Monocle on Culture

We speak to director Cary Joji Fukunaga and producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson about the much-anticipated new James Bond film, ‘No Time to Die’. They discuss the long-awaited movie, how Daniel Craig has shaped the character of 007 and making Bond for 2021.

We visit Dulwich Picture Gallery to learn about ‘Radical Beauty’, a new exhibition of woodcut prints by abstract artist Helen Frankenthaler. We also chat to Christian Jungen, artistic director of the Zürich Film Festival, and Rob West, the director of a new documentary about ‘Picture Post’ magazine.

British band Saint Etienne have just released their 10th album, ‘I’ve Been Trying to Tell You’. Accompanying the music is a film by Alasdair McLellan, a series of vignettes set on a road trip across the UK. McLellan and Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell join Robert Bound to discuss the project.

Robert Bound chats to Penny Martin, editor in chief of ‘The Gentlewoman’, about a new anthology of essays called ‘Modern Manners’. The book is a primer for contemporary life from the elegant and amusing female perspective to which readers of the magazine will already be happily attuned.

TV critics Scott Bryan and Inkoo Kang join Robert Bound to round up the best programmes hitting televisions this season in the US and UK.

As nightlife tries to find its feet again we speak to club owner Ray Ng in Hong Kong about his decision to launch a new venue. Plus, Simon Taffe, director of the UK’s End of the Road festival, on the toll of the pandemic on his industry.

Robert Bound is joined by the film critics Simran Hans and Caspar Salmon to review the film ‘Zola’ – a dark comedy based on a viral twitter thread about two strippers in Florida on a wild weekend gone wrong.

Robert Bound chats to French film director Julien Faraut about his new documentary ‘The Witches of the Orient’, about Japan’s 1964 Olympic women’s volleyball team.

In the year that legendary British broadcaster Alan Whicker would have turned 100, the BFI is celebrating this pioneer of journalism and documentary. Robert Bound discusses his colourful career with Jane Ray, artistic director of The Whicker awards, and the BFI’s archive TV programmer, Dick Fiddy.

Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay together make up musical duo Lump. As they release their second album, ‘Animal’, they chat to Robert Bound about making their record in Margate and channelling their music through the character of Lump, whoever that might be.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp was an artist at the forefront of the 20th-century avant-garde. She was also a craftswoman, a graphic designer, a poet, an interior designer and a performer. Such a variation of disciplines has made it hard to define her as an artist. But does that mean she has been overlooked? Tate Modern has put on a major retrospective of Taeuber-Arp’s vast amount of work made throughout her vibrant career. Robert Bound, Ossian Ward and Amah-Rose Abrams review it in this week’s episode, and discuss the links between Africa and the dada movement, the readdressing of the traditional art canon and the seriousness with which decorative art forms are considered.

Fernando Augusto Pacheco and Georgie Rogers join Robert Bound to round up some of the best summer album releases by the likes of Brazilian Marisa Monte, South African star Muzi and Canadian songwriter Martha Wainwright.

Simran Hans, Chris Power and Kathlene Fox-Davies give us their top tips for the films to watch, books to read and art exhibitions to catch this summer.

‘All of this Unreal Time’ is a new film installation made by a creative group for this year’s Manchester International Festival. Written by Max Porter for actor Cillian Murphy, it explores our individual and collective fallibility as one man wanders through London at night addressing his failings. The film is directed by Aoife McArdle and the soundtrack composed by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National along with electronica artist, Jon Hopkins. Robert Bound is joined by Aoife, Jon and Max to talk about the collaborative process.

Chaitanya Tamhane is a filmmaker whose titles include ‘Court’ and most recently ‘The Disciple’, which has just been released by Netflix. Alfonso Cuarón is an Oscar-winning Mexican film director best known for ‘Roma’ and ‘Gravity’. After meeting through a mentoring scheme that resulted in Tamhane shadowing Cuarón on the set of ‘Roma’, the two have now collaborated on Tamhane’s film ‘The Disciple’, for which Cuarón is the producer. In this week’s episode Robert Bound speaks to the duo about what they have learnt from each other’s creative processes, and about ‘The Disciple’ – a film about an Indian classical singer striving to become a master of his art.