Directed by Howard Brookner • 1987 • United States

One of the great unrealized theatrical productions of the twentieth century, “the CIVIL warS” would have been the magnum opus of legendary avant-garde director Robert Wilson: a twelve-hour historical opera in six distinct parts, each rehearsed in a different country (Germany, France, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, and the U.S.) for a holistic performance at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Over the course of the project’s ill-fated conception, documentary director Howard Brookner follows Wilson, composers Philip Glass and David Byrne, and several production troupes as they seek to perfect an epic that encompasses the American Civil War, the life and death of Frederick the Great, and the unification of Italy, along with imagery from Frank L. Baum, Jules Verne, and Mathew Brady. Struggling to procure timely funding and constantly negotiating with striking Italian theater unions, Wilson nonetheless proves himself a force of nature, determined to follow through on his outsize dream of a Gesamtkunstwerk that brilliantly fuses art and life.