The Circus
Big tent. Big Dreams.
Genres
Overview
Drawing upon a vast and richly visual archive and featuring a host of performers, historians and aficionados, this four-hour mini-series follows the rise and fall of the gigantic, traveling tented railroad circus and brings to life an era when Circus Day would shut down a town and its stars were among the most famous people in the country.
Details
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Runtime
228 min
Release Date
2018-10-09
Status
Released
Original Language
English
Vote Count
3
Vote Average
6
Michael Murphy
Narrator
5.8
Prater
Vienna’s Prater is an amusement park and a desire machine. No mechanical invention, no novel idea or sensational innovation could escape incorporation into the Prater. The diverse story-telling in Ulrike Ottinger’s film “Prater” transforms this place of sensations into a modern cinema of attractions. The Prater’s history from the beginning to the present is told by its protagonists and those who have documented it, including contemporary cinematic images of the Prater, interviews with carnies, commentary by Austrians and visitors from abroad, film quotes, and photographic and written documentary materials. The meaning of the Prater, its status as a place of technological innovation, and its role as a cultural medium are reflected in texts by Elfriede Jelinek, Josef von Sternberg, Erich Kästner and Elias Canetti, as well as in music devoted to this amusement venue throughout the course of its history.
2007-02-10 | de
10.0
Escape 360
One man, one camera, one goal...to capture the essence of adventure. An experimental, often abstract new type of filmmaking process creating color rich visuals combined with a lush soundtrack that grounds the project. A unique cinematic experience.
2021-06-20 | en
6.0
24 Hours in the Life of a Clown
The movie follows the clock round as music hall clown Beby takes off his make up, goes home for a meal, looks at photos and goes to bed to rise, spend a day in the village and perform with his new partner.
1946-01-01 | fr
7.6
Cirque du Soleil: Quidam
A young girl has already seen everything there is to see and her world has lost all meaning. Her anger shatters her world and she finds herself in the universe of QUIDAM, where she is joined by a playful companion, as well as another mysterious character who attempts to seduce her with the marvelous, the unsettling and the terrifying.
1999-12-26 | en
7.8
Cirque du Soleil: Alegria
Alegría is a mood, a state of mind. The themes of the show, whose name means "jubilation" in Spanish, are many. Power and the handing down of power over time, the evolution from ancient monarchies to modern democracies, old age, youth - it is against this backdrop that the characters of Alegría play out their lives. Kings' fools, minstrels, beggars, old aristocrats and children make up its universe, along with the clowns, who alone are able to resist the passing of time and the social transformations that accompany it.
2001-11-19 | en
7.2
Cirque du Soleil : Saltimbanco
From the Italian 'saltare in banco' – which literally means 'to jump on a bench' – Saltimbanco explores the urban experience in all its myriad forms. Between whirlwind and lull, prowess and poetry, it takes spectators on an allegorical and acrobatic journey into the heart and soul of the modern city.
1997-01-01 | en
7.8
Cirque du Soleil: Varekai
Icarus is the main character of Varekai, who falls to the ground, breaking his legs as he does. He is suddenly in a strange, new world full of creatures he has never seen before. Parachuted into the shadows of a magical forest, a kaleidoscopic world populated by fantastical creatures, this young man sets off on an adventure both absurd and extraordinary.
2003-10-07 | en
0.0
The Story Of An Encounter
The Story of an Encounter is a documentary that captures the unexpected encounter between México and Cirque du Soleil creators in the mist of the creation of LUZIA, Cirque du Soleil next big top show. It is a cultural and intimate story of the meeting of creative minds seen through personal interactions and relationship building of the show creators. Filmed in Mexico City, Tijuana, Oaxaca and Montréal, this series features: Daniele Finzi Pasca (Co-author and Director of LUZIA), Patricia Ruel (Direction of Creation), Simon Carpentier (Composer), Eugenio Caballero (Set and Props Designer) as well as Majo Cornejo and Rodrigo de la Mora (Musicians).
2016-02-01 | en
6.1
Serengeti Shall Not Die
The film tells of the beginnings of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. At the end of the 1950s, the Tanzanian National Park Administration wanted to fence in the protected area around the Ngorongoro Crater. Bernhard and Michael Grzimek were invited by the national park administration in 1957 to get a precise picture of the animal migrations and to provide the national park administration with the values they needed for their project. Using a new counting method with two airplanes, the Grzimeks found out that the migration of the herds was different than assumed.
1959-06-25 | de
9.0
A Farra do Circo
This documentary highlights the evolution of Brazil's Circo Voador venue from homespun artists' performance space to national cultural institution.
2013-11-30 | pt
6.0
Marceline, the Best Clown in the World
An account of the life and work of the Spanish clown, mime, acrobat and actor Marcelino Orbés (1873-1927), known as Marceline, who, between 1900 and 1914, was unanimously acclaimed as the best in the world.
2020-07-10 | es
6.8
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals. There’s a lion tamer who shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.
1997-10-03 | en
7.3
Ashes and Snow
Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.
2005-03-05 | en
6.8
Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
1927-04-29 | en
0.0
Sugarcane, Coati and Monowheel
Nearly everybody has been to the circus to laugh about clowns, be afraid of the lions and to eat sugar cane. However, can anyone imagine that circus artists reside right there in the circus building - above the arena in the second floor hotel rooms - where they also prepare meals, do their laundry and try out their magic tricks? For over 125 years, despite the discomfort of non-renovated premises and ubiquitous animal odor, local and foreign circus artists follow their routine to create the circus miracle. Sugarcane, Coati and Monowheel is a film about those who dwell in Riga Circus and about what happens outside the arena before and after meeting audience under the circus dome.
2014-11-05 | lv
0.0
Niok, The Orphan Elephant
Near the region of Angkor Watt, a group of children capture a baby elephant and are just growing attached to it when it is sold to a travelling safari. Pursuing the new owner, a boy manages to steal it back, and the children free it to return to its mother.
1957-08-28 | en
7.9
Love & Bananas: An Elephant Story
Ashley Bell and a team of elephant rescuers led by world renowned Asian elephant conservationist Lek Chailert, embark on a daring 48-hour mission across Thailand to rescue a 70-year old captive blind Asian elephant and bring her to freedom.
2018-04-22 | en
7.5
Africa's Super Seven
On the northern bank of the Sand River in the Mala-Mala Game Reserve in South Africa, seven magnificent creatures reside in an area the size of Manhattan Island. Tracking them for 24 hours reveals a never-ending daily drama.
2005-01-01 | en
7.7
Elephant
Disneynature’s Elephant follows African elephant Shani and her spirited son Jomo as their herd make an epic journey hundreds of miles across the vast Kalahari Desert. Led by their great matriarch, Gaia, the family faces brutal heat, dwindling resources and persistent predators, as they follow in their ancestors’ footsteps on a quest to reach a lush, green paradise.
2020-03-14 | en
0.0
Rings Around the World
While writing a book on the circus, author John Shawcross reflects upon the great acts he has seen over the years and the mystique of circus people. He recalls the solo trapeze act of La Mara; Tarzan, Sahib, and their elephant; Marco's sword-balancing act; an archery act in which Grey Arrow shoots an apple off the head of Zuni, his wife; the Mascott Sisters' head-to-head balancing act on a high ladder; the juggling of Rudy Cardenas; high bar specialists, the Tongas; Gunther Gebel Williams with his tiger; the flying bar act of the Laribles; Carl Sembach-Krone's trained horses; lion tamer Pablo Noel; the Gaonas and the Four Titos on the trampoline; the Flying Armors on the flying trapeze; Frieda Krone and her elephants; Fredy Knie, Sr., and his Lippizaner; the Francesco Clowns; Lilly Yokoi on her bicycle; Mendez and Seitz on the tightrope; and Pauline Schumann on the trick horse.
1967-12-06 | en