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'russia - A Century Of Suspicion...'
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Did anyone watch this excellent programme last night;
Russia -A Century of Suspicion: A Timewatch Guide.
BBC4 yesterday (22nd Nov.) 9:00pm ?
If not, and you have the means, I can recommend it. It gives a very clear picture of the negative propaganda distributed by Western media - including an honest critical self-assessment of the BBC itself.
Russia -A Century of Suspicion: A Timewatch Guide.
BBC4 yesterday (22nd Nov.) 9:00pm ?
If not, and you have the means, I can recommend it. It gives a very clear picture of the negative propaganda distributed by Western media - including an honest critical self-assessment of the BBC itself.
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The fear-mongering continues relentlessly, this today;
http://
The idea is; you should be very scared of this, but vote for me, and I will protect you from this evil.
http://
The idea is; you should be very scared of this, but vote for me, and I will protect you from this evil.
-- answer removed --
Finally watched this. Billed at the start as a guidto how TV had portrayed Russia, and than as 'The Timewatch Guide to Russia' rather extravagantly. It was more the first as it turned out. And most of the programmes looked back on were Tomewatch programmes it seemed. So rather incestuous and not as a result all that interesting to me at any rate. Somehow I had missed Simon Sebag Montefiore 'docudrama'
Was it really the Timewatch programme that informed the ignorant west about Russia's sacrifices in WWII? Ok I'll believe them :-)
Was it really the Timewatch programme that informed the ignorant west about Russia's sacrifices in WWII? Ok I'll believe them :-)
Such an interesting programme, indeed excellent, and Khandro and Naomi you have summed it up brilliantly. Very moving, especially the siege of Leningrad and the cannibalism in relation to little children was heartbreaking. And the whole thing of the way they have been portrayed by the media in the West.
It has left me with a slight sense of guilt/shame?? maybe both the I should have better educated myself. Haven't read anything about Russia since "And Quiet Flows the Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov. So glad I watched it.
It has left me with a slight sense of guilt/shame?? maybe both the I should have better educated myself. Haven't read anything about Russia since "And Quiet Flows the Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov. So glad I watched it.
I think my problem with it was it was not really possible to do fullt what it was trying to do: ie show how British TV has portrayed Russia/the Soviet Union. I don't think they were trying to say that it's all been negative propaganda. But there must have been hundreds of programmes on the subject over the years and necessarily they couldn't really cover many of them., So instead, it became a sort of potted history of that part of the world, largely from 1917 to 2008 (stopping short of the actual century, for some reason) and therefore in reality became just another in its own series.
I wasn't sure why they included "The War Game" in the list: this was a film about the horrors of nuclear war, not about Russia at all, even if by implication it was Ivan with his finger on the button. But the point was that we also had our finger on the button too. And in any case, as they pointed out, the film was not shown on TV anyway for over 20 years (it was shown though as I remember seeing it in 1981 at a CND meeting).
Ladybirder, there is a brilliant BBC documentary about Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, written and performed by starving musicians in the city at the height of the siege. It has long since gone from iPlayer, but it was one of the many "hundreds of programmes" I referred to above which was not mentioned. Stalin himself hated Leningrad and its people, but by that stage the siege had become a crucial symbol of Soviet resistance to Nazism.
I wasn't sure why they included "The War Game" in the list: this was a film about the horrors of nuclear war, not about Russia at all, even if by implication it was Ivan with his finger on the button. But the point was that we also had our finger on the button too. And in any case, as they pointed out, the film was not shown on TV anyway for over 20 years (it was shown though as I remember seeing it in 1981 at a CND meeting).
Ladybirder, there is a brilliant BBC documentary about Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, written and performed by starving musicians in the city at the height of the siege. It has long since gone from iPlayer, but it was one of the many "hundreds of programmes" I referred to above which was not mentioned. Stalin himself hated Leningrad and its people, but by that stage the siege had become a crucial symbol of Soviet resistance to Nazism.
Yes, that was my point earlier jno. Although not all the programmes they featured were Timewatch documentaries. I did think there was a slightly sanctimonious air to it. And the blurb was somewhat misleading. The stunning conclusion Mr Davis came to was that a few TV documentaries cannot do justice to the complex and really very different history and mentality of such a large country. Except that it has probably done a rather better job than those handful examples (several of them actually very important exposes of aspects of Soviet history of course)
Saying that we don't understand Russia as well as we understand the USA because of the 'language barrier' was the sort of shallow analysis that Mr David was rightly disdainful of!
Saying that we don't understand Russia as well as we understand the USA because of the 'language barrier' was the sort of shallow analysis that Mr David was rightly disdainful of!
ich; I thought it did an exemplary job and as I said in the OP, it included an "honest critical self-assessment of the BBC itself." - something quite rare.
As jno says, it wasn't trying to give a potted history of Russia and the USSR in 60 minutes it was taking a look via Timewatch and a few other BBC transmissions, at what our perceived perceptions were, are, and with hope, may become.
Despite the appalling vote of the increasingly defunct EU parliament last week, perceptions are beginning to change on Russia and Putin. With the elections of Trump and new French contender Francois Fillon, the scare-mongering self-serving neo-cons and their like, have had their day. IMO
As jno says, it wasn't trying to give a potted history of Russia and the USSR in 60 minutes it was taking a look via Timewatch and a few other BBC transmissions, at what our perceived perceptions were, are, and with hope, may become.
Despite the appalling vote of the increasingly defunct EU parliament last week, perceptions are beginning to change on Russia and Putin. With the elections of Trump and new French contender Francois Fillon, the scare-mongering self-serving neo-cons and their like, have had their day. IMO
Why include The War Game? I couldn't understand that. It wasn't about Russia/The Soviet Union and very few people saw it at the time. So consequently it wasn't a particularly good example of a tv programme that influenced the way people viewed that country.
It was billed as 'the Timewatch Guide to Russia' - as jno says, part of a series of recaps of Timewatch programmes, but presumably because there wasn't enough material for that they had to include other stuff. But that then meant making arbitrary selections from hundreds of other programmes.
It therefore gave the impression of being something of a rag bag with some interesting comments from 'experts' but the attempt to wrap it all up at the end was lame and unconvincing. As I said above: Mr David's conclusions were along the same shallow lines he was himself criticising. In fact many of the programs he reviewed were acknowledged as groundbreaking in fact. So the whole thing
was a bit confusing and confused
It was billed as 'the Timewatch Guide to Russia' - as jno says, part of a series of recaps of Timewatch programmes, but presumably because there wasn't enough material for that they had to include other stuff. But that then meant making arbitrary selections from hundreds of other programmes.
It therefore gave the impression of being something of a rag bag with some interesting comments from 'experts' but the attempt to wrap it all up at the end was lame and unconvincing. As I said above: Mr David's conclusions were along the same shallow lines he was himself criticising. In fact many of the programs he reviewed were acknowledged as groundbreaking in fact. So the whole thing
was a bit confusing and confused
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