I fully agree with the former commentators here that the film passes lightly over a complex chapter of history, but for one thing, it is hard to press matters down into two hours, even with a rapid-speaking narrator, and for another thing, I think the expert witnesses called in are very good indeed, and even take opposing views so as to represent at least part of the complexity of the subject matter.
Although I do prefer documentaries that don't stuff extras into costumes to portray historical characters, at least History Channel's The French Revolution don't give them lines to speak. Serious research really goes down the drain when that happens.
No, my major objection to this documentary is its parting words. They go: "Wherever tyranny takes root, the cry for justice can be heard: for liberty, for equality, for fraternity for revolution!" And this comes in to close off a film that has (accurately, to my mind) depicted the French Revolution as a botched version of the American Revolution which inspired it. A revolution which started in the brutal murder of the innocent Launay who guarded the Bastille, and got gradually worse, what with the September massacres of defenseless prisoners, foreign wars and the wholesale slaughter of the various fractions of its fellow revolutionaries. The French Revolution in itself turned into the worst kind of tyranny imaginable. In spite of staying loyal to this view, and in spite of showing Robespierre off as a madman, the film still baffles me by its ending that seems to be written by someone who hasn't seen the film at all: "Wherever tyranny takes root, the cry for justice can be heard: for liberty, for equality, for fraternity for revolution!"
I beg your pardon?
Although I do prefer documentaries that don't stuff extras into costumes to portray historical characters, at least History Channel's The French Revolution don't give them lines to speak. Serious research really goes down the drain when that happens.
No, my major objection to this documentary is its parting words. They go: "Wherever tyranny takes root, the cry for justice can be heard: for liberty, for equality, for fraternity for revolution!" And this comes in to close off a film that has (accurately, to my mind) depicted the French Revolution as a botched version of the American Revolution which inspired it. A revolution which started in the brutal murder of the innocent Launay who guarded the Bastille, and got gradually worse, what with the September massacres of defenseless prisoners, foreign wars and the wholesale slaughter of the various fractions of its fellow revolutionaries. The French Revolution in itself turned into the worst kind of tyranny imaginable. In spite of staying loyal to this view, and in spite of showing Robespierre off as a madman, the film still baffles me by its ending that seems to be written by someone who hasn't seen the film at all: "Wherever tyranny takes root, the cry for justice can be heard: for liberty, for equality, for fraternity for revolution!"
I beg your pardon?