Major TV series The Story of Film: An Odyssey

mike65 · 03-09-2011 12:24pm #1

Starting tonight on More4 at 9.10-10.35, presented by Mark Cousins.

In a 15-part series that was five years in the making, award-winning filmmaker Mark Cousins provides a worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made, telling the story of international cinema through the history of cinematic innovation. The first episode shows the birth of a great new art form: the movies. Filmed in the buildings where the first movies were made, it shows that ideas and passion have always driven film, more than money and marketing. The programme reveals the story of the very first movie stars, close-ups and special effects, and travels to Hollywood to show how it became a myth. The story is full of surprises, such as the fact that the greatest and best-paid writers in these early years were women. And then there's the glamour: the building of the great movie cathedrals.

Something to follow until Christmas then

mike65 · 04-09-2011 9:46am

*tumble weed*

Anyone watch this? I was initially worried, first I'm not a fan of Cousins, he is a bit of a pseud and his accemt can grate but after about 15 mins the tone was established and I got into it. The way its edited seems to compliment his "loping" narration and there were a people and insights that were new to me which always helps.

johnny_ultimate · 04-09-2011 11:35am

Have it recorded, will give it a gander over the next few days. Massive undertaking, hopefully it will be interesting enough to warrant its lengthy running time!

Renn · 07-09-2011 11:19am

Seems like it'll be a decent show to follow but I'm finding it hard to like/put up with the accent. It's just not what I like to hear from a narrator - goes up and down with every sentence and he has this air of smugness that is certainly difficult to warm to.

One thing that bugs me about these shows is that there's always a chance something will be spoiled on me - obv no fault of the show but still...

Mickeroo · 07-09-2011 12:32pm

Is it repeated any night during the week?

e_e · 07-09-2011 12:37pm

When's the next one on?

Manchegan · 07-09-2011 1:25pm

It's not the accent, it's that he's trying very hard to appear clever. It's quite an achievement to make fascinating insights into the development of the language of cinema come across as dull. Viz. the lingering meditation on a bauble at the Hollywood sign: works fine as a literary device, but on screen it's contrived.

In short, it has to brush up its act to be in the same league as Žižek's Pervert's guide to Cinema, which manages to be both clever and engaging.

mike65 · 07-09-2011 1:37pm

Its on every Saturday at about 9 pm.

Renn · 07-09-2011 2:28pm

Well, it is the accent

Along with a number of other things that I mentioned.

Zoton · 07-09-2011 5:29pm

I was really looking forward to this. Used to enjoy Mark Cousins introductions to movies on BBC2 as he was passionate and well informed. But the narration on this is just awful, it feels so laboured... and... drawn... out. I've series linked this but not sure just how much I'll manage. Dang.

clusk007 · 07-09-2011 6:13pm

I actually thought was really good and very interesting. The guy's voice doesn't annoy me at all, I think it adds to the programme. He sounds like an enthusiast and very knowledgeable but I do understand why it would annoy some.
Learned a lot in a short space of time and have it on series link, looking forward to the next one.

LittleBook · 08-09-2011 8:07am

Damn, already missed the first part, set up recording for this weekend although, for some reason, the "series record" function doesn't work for this .... eh ... series.

johnny_ultimate · 09-09-2011 1:24am

I'm watching it at the moment but I actually feel like the narrator is condescending to the extreme. So smug. His enunciation is all over the place.

Fifteen hours of this isn't an exciting prospect. I honestly just can't listen to this man. Narrating every image on screen "Here's his office...". Maybe with subtitles and no sound it would be easier to watch.

Such a shame given there's genuine promise in such an epic show, and some points are fascinating. But the delivery is really, really off.

branie · 10-09-2011 9:20pm

Anyone here watching this on More4? It's very good

mike65 · 10-09-2011 10:15pm

Yes including some and maybe all the people who have posted on this thread. Funnily enough

As with last week I started off twitchy as Cousins tended to state the bleedin' obvious like it was the first time it had been said but then it got into its rhythm and was absorbing, that opening segment with its use of "we" should be junked, it rather reminds me of a BBC for Schools and Colleges type lecture.

branie, sorry for sounding smart, I see you started the above as a seperate thread!

( the mod really should leave a note to that effect)

johnny_ultimate · 10-09-2011 10:27pm

It really is such a shame they didn't get another narrator, because as the first episode went on there it was wonderfully technical - things like camera positions, angles, editing tricks we take for granted... all that stuff. Great footage from films by Sjöström etc... But everytime I'd be impressed Cousins would just say something infuriating and I'd be sucked right back out again.

Such a shame, because content wise this is as close to definitive as we're likely to get for a while.

branie · 11-09-2011 6:13pm

mike65 wrote: »

Yes including some and maybe all the people who have posted on this thread. Funnily enough

As with last week I started off twitchy as Cousins tended to state the bleedin' obvious like it was the first time it had been said but then it got into its rhythm and was absorbing, that opening segment with its use of "we" should be junked, it rather reminds me of a BBC for Schools and Colleges type lecture.

branie, sorry for sounding smart, I see you started the above as a seperate thread! ( the mod really should leave a note to that effect)

I forgive you

mike65 · 17-09-2011 10:36pm

Interesting to see how Kermodes journey around the world has not felt the need to call in at Britain, and quite rightly. I was just thinking about why cinema in the UK was so lacking in visual or philosophical innovation in the silent era and I think its down to being so hidebound by the literary tradition. It was only when films started to talk that things improved. Though I guess if Michael Powell had been born a few decades earlier that wouldn't have been the case.

e_e · 18-09-2011 12:18am

I loved the section about Ozu, Kurosawa and Mizoguchi.

I find the narration very pleasant personally.

johnny_ultimate · 18-09-2011 12:32am

If the Ozu / Mizoguchi episode was tonight, I'll have a gander. The one I have a major interest in anyway!

Renn · 18-09-2011 2:21pm

mike65 wrote: »

Interesting to see how Kermodes journey around the world has not felt the need to call in at Britain, and quite rightly. I was just thinking about why cinema in the UK was so lacking in visual or philosophical innovation in the silent era and I think its down to being so hidebound by the literary tradition. It was only when films started to talk that things improved. Though I guess if Michael Powell had been born a few decades earlier that wouldn't have been the case.

A Cottage on Dartmoor says hi. I know that's just one example off the top of my head but I'm sure there's more out there. Underground is another one...

paulosham · 18-09-2011 6:10pm

I've always been a fan of Mark Cousins but I can see how his voice can get to some. It's great to see that something like this was actually able to be made. A 15 hour series on the story of world film is a gift.

mike65 · 18-09-2011 7:40pm

I agree such an undertaking in this goldfish memory era is unusual and therefore to be encouraged.

Manchegan · 26-09-2011 8:55pm

I have to revise my opinion (and use this as an excuse to bump a prematurely aging thread) and say I'm really warming to the series as the chapters progress. Given time, the voice and narrative quirks become less apparent. Looking forward to Orson Welles this weekend.

Recommended to anyone wondering whether it's worth catching up

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-story-of-film-an-odyssey/4od

TheIrishGrover · 26-09-2011 10:49pm

I tried watching it but I just wanted to claw me years off after about five minutes. Every sentence he says seems to end as a question? And it really REALLY grates after a while?

SVG · 26-09-2011 11:32pm

Manchegan wrote: »

I have to revise my opinion (and use this as an excuse to bump a prematurely aging thread) and say I'm really warming to the series as the chapters progress. Given time, the voice and narrative quirks become less apparent.

Completely agree. I found the first episode a bit of a chore but now I'm looking forward to it every week.

mike65 · 04-10-2011 9:12pm

Excellent edition this week- film noir.

kitakyushu · 11-03-2012 5:59pm

Just got through watching this series. I have to say it was excellent.

I've seen a lot of movies in my time and I generally watch them all from a narrative pov. What I watched had to conform to my idea what a movie was meant to be structurally or it wasn't something I could like. A lot of 'so-called' classic or masterpiece movies I might have already seen left me cold wondering they were so well regarded (eg I'd be totally bored by something like Solaris (1972) even though it's generally agreed to be a classic).

This series explained to me for the first time how to enjoy the moment of a shot or scene, and to understand and appreciate the composition or possible meaning of what I'm watching and to not just write-off anything I can't recognise immediately narratively (eg David Lynch!) as pretentious or meaningless.

Basically I realised that up to now I understood cinema like I understood one particular language, however there was also other movies out there not in the structural or visual language I had been brought up with and that it was up to me to try see what was there rather than just rejecting them because their structure or presentation does not conform to a typical or familiar one.

I think the key idea of the whole show was the idea of 'emotion vs thought' ie that whilst something like Jaws or Inception might be wildly enjoyable and entertaining that you shouldn't automatically set them as the benchmark or the goal. The kind of movies Cousins generally considers important are the ones that speak without having to speak, almost as though the meaning is clear if you know what to look for, but I didn't understand what they were trying to say because I expected my movies to be presented a particular way.

As a result of this show in future I'll try to watch a range movies with the eye that was meant for them rather simply accepting/rejecting them based on my own particular expectations.

Major TV series The Story of Film: An Odyssey

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