Wallander

Wallander is a British television series adapted from the Swedish novelist Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander novels and starring Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous police inspector. The first three-episode series, produced by Yellow Bird, Left Bank Pictures and TKBC for BBC Scotland, were broadcast on BBC One from November to December 2008. It is the first time the Wallander novels have been adapted into an English-language production. Yellow Bird, formed by Mankell, began negotiations with British companies to produce the adaptations in 2006.

In 2007, Branagh met with Mankell personally to discuss playing the role. Contracts were signed and work began on the films, adapted from Sidetracked, Firewall and One Step Behind, in January 2008. Emmy-award-winning director Philip Martin was hired as lead director. Martin worked with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to establish a visual style for the series. The two were keen to use the Red One digital camera, making Wallander the first British television series to do so.

Watch the trailer, below, where PBS announces the series to get a feel for the show.

 

To watch an episode, click on its title, or the alternate links provided.

Season 1, Episode 1: Sidetracked
Kurt Wallander is a police inspector in the Swedish town of Ystad. Shortly after he has seen a young girl kill herself by self-immolation, he is called to investigate the murder of government minister Wetterstedt. He has been scalped. Wealthy business-man Carlman is murdered in the same fashion, and a serial killer is clearly responsible. Drunken ex-journalist Lars Magnusson points Wallander towards Sandin, a retired and corrupt cop, who admits that he once ‘cleaned up’ for both the dead men but will offer no more information. The next murder is that of an habitual criminal, who has been tortured before death. His estranged wife and teen aged son are not grief-stricken. His behaviour has traumatized his younger son and sent his daughter into a mental hospital. Following another scalping, and an appeal to the public, a former prostitute tells Wallander that all the victims were connected with a vice ring, importing very young girls into Sweden… Alternate Links:  StageVU, GorillaVid, daClips or MegaVideo.

Season 1, Episode 2: Firewall
Eighteen-year-old Sonia admits to the vicious knifing and robbery of a taxi-driver, but she is an unhelpful interviewee, claiming ‘it doesn’t matter anymore’, before escaping custody during a power cut. Next day her dead body is discovered. The police must also investigate the bizarre demise of Mr. Falk, a physically perfect 47-year-old specimen, who nonetheless dropped down dead in the street. To add to the mystery, his corpse is stolen – from the mortuary slab next to Sonia’s – and later found with the hands and feet removed. Sonia’s father tells Wallander that she was raped three years earlier but her attacker escaped justice due to a false alibi given by his father – the taxi-driver she murdered. Wallander’s belief that the cases are connected is justified when a search of Falk’s office reveals a computer set-up identical to that of Sonia’s boyfriend, who is the next victim. . . Alternate Links:  StageVU, Videozer, VideoBB, daClips or GorillaVid.

Season 1, Episode 3: One Step Behind
Three youngsters are shot dead whilst having a woodland picnic in fancy dress. One girl’s mother reports her as missing but postcards from Paris supposedly sent by the daughter negate any police involvement. Then another parent reports that Wallander’s troubled colleague, Svedberg, had earlier expressed an interest in the kids’ movements, and then Svedberg is also found shot, photos of the dead trio being found in his flat along with one of a mystery woman, identified by Svedberg’s cousin as his ex-girlfriend Louise. The corpses are found, and a friend of the victims is also slain, having told Wallander that his workmate was really gay, and that ‘Louise’ is a transvestite, and a wholly murderous one, who adds to his toll of dead by killing a further trio of innocents. Diagnosed as diabetic and aware that he never truly knew the dead colleague who regarded him as his best friend, Wallander must not only avenge Svedberg but halt a psychopath from an ordinary but obvious walk of life from striking far closer to home. Alternate Links:  StageVU, daClips, Videozer, VideoBB or GorillaVid.

Season 2, Episode 1: Faceless Killers
An elderly couple, the Lovgrens, are murdered at their isolated farmstead and Mrs. Lovgren’s last word to Wallander seems to be “Foreigners.” When this is leaked to the press a migrant labourers’ camp is torched and a foreign worker shot by anonymous right wing vigilantes. Daughter Linda, dating a Syrian doctor, accuses Wallander of racism and, although Lovgren’s brother-in-law tells the police that the dead man had a hidden fortune, which his murderers stole, and an illegitimate son, neither fact is immediately helpful. However, Wallander’s obsessive pursuit of the owner of a car used in the revenge killing yields a result, though it almost costs him his job and the Lovgrens’ slayers are finally cornered in a fairground. Alternate links: StageVU, NovaMov, VideoWeed, MegaVideo or zShare.

Season 2, Episode 2: The Man Who Smiled
Lawyer Sten Tostensson tells Wallander he believes his old father’s death in a car crash was homicide but Wallander is reluctant to act until Sten is found hanged and the pathologist claims that he was murdered. Sten’s secretary shows Wallander a postcard of Africa with a text threatening the lives of father and son and wealthy philanthropist Harderberg, a client of Sten’s, admits to also having received one.All were posted from the same hotel,apparently by industrialist Jurgen Nordfeldt, who survives an attempt to kill him. Nordfeldt had stumbled on a racket importing body parts from Africa which Wallander, helped by ex-cop Anders,now Harderberg’s security guard, must resolve. Alternate Links: MegaVideo, Videozer or VideoBB.

Season 2, Episode 3: The Fifth Woman
Three elderly men, Holger Eriksson, Gosta Runfeldt and Eugen Blomberg, are murdered in seemingly unrelated incidents. The smell of perfume on Runfeldt’s suitcase suggests a woman’s involvement. None are mourned by their families, who regarded them as bullies and womanizers, which shocks Wallander, whose own father has just died. A dedication in a book by Eriksson to a woman called Krista leads to the members of a former self-help group for abused women, attended by Vanja, Runfeldt’s ex-lover. Is one of these women the killer? Alternate Links: daClips, GorillaVid or Videozer.

American Cinema

Using clips from more than 300 of the greatest movies ever made, this series explores film history and American culture through the eyes of over 150 Hollywood insiders, including Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and Michael Eisner. In-depth treatments present film as a powerful economic force, potent twentieth-century art form, and viable career option.

American Cinema connects subjects such as history, business, and English with other studies. In addition, it is a perfect vehicle for developing visual and media literacy skills and can be used as a springboard for creative-writing endeavors and media production. Produced by the New York Center for Visual History in association with KCET/Los Angeles and the BBC. 1995.

1. The Hollywood Style
In the classical Hollywood film, the story is primary. Filmmakers rely on style — structure, narrative, and visual elements — to effectively tell their story. Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack are among the premier directors who discuss how classical Hollywood style, evolving and yet enduring over time, informs their work. Go to this unit.

2. The Studio System
This program surveys Hollywood’s industrial past during the era of contract players and directors, studio police forces, and colorful movie moguls. It also looks at the filmmaking environment of today with studio heads Michael Eisner, Howard Koch, and others. Paramount Pictures, one of the oldest and most successful of the Hollywood studios, serves as a case study.

3. The Star
Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Dustin Hoffman — these among many others are names synonymous with Hollywood. Early on, Hollywood saw that recognizable talent could minimize the financial risks of film production. Critics, film scholars, and studio publicists view the stars from many angles: as marketing tools, cultural icons, and products of the industry. Joan Crawford headlines as a case study of the cultural phenomenon of stardom.

4. The Western
The western is an American myth that has been translated by other cultures and reinterpreted time and again, but never dies. With clips and critical commentary on westerns from John Ford’s Stagecoach through the work of Arthur Penn, Sam Peckinpah, and Clint Eastwood, the program traces the aesthetic evolution of the genre as well as its sociological importance.

5. Romantic Comedy
Breezy and silly to witty and intelligent, romantic comedies have been with us since the 1930s. But the surface humor has often just barely masked issues of gender and sexuality. This program looks back on screwball comedies including It Happened One Night and His Girl Friday. Directors James Brooks and Nora Ephron present interpretations of the genre that reveal the underlying social and psychological messages.

6. The Combat Film
Beginning with World War II combat films — produced under directives from the federal government — this program examines the role of the combat film in filling a social and political need. Critics and directors describe the evolution of these films, the rise of the Vietnam film, and the influence of the newsreel documentaries and TV news on the genre.

7. Film Noir
These cynical and pessimistic films from the 1930s and ’40s touched a nerve in Americans. Historians link the genre’s overriding paranoia to Cold War-related angst over the nuclear threat and the Hollywood blacklist. In addition, a cinematographer demonstrates the creation of noir lighting, which gave films their peculiar look and emphasized the themes of corruption and urban decay.

8. Film in the Television Age
Television first arrived in American homes just as the Hollywood studio system was collapsing. As the new medium took hold, so did a new era of motion picture entertainment. Top directors, actors, and film scholars trace the influence of each medium on the other, from the live and fresh dramas of the Golden Age of Television and the growth of Hollywood spectacles to the megalithic entertainment industry of today.

9. The Film School Generation
Maverick filmmakers of the 1960s and ’70s, including Brian DePalma, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg, capitalized on new technology and borrowed from classical Hollywood and French New Wave as they reinvented the American film. The financial and cultural forces that contributed to their success and commercial clout are explored.

10. The Edge of Hollywood
While many of the old rules are still in force, independent filmmakers today often add their dissenting voices to the forum. This program looks at some alternative visions from new talents including Spike Lee, Joel and Ethan Coen, Jim Jarmusch, and Quentin Tarantino. With limited budgets, they are challenging the stylistic status quo of the Hollywood film.

11. Film Language
“Film Language” illustrates basic terms such as tracking shots and zooms and also provides a primer on editing technique.

12. Writing and Thinking About Film
“Writing and Thinking About Film” provides a formal and cultural analysis of a classical film sequence. It serves as a critical how-to guide for those new to film critique.

13. Classical Hollywood Today
“Classical Hollywood Today” offers interviews with contemporary directors, European filmmakers, scholars, and critics, as well as studio-era veterans who probe Hollywood’s influence on both American and world culture.

A Warning to the Curious

The narrator begins the story by describing a windswept yet idyllic town on the coast of Suffolk, England called Seaburgh where he used to either live or visit as a child. After the narrator has evoked the setting of the story, he allows his friend to take over the narration. The friend tells of a stay in an inn in Seaburgh where he came across a very nervous-seeming young man who was afraid to be alone. This young man, Paxton by name, then tells his story of having learned from the local rector of a legend of three Anglian crowns buried along the coast as protection from foreign invaders.

One crown, according to the legend, had been discovered and melted down, and the second had been washed into the sea by coastal erosion. The third crown, the last remaining defense, was still buried along the coast but protected by the men of the family Ager. When the clergyman casually announces that the last of the Agers has just died, Paxtons curiosity is piqued. When he ascertains from another local the possible location of the buried crown, he is compelled to unearth it. Having done so, however, he finds himself constantly followed by a mysterious presence. He is desperate to put the crown back where he found it, but it may be too late…

Part one is below, and here’s part two.