Catch up TV

Black History Month: 1. Jordan Peele

Documentary that explores the work of Jordan Peele, an era-defining horror auteur, incisive social critic and influential media mogul. Peele, who started out as a comedian with sketch show Key & Peele, captured the zeitgeist with his Oscar-winning horror Get Out, a film that showcased his deft balance of horror, comedy and social commentary. Peele is also an executive producer on TV shows ranging from a revamped Twilight Zone to Lovecraft Country.\n\nIn this profile documentary, Inside Cinema traces Peele’s career as a comedian, film-maker and producer, in both film and television, and explores how a lifelong love for the horror genre has informed his inimitable style.\n\n2017's Get Out may have been Peele's directorial debut, but it showcased perfectly his expert combination of classic genre thrills and smart political satire, tackling post-racial liberalism head-on, while finding the space where comedy becomes scary and horror becomes funny. His 2019 follow-up, the doppelganger horror Us, mined one of horror fiction’s most fertile conventions, the deep-rooted Freudian fear of a figure that looks just like you but isn’t, and centred on an elastic, elusive metaphor that struck right at the heart of American society. \n\nWritten and narrated by Ellen E Jones, film, TV writer and columnist for The Guardian, the documentary argues that while Peele is a modern master of horror, comedy and social commentary, the true power of his films rises from an awareness of genre and audience expectations.

Source: BBC 4