Noam Chomsky
Mark Kingwell
Naomi Klein Bruce
Bawer
Arundhati Roy
Evelyn Lau
Stephen Lewis
Robert Fisk
Margaret Somerville
Mona Eltahawy
Michael Moore
Julius Grey
Irshad Manji
Richard Rodriguez Navi Pillay
Ernesto Zedillo
Pico Iyer
Edward Said
Jean Baudrillard
Bill Moyers
Barbara Ehrenreich
Leon Wieseltier
Nayan Chanda
Charles Lewis
John Lavery
Tariq Ali
Michael Albert
Rochelle Gurstein
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward
As a professor
of travel courses at my University and a documentary
film producer, I naturally sought out authenticity when
it came to TV productions and archaeological claims.
Too often I’ve had to suffer through documentaries that
ignore historiography while featuring animals killing
each other as they pander to the pedestrian (violent)
tastes of the viewing public; and archeological sites
that have been ‘dressed up’ as an appeal to unknowing
and casual tourists, thus obscuring accurate scholarship
and cultural history.
Having
visited and lectured at the Minoan Palace at Knossos
in Crete, produced documentary TV at the Mayan ruins
at Chichen Itza in Yucatán, the controversial tunnels
in Cartagena Colombia, and the ironic incidence of Jewish
history at Bukhara in Uzbekistan and several other excavations,
I’ve had to constantly struggle to obtain authenticity
from the writers and archeologists.
Recently, I found
important documentary achievement on Netflix, Prime
Video and other streamers’ original productions. Many
contain new information and theories. The Netflix show
'Alexander: The Making of a God' tells that Persian
emperor Darius’ wife Stateira was captured by Alexander
before defeating Darius at Gaugamela. Their original
production of Queen Cleopatra discards the queen’s death
as a myth, sheds new light on her sister Arsinoe and
reveals new facts about the relationship between Caesar
and Pompey. A show on Grant dispels the myth of alcoholism,
and suggests many of the Robert E. Lee legends are propaganda.
These and other
streamers feature professors to substantiate their claims
and many come from top universities in America and Europe.
In addition, the producers insert live dramatic creations
that alternate with the documentary footage which enhances
the thesis but does not overly melodramatize or distort
truth and reality.
Because of my interest
in the Holocaust I gravitated toward the documentaries
on Word War ll. In the Netflix film "Hitler’s Circle
of Evil" we see heretofore little known material
on the constant attempts by Goebbels, Goering, Himmler,
Speer and Bormann to discredit one another in order
to gain favor with the Fuhrer. In Britain and the Blitz
newly discovered footage reveals the horrific extent
of the eight-month long bombing of London from September
1940 until May 1941, with video of people sleeping in
the underground, of 400,000 children sent to the country,
storage facilities overwhelmed with corpses, and buildings
destroyed everywhere.
Netflix has produced
a 10-part series dubbed "Greatest Events of WWll"
containing revised estimates of soldiers killed in the
1941 German invasion of Russia. With over approximately
four million Russian and 500,000 Germans killed this
‘eastern front’ of the war was more cataclysmal than
the ‘western front.’ And in the raid on Dieppe in August
1942 over 3,500 Canadian troops were killed in a single
day.
Prime Video has
several documentaries featuring new footage. "On
The Edge of the Abyss" contains valuable scholarship
about the Polish and Dutch resistance against Hitler’s
invasion in HD. Colour records the defense set up by
the French labeled the Maginot line which the Germans
ignored as they quickly conquered the Benelux countries
and invaded France from the north. Heroic personal struggles
reveal the extent of the misery under the Nazis and
memories of individuals will be written far into the
future. University professor Diane Cypkin powerfully
captures this theme in a new book titled Stories
of a Devoted Mother.
How
did the Nazis pay for the costs of rearming the military?
In a shocking episode "Blood Money: Inside the
Nazi Economy," the producers show Hjalmar Schacht
head of the Reichbank bank supervising the production
of ‘Mefos’ --newly printed currency used to pay I.G.
Farben, Gustav Krupp and Mercedes and BMW executives
which would be replaced later with real money according
to the Nazis. This never happened.
These documentaries
have the usual advantages over books; the magic of film
engages the whole person -- senses, imagination, emotions
and psyche are more appealingly in play and younger
students and readers who have little idea of what really
happened in WWll will find them more valuable than dry
history texts. In this context, a new feature film,
"Pressure," produced by Comcast, shows how
one brilliant English meteorologist was responsible
for the decision to change the D-Day invasion to June
6,1944 instead of the 5th because of a storm front that
would have swamped the vessels carrying the troops to
the French beaches in Normandy.
The scholarship
and production values of these new documentaries, often
created by unknown film makers and writers eager to
display their talents and insights, are so much better
than the aforementioned sensationalist docudramas. After
so many years of excellent documentary productions,
Ken Burns attained a high water mark with "The
American Revolution" -- a series that students
must watch.
In order to advance
authenticity, the producers have included German, Japanese,
Polish and other nation’s film libraries in addition
to their own footage. Thus, whatever propaganda is contained
in any of the footages, whether intentional or not,
is diminished. As far as factuality is concerned, any
academic reliance on these new documentaries should,
of course, be preceded by rigid vetting. If, after all,
it is truth and accuracy that must be the goals then
scholarly investigation must be a constant.
COMMENTS
Diane Cypkin
Many thanks for your kind words about my book.
As far as the history of Russia during the war years,
few Americans know all they suffered--especially the
civilian population. Thank you for bringing so much
to your audience's attention.
Having
visited and lectured at the Minoan Palace at Knossos
in Crete, produced documentary TV at the Mayan ruins
at Chichen Itza in Yucatán, the controversial tunnels
in Cartagena Colombia, and the ironic incidence of Jewish
history at Bukhara in Uzbekistan and several other excavations,
I’ve had to constantly struggle to obtain authenticity
from the writers and archeologists.
How
did the Nazis pay for the costs of rearming the military?
In a shocking episode "Blood Money: Inside the
Nazi Economy," the producers show Hjalmar Schacht
head of the Reichbank bank supervising the production
of ‘Mefos’ --newly printed currency used to pay I.G.
Farben, Gustav Krupp and Mercedes and BMW executives
which would be replaced later with real money according
to the Nazis. This never happened.
