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With its grand scope and narration by Laurence Olivier, television series The World at War is one of the definitive history documentaries. Barry Forshaw ponders whether such a project could be made today.

In an age in which is history is increasingly marginalised, this is essential viewing.

For many viewers, the Granada documentary series The World at War is one of the definitive documents of the Second World War, with the brilliantly ordered arrangement of actuality footage perfectly married to the various writers' cool, balanced text, non-pareil in its objectivity. In fact, the commentary refuses to needlessly finesse the often disturbing images. The colour footage is particularly striking: the famous home movies shot by Hitler's mistress Eva Braun (showing the Führer and his sinister cohorts behaving like harmless, bourgeois family men) has the viewer remembering what carnage was to follow. Of course, one of the elements that everyone who has seen this series remembers with crystal clarity is Laurence Olivier's impeccable reading of the text. The wash-and-rinse that the films have undergone (with anamorphic encoding) is revelatory. Could such a series be made today by commercial channels devoted to brain-dead reality TV? It doesn't matter; here is The World at War, absolutely the last word on the subject.

 

Barry Forshaw on 26th August 2010
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