In Our Time: Culture Folgen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' film, released in 1941, which is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, films yet made. Welles plays the lead role of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper magnate, and Welles directed, produced and co-wrote this story of loneliness at the heart of a megalomaniac. The plot was partly inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, who then used the power of his own newspapers to try to suppress the film’s release. It was to take some years before Citizen Kane reached a fuller audience and, from that point, become so celebrated.The image above is of Kane addressing a public meeting while running for Governor.With Stella Bruzzi Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College LondonIan Christie Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of LondonAnd John David Rhodes Professor of Film Studies and Visual Culture at the University of CambridgeProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Song of the Nibelungs, a twelfth century German epic, full of blood, violence, fantasy and bleakness. It is a foundational work of medieval literature, drawing on the myths of Scandinavia and central Europe. The poem tells of two couples, Siegfried and Kriemhild and Gunther and Brunhilda, whose lives are destroyed by lies and revenge. It was extremely popular in its time, sometimes rewritten with happier endings, and was rediscovered by German Romantics and has since been drawn from selectively by Wagner, Fritz Lang and, infamously, the Nazis looking to support ideas on German heritage.The image above is of Siegfried seeing Kriemhild for the first time, a miniature from the Hundeshagenschen Code manuscript dating from 15th Century.WithSarah Bowden Reader in German and Medieval Studies at King’s College LondonMark Chinca Professor of Medieval German and Comparative Literature at the University of CambridgeAndBettina Bildhauer Professor of Modern Languages at the University of St AndrewsProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Bauhaus which began in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, as a school for arts and crafts combined, and went on to be famous around the world. Under its first director, Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau and extended its range to architecture and became associated with a series of white, angular, flat-roofed buildings reproduced from Shanghai to Chicago, aimed for modern living. The school closed after only 14 years while at a third location, Berlin, under pressure from the Nazis, yet its students and teachers continued to spread its ethos in exile, making it even more influential.The image above is of the Bauhaus Building, Dessau, designed by Gropius and built in 1925-6WithRobin Schuldenfrei Tangen Reader in 20th Century Modernism at The Courtauld Institute of ArtAlan Powers History Leader at the London School of ArchitectureAnd Michael White Professor of the History of Art at the University of YorkProducer: Simon Tillotson