"Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries" Topic

I have just endured the three episode 2013 BBC documentary "Chivalry and Betrayal: The Hundred Year's War" produced by Graham Johnston and presented by Dr. Jamina Ramirez (who I find mesmerizing incidentally).
I say endured because a more myopic and skewed historical narrative you'd find hard to come by. Completely ignoring the centuries between 1066 and commencement of hostilities by Edward III, it attempts to put an English victory spin through an assertion it was a cultural and political ‘divorce' of "little England" from the, "mighty super-power that was France … who dared to take them on and refused to give up." Sigh. They attempt to claim that English identity essentially came of it – the assertion being that it was some form of independence movement. My favourite example was their citation of English gothic perpendicular architectural style as a cultural break from the Norman (Romanesque) – again, ignoring its continental (French) origin and that it had in fact commenced in the 12th century. I choked on my ale.
Was there any comment in the UK when this pile came out? I might object to perverse history and cultural self-deceit but it's not my tax-dollars (or pounds) which paid for it.
How will objectivity fare this year with the Waterloo anniversary? Any better that last year's 100th anniversary of the commencement of WWI? I for one will be swimming against an ANZAC tide down under.

Super power that was France? In the Hundred Years War? A few slightly different twists and there would not have been a France

Creative use of the British taxpayer's money

Well Unlucky General

You have opened a can of worms now and you will end up living up to your name as the Unlucky General with those comments. The BBC deal only in facts so what they say must be true.

Engwind never lost a war or a battle and anything said to the contrary is pure fiction.

I suggest you sit back and wait……..

We lost the English Civil War, but then we won it as well.

France a super-power? In the XIVth Century? I guess that none passed the memo to the French…

Relationships sometimes run their course and the parties go their separate ways. Specially when one or both suffer from chronic delusions of grandeur.

link

Dan

From the BBC website:

Publicity for the war effort, in which, the church played an important part (with royal encouragement), fostered a patriotic sense of English identity. Prayers were regularly ordered for armies serving overseas, and in thanksgiving for victories. Edward III's promotion of the cult of St George as England's warrior patron saint played deliberately to nascent national sentiment.

A proud patriotism, nourished by royal propaganda and pulpit oratory, and also, emphatically, by the euphoria of such dramatic English victories as Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt, was probably the most lasting legacy of the Hundred Years War.

Its origins in national war experience gave that patriotism a chauvinistic edge that continued to colour English popular attitudes to foreigners and especially to the French for a very long time. Francophobia runs as a recurrent thread through the English story from the 15th century down to the start of the 20th, when finally the Germans replaced the French as England's natural adversaries in the popular eye.

It's difficult to marry up this with your criticism tbh.

Maybe you watched the version we send out to the old colonies?

Just to clarify, you watched one episode and found it to be an endurance because it is one of the most "myopic and skewed historical narratives" ever produced.
Then you watched the other two episodes?

Engwind never lost a war or a battle and anything said to the contrary is pure fiction.

We honoured our alliance when Belgium got rolled over didn't we?

Just about every other Regiment of the British army has honours and ceremonies that commemorate complete defeats and disasters lol.

Fizzy – I think you missed a touch of irony in Broglie's post… (or you are a master of deadpan, not sure which)

Lol…it shall forever remain a mystery. Doesn't this belong in the Lounge?

Ultimately the meaning can be the same. But the choice of wording can sure mess with people's emotions/perceptions. I don't have a problem seeing the HYW as a move toward English pride and patriotism. Ditto for the French. Neither, at the start, was a "nation" in any modern sense. Kingdoms at war, simple as that. By the end of the HYW, the French had become "France", the English had become "England" in a very focused, patriotic way. By the end of the 15th century, nation states had emerged at last. That's why previous to that it's called the "middle ages". Neither side in the HYW had anything on the other in the area of propaganda and preaching "the cause" from the pulpit.

Asserting that English history is only about victories rates as distortion….

Here in Scotland we tend to keep quiet about the hundred years war – allies let us down…

Fizzy,

Like "little England" I never give up so easily on a documentary. I ingested all three hours – doubt I'll revisit it but who can say? I'm guessing you haven't had the same pleasure? That balanced written commentary from the BBC website is fine – it does not; however, reflect the programme I'm sad to say.
Aside from this particular show, I think I'm losing satisfaction with the concept of documentaries more generally. This for me is a crisis. When I sit and paint I like to run through my collection (quite extensive) as I learn and am entertained and it puts me in 'the zone'. My problem is that I learn less than I think I should in what seems principally to be an 'entertainment'. This disappoints and I feel let down especially by the ABC, CBC and BBC who should have greater academic oversight. I mean it's bad enough that the ill informed believe what they think they learn from movies (Braveheart for example) but a documentary is taken as gospel.
Of course, they can only ever be opinion pieces but why can't 'we' strive for something better? It's not even what is said in these programmes – it's what's not said that twists the perspective. In the third episode they harken to a reference of France returning to the status of Charlemagne with clear implication being this was their usual or normal state of affairs – again, the 'super-power' reference. The continued harping on 'little England' is a persistent and false cultural identification – a form of self-righteousness insisting that England is the David in the Goliath passion-play. In this case, it completely and dishonestly ignores the true nature of trans-channel affairs and the nature of subject peoples within a system of realms before nations. It more obviously turns a blind eye on the Angevin Empire of Henry II and two hundred years of competition ad conflict which preceded it.
Like so many pop-history snapshots, the writers of this programme cherry-picked their facts to fit their story. It would be interesting to find out what the line up of professors used in the programme thought of the overall result.

Listen to the Hardcore History podcast, that's my go to painting background media to play.

The common wisdom amongst those in the media is that you can only convey, at most, four ideas in a documentary. Film and TV are first and foremost visual media, so the intellectual dimension and the transmission of concepts will always be subservient to the visual image. My advice: read a book.

Bloodyhell, Now I'm gonna have to listen to it myself aren't I!!

What ever you do Unlucky General, don't watch the BBC revisionist piece on Gallipoli. It has the British getting slaughtered whilst the ANZACS get ed on weak beer on the beach.

Sounds like we find similar ways to while away the painting hours. I often find myself going through the BBC Radio 4 Archive of 'In Our Time'. Far more satisfying than the majority of made for TV Docu-soaps.

I too watched that documentary series as a 'background activity', so therefore didn't give it 100% attention either. I thought it was 'OK' and I didn't get the impression that the programme tried to present France as a 'super power'. Did they really use that phrase? I certainly missed it if they did.

Moving to the secondary topic of this discussion: Like many others, I also prefer listening to Podcasts whilst painting, preferring the lack of visual distraction.

So sad that the scales have been blasted from your eyes.

Over hear in America long ago we saw what was coming from "The History Chanel" which we soon termed "The Nazi Channel." NAZIS WE GOT EM! 24 / 7 ALL DAY ALL THE TIME!" That then was the high point and it went down from there to where we variousl satirized it as the "Bigfoot Channel," or the "UFO channel or the "Zombie Apocalypse Channel." Now I just zip on by.

By the Way one of the most favorite shows that my wife and I have is "As Time Goes By," and whenever we see American Film and Hollywood satirized by Gene and Lionel we are cackling and chortling in glee like watchinb hyenas attacking newborn kittens.

I've given up on all such things, and have gone back to mu books. Of course, we KNOW, we just KNOW that if we see a documentary on the civilization of Mohenjo Daro we will three quaters of the way through hear something of how Hitler wanted to know the secrete of making the people live in such orderly settlements like regimented Zombies.

I am sure it is only a matter of time till the studios find a way to merge these things with their other great obsession, rape and sexual mutilation and we shall see on the history channell "NAZI BIGFOOT TRIBE RAPES UFO CHEERLEADERS CAMP!

The title made me think of the research importance of primary sources. So I will save my comments on that.

Are documentaries made for the viewer (which you would think it would be), or for the staff making it or the sponsor who will pay for it.

The guiding hand is the sponsors even if it is a museum or government agency (such a tourism board).

So watch them for the entertainment. Laugh when you spot their inaccuracies and mistakes. Even slanted opinions.

Like Otto, I've dumped most television documentaries. I have discovered the BBC4 podcast library, however, which has become my brain candy (outside of my books, which I find myself returning to as well).

Voices of World War One, Desert Island Disks, Infinite Monkey Cage, the "In Our Time" history, philosophy, culture series…check it out:

bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4

Dear Edmuel2000

What is the most depressing thing about television documentaries is that we USED to have excellent ones! They USED to be evocative, powerful, educational, explanatory, and entertaining. I am so sick of seeing endless shoots and reshoots of the feet of re-enactors marching or some third rate actor looking out the window and signing for dramatic effect while some talking head drones on…. and don't get me started on the fact that all fo them have, in the 6 minutes of content between two blocks 10 minute commercials, 2 minutes where they recap everything that happened before, and 2 minutes at the end where they will tease you with what is to come.

There once was a program in the 60's I BELIEVE it was called "Memories" and it was just the top of the line. No talking heads no celebrity experts- just footage and pictures. It was very much "noir" and it had little words and they were enormously effective. The best example I can give of how it was like is the first few seconds of "A Bridge Too far" with the maelstrom of explosions suddenly freeze framed and the narrator says quite calmly. "Europe was like that in 1944."

Memories started always with a bit of film, often with sound, and then the lead in which was "Words, Places, Names, Faces, a laugh a song, a smile-- Memories are made of this." Then they started right in and you were hypnotized.

That's my frustration-- we HAD it, and we lost it!

I feel your pain Unlucky General.

Trouble is, neither you, or I, or the vast majority of TMP'ers have the faintest idea of how to make a TV programme (or any other form of mass media) that might appeal to tens or hundreds of thousands of viewers.

We are on the inside, a bit too far inside, to be remotely objective.

You could make a programme about the 100 years war that I would probably love, (or HATE) but the bloke I just stood behind in the check-out queue wouldn't give it the time of day.
Sad news.
Its not about being good, or accurate….its bums on seats, same as it always has been.

Checkouts now, too? Are there any screen-free zones left? Even if he is a history buff, that bloke probably just wants to pay for his groceries and go home.