New to Sky Arts in August

Sky Arts will rock on Sunday nights next month with three music specials featuring The Doors, The Grateful Dead and Paul Simon.

It also will premiere documentaries about Rita Hayworth and disabled filmmaker Richard Butchins.

Here are the blurbs:

The Disordered Eye (August 10, 8.30)

Disabled artist and filmmaker Richard Butchins challenges the importance of good vision in making great art. He suggests that visual impairments have contributed positively to the creation of art. We take the things we see for granted and that what we look at is actually what it is. Richard asks what is it we’re actually seeing if vision is all just electrical impulses sent to our brains and then turned into images of reality by our minds? He questions whether we even need good eyesight to make great art. Examining the work of Monet and Degas, Richard discovers surprising revelations about the effect of impaired vision on many painters of the last 150 years and beyond.

Rita Hayworth (August 14, 9.30)

The most glamorous screen idol of the ‘40s, the top pin up girl during WWII, the typical product of a male dominated Hollywood was in reality a woman of whom Orson Welles rightly said “she was suffering her whole life”. The oldest child of Eduardo Cansino, a dancer from a little town near Seville, and an American mother of Irish descent, having performed with the Ziegfeld Follies, Margarita Carmen Cansino was sexually abused by her father at a very young age. She had appeared for a while as her father’s partner when the head of Fox saw her dancing at the Caliente Club, realised her potential, arranged a screen test, and took her under contract. In order to escape her father’s oppression, she eloped with promoter Edward C. Judson, more than twice her age, who whored her out to those who could further her career.

The Grateful Dead Movie (August 16, 8.00)

The Grateful Dead Movie, originally released in 1977 and directed by Jerry Garcia and Leon Gast, captures seminal live performances from rock band The Grateful Dead during an October 1974 five-night run at Winterland in San Francisco. These concerts marked the beginning of a hiatus, with the October 20, 1974 show billed as The Last One. The film features the band at their creative-peak and is the ultimate Grateful Dead experience with the Wall Of Sound concert sound system that The Grateful Dead used for all of 1974 and portrays the burgeoning Deadhead scene. Features performances of 12 classic Grateful Dead songs including Truckin’, Eyes of the World, Sugar Magnolia and Morning Dew.

Paul Simon: Live at Webster Hall (August 23, 8.00)

In June 2011, Paul Simon thrilled hometown fans with a special club performance at New York City’s historic Webster Hall. The show was the culmination of a sold-out and triumphant U.S. tour. The set list was drawn from Simon’s legendary career and included several songs that had not been performed live in many years including Kodachrome, Mother and Child Reunion, Still Crazy After All These Years, Late in the Evening, Sounds of Silence and The Obvious Child.

The Doors: When You’re Strange (August 30, 8.00)

The creative chemistry of four brilliant artists – drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Krieger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek and singer Jim Morrison – made The Doors one of America’s most iconic and influential rock bands of all time. When You’re Strange uncovers historic and previously unseen footage of the illustrious rock quartet and provides new insight into the revolutionary impact of their music and legacy. Directed by award-winning writer/director Tom DiCillo and narrated by Johnny Depp, the film is a riveting account of the band’s history. Taking its title from the cabaret-tinged Doors hit, People Are Strange, and using footage filmed between the band’s 1965 formation and Morrison’s 1971 death, When You’re Strange follows the band from the corridors of UCLA’s film school, where Manzarek and Morrison met, to the stages of sold-out arenas and chronicles the creation of The Doors’ six landmark studio albums in just five years.