Star Wars, Jaws and The Exorcist may be seen as being responsible for creating the multiplex, but they were notable for many other reasons as well. This section of The Story of Film explains why, and then travels to India where the world’s most famous movie star, Amitabh Bachchan, shows how Bollywood was inventing a new cinema in the 70s. Bruce Lee kickstarted the kinetic films of Hong Kong, where Master Yuen Wo Ping talks exclusively about his action movies and of how he conceived his stunning wire fu choreography for The Matrix. This section also illuminates the way in which filmmakers such as John Sayles allowed the themes of their films to be shaped during the Reagan and Thatcher years. In Beijing we discover the blossoming of Chinese cinema just before the Tian’anmen crackdown. In the Soviet Union, the past wells up in astonishing films, and in Poland the master director Krzysztof Kieslowski emerges to dominate the screens of film festivals the world over. (120 min.)

 November 10 at 3:00 PM