The Essential Dennis Potter
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- DirectorKeith GordonStarsRobert Downey Jr.Robin WrightMel GibsonFrom his hospital bed, a writer suffering from a skin disease hallucinates musical numbers and paranoid plots.
- DirectorHerbert RossStarsSteve MartinBernadette PetersJessica HarperDuring the Great Depression, a sheet-music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher.
- StarsFrank FinlayNorman RossingtonZienia MertonWhile he is in prison, Giacomo Casanova recalls many of his past romances and adventures.
- DirectorRichard LoncraineStarsStingDenholm ElliottJoan PlowrightA strange young man has a sinister effect on the family of a middle-aged writer.
- 1964–19701h 20m7.9 (80)TV EpisodeDirectorGareth DaviesStarsKeith BarronValerie GearonJohn BaileyCandidate Nigel Barton goes from idealism to cynicism as he becomes disillusioned and suspicious of hollow campaign promises.
- DirectorBrian GibsonStarsColin WellandMichael ElphickRobin Ellis"When we dream of childhood," said Dennis Potter, "we take our present selves with us. It is not the adult world writ small; childhood is the adult world writ large." Since Potter viewed childhood as "adult society without all the conventions and the polite forms which overlay it," he repeated the device he had introduced 14 years earlier (in "Stand Up, Nigel Barton"); children's roles were cast with adult actors in this naturalistic memory drama of a "golden day" that turns to tragedy. On a sunny, summer afternoon in bucolic England of 1943, seven West Country children (two girls, five boys) play in the Forest of Dean. Their games and spontaneous actions (continuous and in real time) reflect their awareness of WWII, but no adults are present to intrude. As the group moves through the woods and back to the grassy hills, their words and actions illustrate how "childhood is not transparent with innocence." When the two girls push a pram into a barn to play house, the casting concept is heightened, doubling back on itself in a remarkable moment: adults are suddenly seen to be acting as children who are pretending to be adults, and lines from Housman echo across the years: "That is the land of lost content/I see it shining plain/The happy highways where I went/And cannot come again."
- StarsAlan BatesJanet MawJack GallowayIn a drunken and disheartened state, Michael Henchard sells his wife at a fair. When he becomes sober again, he realizes what he has done, and though unable to find his wife and child, changes his ways. He becomes the Mayor of the town. Nearly twenty years later, his past comes back to haunt him.