Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Excellent Series
When investing in any DVD, especially a boxed set, you might ponder the question, "How often will I watch this?" Let me say that your purchase of The World at War will offer you endless viewing opportunities! Besides the 26 original episodes, all of the extra features that were produced afterwards are included in the set. There is so much information generated in over 30 hours of material that you will discover something new with each repeated viewing. Each episode will hold your attention from first to last, and they are efficiently indexed so you can easily review a map or replay a speech. Along side the emotional impact of the pictorial images, you have Carl Davis' moving score, a judicious use of period music, personal accounts from all the major powers, and Sir Laurance's strong narration, making this the most comprehensive documentary on the subject. Now if we can only have World War I, narrated by Robert Ryan, available, we would have the documentary bookends to the two most devastating wars in the 20th century.
Rating: - A milestone of civilisation: prepare to be amazed
The vast body of documentary-making about the Second World War has nothing to compare with Jeremy Isaacs' "The World At War", made for Britain's Thames Television in 1973-74. The term miniseries is inadequate for this giant of quality and quantity. It stands so far above everything remotely similar as to be in a class of its own. With some 32 hours of viewing culled from millions of feet of wartime US, Russian, British, German and Japanese newsreel and propaganda film, and unique postwar interviews, this is a MEGAseries. Sustained high quality shines through, despite the passage of a quarter century since it was made--and more than half a century since the archival footage was shot. The DVD release (I'm basing my assessment on the year 2000 PT Video PAL release, which I assume to be comparable with the US NTSC release) is a gem which everyone interested in the genre will want to own. It is no exaggeration to describe this series as a milestone of civilisation.The many postwar interviews gathered for this series with wartime Allied and Axis political leaders, generals, resistance leaders, diplomats, and ordinary and not-so-ordinary soldiers and citizens, are astonishing in their range, candour and insight. It is impossible here to do justice to these interviewees. Mountbatten, LeMay, Prince Bernhard, Durrell, Westphal, Manteuffel, Guingand, Galland, Warlimont, Fuchida, Genda, Galbraith, and Samuelson are just some of the famous names. Albert Speer, who was Hitler's architect and later his Armaments Minister, talks frankly and contritely about the coverup of the "Final Solution" and his close relations with Hitler. Statesmen Averell Harriman (US), Anthony Eden (UK), and Koichi Kido (Japan), among others, recall diplomatic and political byplay and insiders' views ranging from Churchill to the Emperor of Japan. The top WWII Japanese air ace to survive the war, Saburo Sakai, recalls the youthful patriotic fervour of his fellow fliers and the impact of Japan's reversal of fortunes. US, Russian, Japanese, Dutch and British warriors and housewives recall dealing out and receiving the horrors of war. Hitler's youngest secretary, Gertrude "Trudl" Junge, talks of the bizarre underground life in the Fuhrerbunker. Eisenhower's driver, Kay Summersby, recalls cameos of her former boss's skills and frustrations in coordinating multinational Allied command. The last prominent survivor of the 1944 Stauffenberg plot against Hitler, Ewald Heinrich von Kleist, recalls his days as a young Wehrmacht lieutenant and gives insights into why the small anti-Nazi movement failed. Admiral Karl Döenitz and U-boat ace Otto Kretschmer recall the battle of the Atlantic. General Sir Brian Horrocks, the inspirational British commander who led XXX Corps in the drive on Arnhem (played by Edward Fox in "A Bridge Too Far") talks of Operation Market Garden, the rivalry between Montgomery and Patton, and the burdens of military command. The overlay of archival footage of the actual parachute and glider drops in Market Garden make the corresponding scenes in the movie, "A Bridge Too Far", look like home movie sequences. Linking it all is a matter-of-fact commentary which soars above chauvinism and prejudice. It is read in deadpan style by the distinguished British actor Laurence Olivier--among his finest work. The globe-changing civilisation-shaking upheaval of the Second World War continues to fascinate an immense worldwide readership and viewing audience. If you, too, want to better understand how so much decent, intelligent and cultivated humanity descended into and in some cases survived that madness, view the grim and gripping "The World At War" series, and prepare to be amazed.
Rating: - The DEFINITIVE history of WWII
Don't call yourself a history buff until you've seen this-preferably more than once. This is a stunning example of documentary filmaking. I can't even begin to explain the amount of archival footage, newsreels, and interviews that are included in the twenty-six hours of the set. Countless *millions* of feet of Imperial War Museum footage could not be included due to time constraints. This set shoots for completeness and comes quite close. Watching the whole set is like taking a whirlwind tour of the years 1933-1946. Immense and worth every penny. Of particular importance is a one hour discussion with producer Jeremy Isaacs about the processes that brought us THE WORLD AT WAR. In an age when revisionist history threatens to overshadow truth, Isaacs goes to great pains to describe the strict criteria used when his team examined historical film and when they went into the editing room to edit interviews. I very much appreciated the fact that they threw out some (obvious) propaganda film and the fact that the production utilized many foley artists to record sound effects for what were usually silent films. This knowledge makes the series all the more trustworthy as a historical document. Another nice extra not included on the VHS version is the 45 minute "The Two Deaths of Adolph Hitler" -discussing in detail the circumstances surrounding the suicide of this most hated man. I'll put it this way, I know more about Hitler's teeth and how fire shrinks the human body than I ever thought I would.The interviews are amazing. Nazi officials, housewives, camp survivors, businessmen, clergy etc. all contribute riveting stories to the overarching narrative. Many are heartbreaking. Some are funny. All are informative. The European theater and the Pacific theater are covered in great detail with interviews, archival footage, graphics, sound recordings etc. Perhaps the most creepy thing is how the film starts with Olivier's full, brooding voice "Down this road the soldiers came." So begins the best film series in the history of celluloid. And at the end of it we come back to that single solitary French road where the series began some thirty hours earlier. In between we've been to hell and back. Essential.
|
