Needless to say, it was a bit of a disappointment. His reflections on
the works are fine - but when did documentaries ALL turn into drama-documentaries? As is usual now we were inflicted with dramatic scenes littered throughout the programme so you do end up wondering "Is this from a documented text or is it fiction?" Invariably the budget for these scenes ain't that huge either so this episode featured endless shots of the actor playing Caravaggio emerging out of the darkness into close-up in various states of euphoria or narkdom. There was one scene depicting a fight Caravaggio had in an inn which had 3 different actors all talking to the camera describing what took place in their best RADA Working Class Accents... it was like a Crimewatch reconstruction directed by Mike Leigh. Do the directors/producers of these documentaries all assume that viewers can't actually take in what's being said by the presenter and that everything, even art histories, have to be turned into entertainment? BBC2 are also currently showing a series on the Suez Crisis. Now I'll admit that a Caravaggio documentary covering his life from 1571 to 1610 showing just the paintings, some old buildings and Simon Schama might be a little visually spare but annoyingly the Suez documentary is guilty of the same play-acting. The first episode had ample interviews to camera from people involved in the period covered, news photographs and more importantly tons of archive news footage
of the whole subject - so why do we need James Fox playing Anthony Eden? Surely if it's just so we can also have his private writing on Suez from letters or cabinet minutes, why not just have his voice? Especially as no attempt has been made to make him look like Eden!
I'll keep watching both series' but I wonder how many times knuckles will be chewed?
2 comments:
Quite agree with you about the all those tiresome reconstructions. The scene where the kids from RADA pretended to be writing free poetry in the pub was particularly dire.
Basically they seemed to be aiming for a stripped-down version of the Jarman movie. Why not just show that instead? At least we could have amused ourselves by trying to spot the Bell Mob speedfreaks in the painting tableaus.
Then there was that weird shot with Schama on a damp hillside with a flock of sheep spilling diagonally out of his ear. By the time we got to the end, I'd lost the plot. I kept wanting to scream SHOW US SOME PAINTINGS!!!
What was the programme about again...?
Please let me know when Schama's SLADE programme is screened - as all right-thinking people know, SLADE were pretty damn powerful art of the highest order. I can't wait!
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