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Independent Lens
Brother
A filmmaker talks with her brother during his recovery from opioid use disorder, shedding light on the origins of his addiction and our broken rehabilitation system.
Bill T. Jones: A Good Man
Tony Award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones conceives and executes a dance production based on the life of Abraham Lincoln.
- Series
- American Masters
- Premiere Date
- November 11, 2011
- Length
- 120 minutes
- Funding Initiative
- Series and Special Projects
Producer
Joanna Rudnick
Joanna Rudnick is an Emmy-nominated and duPont Award-winning director and producer. Her films have broadcast on PBS, BBC, HBO, ShortsTV, and Al Jazeera America, as well as several other broadcasters around the world. Joanna enjoyed tenures at American Masters and Kartemquin Films. She received an MA in Science, Health & Environmental Journalism… Show more
- Other ITVS Films
- Brother
- In the Family
Director
Gordon Quinn
Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films, 2007 recipient of the MacArthur award for Creative and Effective Institutions, Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for more than 40 years. His producing credits include such award-winning and highly acclaimed films as Hoop Dreams; Vietnam, Long Time Coming; Golub; 5 Girls; Refrigerator Mothers; Stevie,… Show more
- Other ITVS Films
- In the Family
- The New Americans
- Refrigerator Mothers
- The Trials of Muhammad Ali
Director
Bob Hercules
Bob Hercules’ work includes Bill T. Jones: A Good Man and Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance, both of which aired on PBS’s American Masters series. A Good Man was an official selection at Full Frame, IDFA, Silverdocs, DOXA, and many other festivals. Joffrey was the opening night film at the Dance on Camera Film Festival at Lincoln Center in 2012 and the… Show more
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The Film
Bill T. Jones: A Good Man follows acclaimed director/choreographer Bill T. Jones (Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Still/Here, FELA!) as he and his company create their most ambitious work, an original dance-theater piece in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial. Through two tumultuous years, witness raw moments of frustration as Jones struggles to communicate his vision to his dancers and musicians, as well as moments of great exhilaration with movement transcending the limitation of words. Jones and his company come face to face with America’s unresolved contradictions about race, equality, and the legacy of America's 16th president. Initially accusatory and indicting of The Great Emancipator, the work evolves into a triumph of hope for the United States' struggling democracy, with Jones revealing that Lincoln was “the only white man I was allowed to love unconditionally.” Premiering on the heels of Jones’s Kennedy Center Honor and the prestige of his 11 FELA! Tony nominations, Bill T. Jones: A Good Man is a window into the creative process and, indeed, the creative crisis of one of our nation’s most enduring, provocative artists as he explores what it means to be a good man, to be a free man, to be a citizen.
The film follows Jones and his Company as they create movement and gesture stirring complicated emotions about Lincoln's legacy in contemporary life while asking: What does Lincoln signify in terms of race relations, civil rights, freedom and equality, and these United States? Jones lets the camera inside to witness his creative process as he grapples with the contradictions created by an African American modern dancer creating a definitive work on Lincoln.
