Beginning on Friday, January 27, KCET in Southern California and Link TV nationwide will debut a new classic film series, “Cohen Film Classics,” that will offer viewers a chance to see some of the most iconic films that defined the twentieth-century cinema
landscape.
The series will feature some of the biggest names in films, including Alfred Hitchcock, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Luc Besson and more. The series is hosted by Charles S. Cohen, president & CEO of Cohen Media Group,
producer and distributor of critically acclaimed arthouse, foreign and classic films.
Cohen selected ten classic films from his private collection of over 700 titles ranging from featured in the Cohen Film Collection to create a curated mix of documentaries, musicals, comedies, animation, dramas and avant-garde works.
Up first is the documentary, “What is Cinema?” which looks at more than 100 clips, archival interviews and new insights from film icons Mike Leigh, Robert Altman and Akira Kurosawa. The film premieres January 27 at 10:00 p.m. PT on KCET and airs nationwide at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Link TV.
TVMusic Network caught up with Cohen to find out how he brought the series to life and what his earliest memories of watching films were.
Phyllis: How did you decide to host a program like this?
Charles Cohen: It’s always been a dream of mine. I’ve always been a fan of Robert Osborne. I was interviewed by him once at one of the TCM Festivals in LA… I was always fascinated with how he makes it look so effortless and how knowledgeable he is about so many films and how he helps the audience really appreciate filmmaking from the inside. It was something that always appealed to me so when this opportunity arose I jumped at it.
Phyllis: What in your opinion makes a film a classic?
Charles Cohen: A classic film – it takes its classic definition from several components. One is that it transcends time with which it’s made so it has a timeless quality – the second is that its subject matter or story again is not rooted in a particular time frame, it has universal themes and appeal and lastly, it’s a film that has been largely regarded by both the audience and by the critical community as having superior craftsmanship, performances, direction, editing, music and so on
Phyllis: Is there a film you’d consider a classic but isn’t on a lot of critics lists or is often overlooked?
Charles Cohen: There’s a lot of them. You can probably shake a stick at it and have a list as long as that. That’s the problem. There are so many films that, either for one reason or another, failed to excite an audience or the timings bad, or the weather’s bad when the film opens or it just doesn’t resonate as the filmmakers thought, but on a later viewing they get a second life. That’s what’s great about film preservation…and curating films and KCET seems to really do this is an organized way that’s efficient and in a substantial way.
Phyllis: When you were younger that there a movie that really stuck with you that or resonated with yu was probably one of the reasons that you’re so passionate about films today?
Charles Cohen: When I was three years old, my grandmother took me to see, on Eastside Manhattan, Walt Disney’s “Cinderella.” That was in the mid-1950’s and we sat through it twice. I like to tell my parents that it had such an impact on me, I probably was never the same afterward.
Phyllis: Is there a particular genre of film that is your favorite?
Charles Cohen: No, I like all types of films.
Phyllis: Regarding films of today, is there one genre or one film that we will be calling a classic 50 years from now?
Charles Cohen: I think it’s exciting what going on in documentary filmmaking. In our particular segment, I think we have more documentaries than I can remember and given the technology and the advances, all you need is a digital camera, ou don’t need elaborate focusing and lighting and preparation that there’s an immediacy that can be captured by digital video that could pretty much, anyone with a camera can be a documentarian.
