 UK
/ BBC / 13x50m-e / 1969 (23 Feb - 18 May)
Directors: Michael Gill, Ann Turner
/ Script: Kenneth Clark /
Producers: Michael Gill, Peter Montagnon / Camera: A. Arthur Englander
Documentary
series. Widely
regarded as one of the best TV productions ever made, Civilisation is
Kenneth Clarkes 1969 chronicle of human kind across the centuries. This
former director of the National Gallery is an unlikely TV legend but his
earlier series from 1967 Great Temples of the World had laid the
groundwork.
This is a
decidedly highbrow piece of work that doesn’t rely on camera tricks or
the action that passes for history in today’s effects heavy
documentaries but instead relies on the brilliance of
Clark
’s script and beautiful artwork and architecture with which he chooses
to illuminate the proceedings. By focusing on art and architecture and
the painters, artists and visionaries who have helped shape the world
Clark
proves that man has risen above the humdrum that marked our earlier
existence.
The series couldn’t have
been made at a better time, huge cultural change had been wrought
throughout the sixties and the lack lustre seventies were about to be
upon us, a major hit then and still stunning now Civilisation is the
kind of show they definitely don’t make anymore, mores the pity.
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