Documentary Discussion

[Brian Mcculloch Glasgow]

With Planet Earth 2 back on our screens, I've gotten back in to a few documentary series. I was wondering if anyone had any that they'd recommend or what are your favourites.

Mine are The World at War as I'm a history nerd and Lawrence Olivier's narration is harrowing and Making a Murderer as it was just simply compelling viewing.

Discuss.

You can watch "The Gap Paedophile" on BBC iPlayer. It's good.

 

[Abertawe]

The Vietnam series on bbc4 was brilliant. Well worth checking out.

 

[mowgli]

The Vietnam series on bbc4 was brilliant. Well worth checking out.

A brilliant series shame The BBC doesn't show more documentaries like this.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

^^ Lots of Ken Burns' other stuff is on regular rotation on PBS.

This one was a bit diff stylistically on account of the more modern subject matter (original score and wotnot), but they're all worth a look.

 

[mowgli]

Eight Days That Made Rome: Hannibal's Last Stand.
This episode told of Scipio's crushing victory in Carthage at the battle of Zama against Rome's biggest enemy Hannibal in 202 BC.Really enjoyed this and Bettany Hughes narration was spot on,next weeks episode is about Spartacus i look forward to that.

 

[mowgli]

The Somme: Seceret Tunnel Wars (BBC4)
Very good documentary on the lives of the men who dug under the German lines to lay explosives to destroy the defences of the enemy. Historian Peter Barton went down some surviving tunnels and found mens belongings and messages left on the walls that can be clearly read after 100 years,no wonder The British Army used coal miners in these small spaces as most men wouldn't be up to working in such a confined space they certainly earned the respect they were given by other soldiers.

 

[Jockney]

Ken Burns always has the US slipping, sliding, bumbling into war, don't he. Forever an apologist for US imperialism.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Is he? Where else?

I agree that this one tosses out some very dubious stuff in that regard. And obviously there are things to criticise in some of his others (Giving Shelby Foote such a prominent role in The Civil War is 'problematic' in a way that a bit of Barbara Fields cannot balance out; and the trad-ness of Jazz is as much political as it is aesthetic).

And I think there's something about this to be said for Burns+Novak's style in general... history as syrupy fable, sepia-toned, preserved in amber. They aren't just about American subjects, but are pieces Americana in and of themselves, and with that some of the sharper edges get chamfered off under the warm-blanket vibe of it all... but I think he's quite Fordian in that respect. That the sentimentality is knowing and melancholy, about fall and loss, and the gap between ideal/rhetoric and reality.

I don't think his biggest series are apologia, even really this one (so far, not got to the end yet). Race is the structuring theme of most of his work, and class. I mean, they're not Histoire(s) du Cinema or whatever, but for the US' foremost historical documentarian he's practically a raving pinko.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

*Novick. He does not in fact collaborate with Kim Novak.

 

[Liam_SWFC]

Kitchen nightmares.

 

[Benito]

^^ Lots of Ken Burns' other stuff is on regular rotation on PBS.

This one was a bit diff stylistically on account of the more modern subject matter (original score and wotnot), but they're all worth a look.

Best thing I have had the pleasure of watching in a while.