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Written by Tom Barker
The daunting task of eliciting the complete history of film has been passionately and precisely composed by Mark Cousins. The Story of Film; An Odyssey concluded on Saturday and is in total a fifteen hour documentary series beginning with the Edison and the Lumière brothers and concluding with the modern digital era.
The documentary’s motto is passion and innovation being the driving force behind cinema, not money and glamour. Hence the series attempts to be as objective as possible, not defining film from a solely Western perspective but to look at it critically, from a universal angle. I believe that The Story of Film has largely succeeded in doing this, making it in my opinion one of the best documentary series of the year.
The main reason why it succeeds is that it does what every good documentary should; it is simultaneously engaging and informative. Whilst not being too academic, Mark Cousins shows the evolution of the language of cinema very well. Cousins shows the contributing factors towards this evolution in innovation, be they technological, political or of course other film innovators. The series divides into three sections beginning with the silent era of cinema, progressing to modern cinema dating from roughly 1929-1990 before finally concluding with postmodern and digital cinema from the 1990s to the present day.
Of these three sections the first section is perhaps the most rewarding. As well as looking at the Hollywood greats of this era such as Chaplin and D. W. Griffith, there is a whole episode dedicated to silent cinema outside Hollywood. During this episode we are introduced to experimental French cinema, German expressionist cinema and the early silent films of the great Japanese directors Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. A combination of Cousins’ enthusiastic narration and extracts of the films makes us want to watch these films in their entirety. Film Four has helpfully shown films to accompany The Story of Film such as Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet.
The Story of Film is essential viewing for anyone interested in film as an art form. One of the most enjoyable and informative features of the series is that it documents many films that have been ignored by modern Western audiences. Yet The Story of Film does not dwell on these films for too long; it also considers, without any prejudice, the importance of some of the great blockbusters in cinema such as Jaws, Star Wars and Avatar. Although these films made a lot of money in the box office, Cousins rightly argues that they are still progressive for film as an art form.
As well as showing us and allowing us to engage with these highly influential films, Cousins also has exclusive interviews with many significant directors such as Lars Von Trier, Stanley Donen and Alexander Sokurov. This combines for what is quite an intense experience; trying to cram the complete history of cinema into fifteen hours must be incredibly difficult but it is something The Story of Film does marvellously.
Saying that, it is an intense experience that requires dedication, for example, it takes nine weeks before Cousins introduces the films of Martin Scorsese. Nevertheless, The Story of Film is a hugely rewarding series that should be viewed by anyone interested in film history.
The Story of Film; an Odyssey aired on More4 and will be released as a DVD box set next year.
Trailer uploaded by festivaldorio2011
Looks great! I'll make sure to watch it over Christmas
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