Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Making historical documentary

On The Daily Beast, a new American superblog I've been trying to avoid, Michael Korda reviews a new documentary series on the American Second World War general George Patton -- only available on American television so far.

Korda suggests it's full of technical innovations that show great promise for historical documentary, mostly by applying computer graphics rather than running that old stock b&w footage from WWII cameramen over and over -- but he regrets it is marred by, well, bad history, and simply is not very judicious about Patton's strengths and weaknesses. He concludes it is:
old stuff warmed up by a couple of bright kids with a computer, rather than a new way of looking at the man or the war.
Why is it so hard to get good filmmakers and good historians working on the same film?
 
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