlin, Germany

Christian Blackwood was an American film director and cinematographer. He was initially a child actor, then a cinematographer acclaimed for his work in Charlotte Zwerin's Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser. But his major work was as the director of over 80 films, mostly documentaries, over a 25-year career. His most famous films are Observations Under The Volcano and On the Set of Death of a Salesman, behind-the-scenes looks at the creation of movies by John Huston and Volker Schlöndorff from the famous novel and play. The latter film won him the grand prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Christian Blackwood died in 1992 of lung cancer. He was married to film writer, producer and fine art photographer, Carolyn Marks Blackwood. His film archives are stored in the Museum of Modern Art.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

The Soldier's Tale poster
6.9

A soldier, returning home from war, chances upon a stranger who offers to buy his violin. The stranger is none other than the devil.

The Soldier's Tale

1984

Private Conversations: On the Set of ‘Death of a Salesman’ poster
NR

Playwright Arthur Miller, director Volker Schlöndorff and actor Dustin Hoffman are seen creating the Roxbury Productions and Punch Productions teleplay Death of a Salesman (1985).

Private Conversations: On the Set of ‘Death of a Salesman’

1986

Private Conversations: On the Set of ‘Death of a Salesman’ poster
NR

Playwright Arthur Miller, director Volker Schlöndorff and actor Dustin Hoffman are seen creating the Roxbury Productions and Punch Productions teleplay Death of a Salesman (1985).

Private Conversations: On the Set of ‘Death of a Salesman’

1986

Roger Corman: Hollywood's Wild Angel poster
7.7

Documentary examining the life and career of producer/director Roger Corman. Clips from his films and interviews with actors and crew members who have worked with him are featured.

Roger Corman: Hollywood's Wild Angel

1978

Roger Corman: Hollywood's Wild Angel poster
7.7

Documentary examining the life and career of producer/director Roger Corman. Clips from his films and interviews with actors and crew members who have worked with him are featured.

Roger Corman: Hollywood's Wild Angel

1978

All by Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story poster
7.0

Documentary profile of singer-actress Eartha Kitt.

All by Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story

1982

All by Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story poster
7.0

Documentary profile of singer-actress Eartha Kitt.

All by Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story

1982

Observations Under the Volcano poster
4.5

Documentary on the making of the movie Under the Volcano.

Observations Under the Volcano

1984

Observations Under the Volcano poster
4.5

Documentary on the making of the movie Under the Volcano.

Observations Under the Volcano

1984

Yesterday's Witness poster
7.0

For the first 50 years of film history, the newsreel was a fixture in American movie theaters. From 1911 to 1967, these shorts proved an influential source of information – and misinformation – for generations of American moviegoers. Television news and public affairs programs became a great improvement over the scanty information offered by the newsreels. This documentary offers insight into a medium which has disappeared.

Yesterday's Witness

1976

Yesterday's Witness poster
7.0

For the first 50 years of film history, the newsreel was a fixture in American movie theaters. From 1911 to 1967, these shorts proved an influential source of information – and misinformation – for generations of American moviegoers. Television news and public affairs programs became a great improvement over the scanty information offered by the newsreels. This documentary offers insight into a medium which has disappeared.

Yesterday's Witness

1976

Sam Fuller: Writings with a Camera poster
NR

A brief visit with Sam Fuller on the set of his film “White Dog” (1982).

Sam Fuller: Writings with a Camera

1981

Monk in Europe poster
NR

Part two of a two-part portrait of the great Jazz composer and pianist. On his European tour his quartet was joined by Ray Copeland, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, and Johnny Griffin. They traveled as part of George Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival road company to London, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Mainz, and Rotterdam.

Monk in Europe

1968

Memoirs of a Movie Palace: The Kings of Flatbush poster
NR

When Brooklyn's Kings Theater -- one of five "Wonder Theaters" in the New York area -- closed its doors in 1977, the neighborhood mourned. In a series of interviews, local aficionados of the palace as well as its projectionist, its organist, and former employees, reminisce about the Kings and its charmed days gone by.

Memoirs of a Movie Palace: The Kings of Flatbush

1980

Memoirs of a Movie Palace: The Kings of Flatbush poster
NR

When Brooklyn's Kings Theater -- one of five "Wonder Theaters" in the New York area -- closed its doors in 1977, the neighborhood mourned. In a series of interviews, local aficionados of the palace as well as its projectionist, its organist, and former employees, reminisce about the Kings and its charmed days gone by.

Memoirs of a Movie Palace: The Kings of Flatbush

1980

Edith Head poster
8.0

A light-hearted, toe-tapping portrait of the well-known 8 Oscar winning Hollywood costume designer filmed in her opulent house and garden. Edith Head presents some of her famous designs using glamorous models to impersonate Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, Dorothy Lamour, Ginger Rogers, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly. They move to the music of the films for which she was the designer as Head recalls the times and places that served as inspiration for the famed looks.

Edith Head

1981

Edith Head poster
8.0

A light-hearted, toe-tapping portrait of the well-known 8 Oscar winning Hollywood costume designer filmed in her opulent house and garden. Edith Head presents some of her famous designs using glamorous models to impersonate Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, Dorothy Lamour, Ginger Rogers, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly. They move to the music of the films for which she was the designer as Head recalls the times and places that served as inspiration for the famed looks.

Edith Head

1981

Katja Mann: A Life with Thomas Mann poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Katja Mann: A Life with Thomas Mann

1969

Hollywood's Musical Moods poster
NR

In the silent film era, movies were never really silent. In the background of films that made figures like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton into cultural icons, were the musical giants whose compositions defined the very films that captivated a generation of movie-goers. Arthur Kleiner converses with the still-living legends from that bygone golden age of cinema.

Hollywood's Musical Moods

1976

Hollywood's Musical Moods poster
NR

In the silent film era, movies were never really silent. In the background of films that made figures like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton into cultural icons, were the musical giants whose compositions defined the very films that captivated a generation of movie-goers. Arthur Kleiner converses with the still-living legends from that bygone golden age of cinema.

Hollywood's Musical Moods

1976

Aznavour: Breaking America poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Aznavour: Breaking America

1985

Motel poster
6.7

Documentary looking at the culture of three motels and their owners who remain untouched by homogenization and corporatism, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Florence, Arizona; and the semi-ghost town of Death Valley Junction, California. Everyone has an unusual story to tell.

Motel

1989

Motel poster
6.7

Documentary looking at the culture of three motels and their owners who remain untouched by homogenization and corporatism, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Florence, Arizona; and the semi-ghost town of Death Valley Junction, California. Everyone has an unusual story to tell.

Motel

1989

Monk poster
5.0

Part one of a two-part portrait of the great Jazz composer and pianist. In 1968, we had the opportunity to spend time with Thelonious Monk and his musicians, following him in New York and Atlanta. In New York his quartet plays at the Village Vanguard and at recording sessions for Columbia Records; in Atlanta they appear at a Jazz Festival organized by George Wein. The members of the quartet were Charlie Rouse, Larry Gales, and Ben Riley.

Monk

1968