Skip to main content
Time Is All You've Got film image; man playing instrument in band

Artie Shaw: Time Is All You've Got

4K Restoration

This event has passed

Anchored by an incisive interview with its then 72-year-old subject, Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got looks back on the five-decade career of “King of the Clarinet” Artie Shaw (1910-2004), one of the most popular stars of the 1930s and ’40s Swing era. Born Arthur Arshawsky in 1910 in New York City, Artie Shaw leaves home to tour as a musician at the age of 16 and slowly rises to national prominence, becoming as famous for his eight marriages as for his musical skill, which earns him comparisons to Benny Goodman. Shaw discusses his musical and cinematic career, and his many interests (fly-fishing, astronomy, psychoanalysis, aviation, and literature, to name a few).

In an era of separate white and Black bands, Shaw broke the color barrier by hiring legendary African American musicians like Billie Holiday, Hot Lips Page and Roy Eldridge for his bands. Shaw’s restlessness and intellectual curiosity (he’d author four books of fiction and non-fiction) led him to shun celebrity and retire from show business in the late 1940s, with only occasional comebacks after. Known also as a ladies’ man, Shaw’s eight wives included actresses Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Doris Dowling, Evelyn Keyes, and novelist Kathleen Winsor, author of the notoriously racy bestseller Forever Amber.

Brigitte Berman’s film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1985, and is screening in a new 4K restoration. Featuring: Artie Shaw, Polly Haynes, John Wexley, Lee Castle, John Best, Helen Forrest, Buddy Rich, Mel Tormé.

Unfailingly entertaining.

Glenn Kenny, New York Times

Superb… A documentary masterpiece… Big-band leader and clarinet virtuoso Artie Shaw’s life story is told sensitively and in detail: He talks about growing up poor and Jewish in New York; his intensely serious approach to music; his love-hate relationship with show business; and his ambition to be a creative writer. A brilliant portrait of a difficult man, an artist who was never happy with himself or anyone else.

Judy Wolfe, POV Magazine

Berman makes history live.

LA Times

Director

Brigitte Berman

Featuring

Artie Shaw, Polly Haynes, John Wexley, Lee Castle, John Best, Helen Forrest, Buddy Rich, Mel Tormé.

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

1985

Language

English

Awards

Best Documentary, Academy Awards

19+
115 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Screenwriter

Brigitte Berman

Cinematography

James Aquila, Mark Irwin

Editor

Barry Backus, Brigitte Berman

Original Music

Artie Shaw

Also Playing

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
157 min

Neither a fairytale, nor a Leonesque shoot-em-up, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's somber, melancholy masterpiece is both a ruminative comedy about mortality and a subtle, poignant murder mystery.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Make Me Famous

Dir. Brian Vincent
93 min

This engaging doc casts a light on the halcyon East Village art scene of the late 70s/early 80s, when Edward Brezinski was one among many artists waiting for his big break. In his case, it never came...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light
Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light film image; painted reds, pinks, oranges, and yellows that combine to look like a flower

Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light

Dir. Paul Wagner
118 min

Drawing on her copious correspondence and the world's leading scholars, this is a definitive documentary on the life and work of "the mother of American Modernism."

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Under the Skin

Dir. Jonathan Glazer
108 min

Between Birth and the death camps of Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer gave us sex, with Scarlett Johansson, picking up and disposing with interchangeable men. It's a bleakly unforgettable movie, with a mesmeric Mica Levi score.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre