David Grubin

The Wyeths: A Father and His Family

David Grubin

David McCullough, Andrew Wyeth

The life of the famed illustrator NC Wyeth as told by his children: Andrew Wyeth, Henriette Wyeth Hurd, Caroline Wyeth, Nat Wyeth, and Ann Wyeth McCoy.

American Experience: T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt

David Grubin

Jason Robards

A champion of the strenuous life, Teddy Roosevelt embodied the notion of an expanded presidency. Stamping the presidency with his own colorful personality, Roosevelt's enormous popularity gave him political clout that matched his celebrity status. "Get action, do things," sums up his attitude toward all endeavors, political and otherwise.

American Experience: FDR

David Grubin

David McCullough, Franklin D. Roosevelt

Polio at age 39, president at age 50. Explore the public and private life of a determined man who steered this country through two monumental crises: the Depression and World War II. FDR served as president longer than any other, and his legacy still shapes our understanding of the role of government and the presidency. A film by award winning filmmaker David Grubin. This is the second of four parts.

RFK

David Grubin

Blair Brown, Nick Fraser

David Grubin's probing and perceptive biography reassesses the remarkable and tragic life of Bobby Kennedy, whose early life was spent in the shadow of his elder brother John. After JFK's assassination, he discovered his own identity in the forefront of American politics before his career was also tragically curtailed by an assassin's bullet.

Language Matters with Bob Holman

David Grubin

Bob Holman, Arlene W. Eaton

There are over 6,000 languages in the world. We lose one every two weeks. Hundreds will be lost within the next generation. By the end of this century, half of the world's languages will have vanished. Language Matters with Bob Holman is a two hour documentary that asks: What do we lose when a language dies? What does it take to save a language?

Napoleon

David Grubin

David McCullough

In David Grubin's NAPOLEON watch Napoleon's rise from obscurity to victories that made him a hero to the French people and convinced him he was destined for greatness. Learn of his love for Josephine Beauharnais, and his rise to Emperor. Witness his extraordinary achievements and ultimately his fall, his final battles, his exile to Elba, and his defeat at Waterloo. For nearly two decades he strode the world stage like a colossus -- loved and despised, venerated and feared. From his birth on the rugged island of Corsica to his final exile on the godforsaken island of St. Helena, NAPOLEON brings this extraordinary figure to life.

Downtown Express

David Grubin

Philippe Quint, Nellie McKay

Sasha is a young Russian violinist on a scholarship to Juilliard, living with his affectionate but overbearing father, a cellist determined to manage his son's career. While Sasha prepares for a critical recital that will launch him on a path to a glittering future, he is increasingly drawn to the rhythms he hears on the streets of New York. When he meets Ramona, a bohemian singer/songwriter, he joins her band, and falls in love with her and her music. He begins to lead a double life, careening frantically between two worlds.

Marie Antoinette: A Film by David Grubin

David Grubin

Caroline Bernard, Philippe Altier

This was a very human account of the lives and deaths of Marie Antoinette and Louis the XVI focusing primarily on Marie. It is an account of their lives from birth to death and the circumstances leading to the downfall of the French monarchy.

The Buddha

David Grubin

Richard Gere, Blair Brown

This documentary for PBS by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere, tells the story of the Buddha’s life, a journey especially relevant to our own bewildering times of violent change and spiritual confusion. It features the work of some of the world’s greatest artists and sculptors, who across two millennia, have depicted the Buddha’s life in art rich in beauty and complexity. Hear insights into the ancient narrative by contemporary Buddhists, including Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Join the conversation and learn more about meditation, the history of Buddhism, and how to incorporate the Buddha’s teachings on compassion and mindfulness into daily life.

Bill T. Jones: Still/Here

David Grubin

Bill T. Jones, Lawrence Goldhuber

Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly acclaimed dance Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and lows of their lives, and even imagine their own deaths. They then transform their feelings into expressive movement, which Jones incorporates into the dance performed later in the program. For this documentary, Jones demonstrates the movements of his own life story: his first encounter with white people, confusion over his sexuality, his partner Arnie Zane’s untimely death from AIDS, and Jones’s own HIV-positive status.

Degenerate Art

David Grubin

Narrated by David McCullough, this program examines the infamous Entartete Kunst (degenerate art) exhibition mounted by the Nazis in Munich in 1937 and their far-reaching attacks on avant-garde art in Germany. Witness compelling footage of Nazi book burnings, and of the exhibition itself. Includes interviews with historians, art critics, and eyewitnesses to the events that dramatize this powerful story of the Nazis' assault on modern culture.

The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer

David Grubin

Harold Agnew, Jeremy Bernstein

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a national hero, the brilliant scientist who during WWII led the scientific team that created the atomic bomb. But after the bomb brought the war to an end, in spite of his renown and his enormous achievement, America turned on him - humiliated and cast him aside. The question the film asks is, "Why?"

Young Dr. Freud

David Grubin

Liev Schreiber, Michele Pawk

This documentary retraces the life of the famous Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, from his birth to the publication of his landmark book on dream interpretation. Dr. Freud revolutionary theories spawned the psychoanalytic school of psychology.

American Experience: Tesla

David Grubin

Michael Murphy, Nikola Tesla

Meet Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century. Although eclipsed in fame by Edison and Marconi, it was Tesla's vision that paved the way for today's wireless world. His fertile but undisciplined imagination was the source of his genius but also his downfall, as the image of Tesla as a mad scientist came to overshadow his reputation as a brilliant innovator.

Kofi Annan: Center of the Storm

David Grubin

Kofi Annan

This documentary follows the life of Kofi Annan, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and Secretary General of the United Nations. With unprecedented access, filmmakers follow Annan as he accepts the Nobel Prize, struggles to get food to Afghans threatened with starvation, travels to Tokyo and Thailand to raise funds and garner support for the interim government in Afghanistan, and celebrates East Timor's new independence.

A Portrait of Samson Raphaelson

David Grubin

Samson Raphaelson, Bill Moyers

An interview with playwright and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. First aired on PBS's "Creativity with Bill Moyers".