World at war.

bluecat

I have been watching World at War for the umpteenth time and I think the photography and filming is fantastic for the era. I did A level photography at night school ,a lot of black and white work and I know how difficult it was to manipulate images on an enlarger/printer and we had a lot more knowledge than the forties,better chemicals etc.
It is so much easier to manipulate now.
On real film photography you could take a standard B/W photo and make it shine just by manipulating the lense on the enlarger/printer.
Any other photographers out there who feels the same.?

Offset

I know nothing about photography, but The World At War is still the yardstick by which all other war documentaries are measured.  Ken Burns' Vietnam War series is a classic but for sheer breadth, scope, historical importance and remarkable footage TWAW takes some beating.  When it first came out in 1973 my father and I watched it avidly and I have watched it many, many times since.  The gravitas and authority brought to the entire proceedings by Olivier's peerless commentary is the icing on the cake. 

JezWynd

bluecat said:

I have been watching World at War for the umpteenth time and I think the photography and filming is fantastic for the era. I did A level photography at night school ,a lot of black and white work and I know how difficult it was to manipulate images on an enlarger/printer and we had a lot more knowledge than the forties,better chemicals etc.
It is so much easier to manipulate now.
On real film photography you could take a standard B/W photo and make it shine just by manipulating the lense on the enlarger/printer.
Any other photographers out there who feels the same.?

I'm not sure how true that is, esp in relation to B&W film which is rarely used nowadays but was industry standard in the 1930s. Has anyone approached the artistic heights of Billy Bitzer and Gregg Toland in their use of black and white images? I wonder if the qualities you refer to are partly a result of using reversal filmstocks, it would have been convenient and less costly than shooting neg stock.

RandallFlagg

Yes it's the definitive record of WWII for me, that opening of the first episode, detailing the horrors of what occurred at Oradour-sur-Glane is harrowing

“Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, a community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war”

RandallFlagg

Ken Burns American Civil War documentary is quite gripping too, especially considering there is no film clips from that conflict only still pictures.

I found Shelby Foote's lilting southern point of view interesting, despite much of Shelby's writing being criticised and discredited somewhat for poor historical accuracy.

crosstownvamp

Top rostrum camera operator for lots of these programmes was Ken Morse. He was the go to man for this stuff. Mechanically driven cameras with stepper motors to allow pans and zooms on static images. And I'm sure highly skilled darkroom assistants to provide the best material.

I enjoyed my time with B/W film and printing in the dark room, film has something that digital can't get, but people who mourn tape are delusional!

scrumhalf

Olivier's narration is suitably sombre, but the way he pronounces Ukraine is odd. It's as though he's barefoot and someone wearing hob-nailed boots treads on his foot, making him yelp with pain as he says "UkrAIIINNEE".

boogieman

RandallFlagg said:

Yes it's the definitive record of WWII for me, that opening of the first episode, detailing the horrors of what occurred at Oradour-sur-Glane is harrowing

“Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, a community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war”

Friends used to live near there and took us for a visit a few years back. It was a hot and sunny summer’s day but it still had a cold, heavy atmosphere around it. They’ve left things like the burnt out doctor’s car, rusting bed frames and sewing machines in place, exactly as it was on the day the Germans came. I converted my pics to black and white because I thought it suited the feeling of the place. 

 

DB1

Excellent pics  - they capture it very well. I visited about 10 years ago, and am still struck by it. The bit that really got to me (well, all of it did, but one more than anything else for some reason) was the list of names of those that had died.  A truly brutal reminder, almost in the raw, of what a vile species we can be.

Dr_Necessiter

It is very atmospheric and, as Boogieman says, the feeling heaviness seemed to persist on what was otherwise a sunny day. The only time I've visited anywhere comparable was fort Douaumont near Verdun, a scene of heavy fighting during the first world war. I'm not easily moved, so for these places to have left an impresson on me meant that the experience was pretty powerful.

darthed1981

I had a similar feeling when I visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp with school.  The place just FELT evil, as if the evil committed there had seeped into the Earth - wasn't very nice.

Also a part of one of the reconstructed buildings had been burnt down - the guide explained that neo-Nazis hate the reminders of German atrocities, and so they destroy them if they can.

Oradour-sur-Glane was the work of the SS Das Reich division - as WAW points out, there were never any war crimes convictions specifically for it, as most of the men involved were killed themselves fighting the allies in the next few weeks.  Good.

World at War itself remains an utter masterpiece, even where it's history has dated a little bit, as perception of certain events is slightly different to what it was in the 70s.  Nothing could ever challenge it however as of course they actually interview the key players upto and including people like Albert Speer.

It even includes some opinions rarely repeated elsewhere, for example many people considering Harris' obsession with destroying German cities in the last year of the war (now commonly considered morally dubious at best, a slaughter at worst) justifiable on the grounds of "You've done it twice, don't do it again..."

A note for anyone looking to invest in physical media... there are TWO different Blu Ray sets.

One has the original restoration, where for (dubious) reasons the series was letterboxed, leading to some very odd looking scenes, especially in interview close-ups.

The other, has the second attempt, which maintains the original, correct, aspect ratio.

boogieman

Dr_Necessiter said:

It is very atmospheric and, as Boogieman says, the feeling heaviness seemed to persist on what was otherwise a sunny day. The only time I've visited anywhere comparable was fort Douaumont near Verdun, a scene of heavy fighting during the first world war. I'm not easily moved, so for these places to have left an impresson on me meant that the experience was pretty powerful.

The closest thing I’ve felt to the atmosphere at Oradour was at the Killing Fields in Cambodia. Jesus, that’s a grindingly depressing and evil-feeling place, especially when you think it’s all so relatively recent. I don’t regret going but I never want to see the place again. 

Must admit I’ve only ever seen a few episodes of WAW, I really should watch the whole thing. 

steer

A am also a fan of World at War. I recently watched a modern netflix documentary - World War II from the frontlines - that is also well worth watching if you are interested in the subject.  

Offset

^^ Very good.

Kurtis

steer said:

A am also a fan of World at War. I recently watched a modern netflix documentary - World War II from the frontlines - that is also well worth watching if you are interested in the subject.  

I've been debating whether or not to watch this.
I've obviously seen lots of ww2 footage. Not the kind of thing I'd want to watch multiple times though.