In his lifetime, Thomas Merton was hailed as a prophet and censured for his outspoken social criticism. For nearly 27 years he was a monk of the austere Trappist order, where he became an eloquent spiritual writer and mystic as well as an anti-war advocate and witness to peace. Merton: A Film Biography provides the first comprehensive look at this remarkable 20th century religious philosopher who wrote, in addition to his immensely popular autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, over 60 books on some of the most pressing social issues of our time, some of which are excerpted here. Merton offers an engaging profile of a man whose presence in the world touched millions of people and whose words and thoughts continue to have a profound impact and relevance today.
The Cistercian monks of Austria are holy men who rise at 4:30 a.m., pray for more than four hours a ...
How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often se...
An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in th...
Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (1698-1760), known as the Ba'al Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name"), is on...
In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed ceramics workers walk into their idle factory, roll out ...
Commentator-comic Bill Maher plays devil's advocate with religion as he talks to believers about the...
This documentary is the story of two Mennonite brothers from Manitoba who were forced to make a deci...
Dick Proenneke retired at age 50 in 1967 and decided to build his own cabin in the wilderness at the...
A portrait of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, which includes historical footage of China's repres...
Narrated by Linda Hunt, this documentary examines the life of the late author and gay rights activis...
An attempt to create a bridge between the different political positions that coexist, sometimes viol...
The Athos peninsula in Greece is one of Europe's last secrets. Over 2000 monks live on Athos - cut o...
The creative chemistry of four brilliant artists —drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Kreiger, ke...
This Peabody Award-winning documentary from New Mexico PBS looks at the European arrival in the Amer...
A documentary about the production of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and the people who made it.
Documentary tracing the extreme life of outlaw writer, performance artist and punk icon, Kathy Acker...
Ralph Ellison was an African-American writer and essayist, who's only novel Invisible Man (1953) gai...
In celebration of his ninetieth birthday, Sir David Attenborough shares extraordinary highlights of ...
The Way of the Heart is the story of a spiritual master who brought the wisdom of Sufism to the West...