×
Burns might do a good job chronicling the events,but could American TV producers dramatize the war without falling back onclichés and anachronistic acting? The British do such things better. Anoutstanding BBC drama on the war’s inception has been released on DVD, alongwith a fascinating documentary series.
As the title of three-part drama suggests, “37Days: The Road to World War I” is a countdown to disaster in the balmy summerof 1914. At first, most of its characters pay little attention to theassassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the Archduke FranzFerdinand, in faraway Sarajevo. But the German Kaiser is fixated on the newsand plans a response whose ramifications will be beyond anything he imagined. Heimagined a short punitive expedition and got a global conflagration instead.
Well researched by writer Mark Hayhurst, “37Days” takes the position that the Kaiser’s recklessness in provoking the war wasexceeded only by his army chief of staff, the pig-headed Helmuth von Moltke. Asusual in British historical productions, the actors summon powers of imaginationbeyond the depth of many of their American counterparts. If the tertiarycharacters from Russia, Austria and France have a touch of comic opera aboutthem, the major and secondary characters are fully believable and in keepingwith what can be reconstructed about their personalities.
Especially good is Rainer Sellien’s portrayal ofthe Kaiser, who could easily be caricatured with his withered left arm andupturned mustache. Resentful of the British, disdainful of what he consideredthe “inferior races” of Eastern Europe and impatient with the timidity of hiscabinet, his bluster is kept in check and his attitudes are made comprehensible.Likewise the bellicose Winston Churchill; Nicholas Asbury gets the voice justright without pushing the audacious warrior-statesman over the top. Presidingover the unraveling of world events is Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Sir EdwardGrey, subtly depicted by Ian McDiarmid as a man whose true thoughts arerevealed in the shadows that flick across his calm features.
Also out is the BBC’s “Churchill’s First WorldWar,” an excellent documentary on one of the conflict’s central figures, arestless and imaginative leader responsible for triumph and catastrophe.
Relatively young when war broke out, Churchillheld a position of tremendous importance as the minister responsible for theRoyal Navy, which safeguarded Britain’s commercial lifeline and overseasempire. Churchill implemented the blockade that gradually starved the Germans;bored with such passive tactics, he deployed naval aircraft to bomb Germany andsent armed sailors to the front to slow the German advance. But as a bigthinker unsatisfied with such small measures, Churchill conceived what he hopewould be the coup de grace to the enemy, the Gallipoli campaign. The idea was betteron paper than in execution, partly because the technology for an amphibiousinvasion of such scope wasn’t yet in existence. As author of one of the Allies’greatest defeats, Churchill stepped down from the cabinet.
“Churchill’s First World War” tells the storythrough photos, archival footage, interviews with historians and well mounted“Masterpiece Theatre” level reenactments. Facing dark nights of the soul inGallipoli’s aftermath, Churchill volunteered for service on the Western Front.Although a brave and capable combat commander, his talents were wasted. Calledback to London, Churchill ran Britain’s munitions industry and spearheaded thedevelopment of tanks, a new weapon that helped turn the tide. By war’s end hispersonality was tempered by maturity, his impulsiveness made way forcollaboration. He was prepared for his finest hour, the fight against Hitler 20years later.
Burns might do a good job chronicling the events,but could American TV producers dramatize the war without falling back onclichés and anachronistic acting? The British do such things better. Anoutstanding BBC drama on the war’s inception has been released on DVD, alongwith a fascinating documentary series.
As the title of three-part drama suggests, “37Days: The Road to World War I” is a countdown to disaster in the balmy summerof 1914. At first, most of its characters pay little attention to theassassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the Archduke FranzFerdinand, in faraway Sarajevo. But the German Kaiser is fixated on the newsand plans a response whose ramifications will be beyond anything he imagined. Heimagined a short punitive expedition and got a global conflagration instead.
Well researched by writer Mark Hayhurst, “37Days” takes the position that the Kaiser’s recklessness in provoking the war wasexceeded only by his army chief of staff, the pig-headed Helmuth von Moltke. Asusual in British historical productions, the actors summon powers of imaginationbeyond the depth of many of their American counterparts. If the tertiarycharacters from Russia, Austria and France have a touch of comic opera aboutthem, the major and secondary characters are fully believable and in keepingwith what can be reconstructed about their personalities.
Especially good is Rainer Sellien’s portrayal ofthe Kaiser, who could easily be caricatured with his withered left arm andupturned mustache. Resentful of the British, disdainful of what he consideredthe “inferior races” of Eastern Europe and impatient with the timidity of hiscabinet, his bluster is kept in check and his attitudes are made comprehensible.Likewise the bellicose Winston Churchill; Nicholas Asbury gets the voice justright without pushing the audacious warrior-statesman over the top. Presidingover the unraveling of world events is Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Sir EdwardGrey, subtly depicted by Ian McDiarmid as a man whose true thoughts arerevealed in the shadows that flick across his calm features.
Also out is the BBC’s “Churchill’s First WorldWar,” an excellent documentary on one of the conflict’s central figures, arestless and imaginative leader responsible for triumph and catastrophe.
Relatively young when war broke out, Churchillheld a position of tremendous importance as the minister responsible for theRoyal Navy, which safeguarded Britain’s commercial lifeline and overseasempire. Churchill implemented the blockade that gradually starved the Germans;bored with such passive tactics, he deployed naval aircraft to bomb Germany andsent armed sailors to the front to slow the German advance. But as a bigthinker unsatisfied with such small measures, Churchill conceived what he hopewould be the coup de grace to the enemy, the Gallipoli campaign. The idea was betteron paper than in execution, partly because the technology for an amphibiousinvasion of such scope wasn’t yet in existence. As author of one of the Allies’greatest defeats, Churchill stepped down from the cabinet.
“Churchill’s First World War” tells the storythrough photos, archival footage, interviews with historians and well mounted“Masterpiece Theatre” level reenactments. Facing dark nights of the soul inGallipoli’s aftermath, Churchill volunteered for service on the Western Front.Although a brave and capable combat commander, his talents were wasted. Calledback to London, Churchill ran Britain’s munitions industry and spearheaded thedevelopment of tanks, a new weapon that helped turn the tide. By war’s end hispersonality was tempered by maturity, his impulsiveness made way forcollaboration. He was prepared for his finest hour, the fight against Hitler 20years later.