Arena 2012

Dickens on Film (2012)

From the magical films of the silent era to the celebrated work of director David Lean and high definition television, this documentary revisits films and interviews from the archive to answer the question of why Dickens's novels have inspired so many hundreds of adaptations on screen. This co-production with Dickens 2012 not only encapsulates the history of Dickens's time, but also of the 100 years in which his work has survived most acutely on screen. It is not only the stories, themes and characters of Dickens's writing that translate so well onto screen - Sergei Eisenstein argued that there is something essentially filmic in his unique prose style; that Dickens's rapid 'cutting' within scenes and from scene to scene coupled with his seamless mixture of the bizarrely comic with the terrifyingly profound was itself proto-cinematic. Dickens wrote the way a camera saw before film had been invented and he remains to this day the most cinematic of writers.

Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes (2012)

2011 was the 82nd year in the extraordinary life of arguably the greatest saxophone player in the world, Sonny Rollins. Four decades ago, as a young filmmaker and aspiring musician, Dick Fontaine followed Rollins up onto the Williamsburg Bridge in Manhattan during one of his legendary escapes from the perils of 'the jazz life'. Today, still resisting stereotype and compromise, and revered by a new generation of young musicians, Rollins continues his single-minded search for meaning in his music and his life. Dick Fontaine's film is built around the explosive energy of Sonny's 80th Birthday Concert, where legendary figures Roy Haynes, Jim Hall and Ornette Coleman join him to celebrate his journey so far, his music and its future for a new generation.

Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued! (2012)

Featuring a specially-shot introduction with Jamie Cullum, Arena presents a lost treasure - Sonny Rollins performing at Ronnie Scott's in 1974. After nearly 40 years unseen, this unique film shows a spellbinding performance from arguably the greatest saxophone player in the world. Having played alongside Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, Rollins is one of the few surviving jazz greats. This gig captures him after his 1972 comeback when his bands started to sound funkier and to use electric guitar and bass. The band for this1974 set features Japanese guitarist Yoshiaki Masuo and soprano saxophone player Rufus Harley, who doubles on the bagpipes.

The Dreams of William Golding (2012)

The Dreams of William Golding reveals the extraordinary life of one of the greatest English writers of the 20th century. With unprecedented access to the unpublished diaries in which Golding recorded his dreams, the film penetrates deep into his private obsessions and insecurities. His daughter Judy and son David both speak frankly about their father's demons, and the film follows Golding from the impoverished schoolmaster whose first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published when he was forty-three years old, to his winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983. Other contributors include Golding's biographer John Carey, philosopher John Gray, writer Nigel Williams, the dean of Salisbury Cathedral, the Very Revd June Osborne and best-selling author Stephen King. Benedict Cumberbatch, who starred in the 2004 BBC adaptation of Golding's sea trilogy To the Ends of the Earth, reads extracts from his books.

Jonathan Miller (2012)

The BBC's flagship arts documentary strand Arena returns with the first ever documentary exploring the extraordinary life of Sir Jonathan Miller CBE. Jonathan Miller is usually described as a 'polymath' or 'Renaissance man', two labels he personally dislikes. But no-one quite like him has made such an impact on British culture through the medium of television, radio, theatre and opera. He has straddled the great divide between the arts and the sciences, while being a brilliant humorist, a qualified doctor and even a practising artist. With the man himself and a host of distinguished collaborators, including Oliver Sacks, Eric Idle, Kevin Spacey (who owes his first break to Miller) and Penelope Wilton, this Arena profile explores Miller's rich life and examines through amazing television archive - mostly from the BBC - how he makes these connections between the worlds of the imagination and scientific fact.