"The World at War" (1973) TV series

User Rating:

9.7/10   

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

1976 (Denmark)

Genre:

Documentary | War

Plot:

A series of accurate documentaries about World War II.

Plot Keywords:

Germany | Resistance | Japan | Sicily | Luftwaffe

Awards:

1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

Laurence Olivier

...

Himself - Narrator (26 episodes, 1973-1974)

Runtime:

52 min (26 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English | German | French | Japanese

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-15

Company:

Imperial War Museum

Movie Connections:

Edited into "Screenwipe: (#3.1)" (2007)

The war documentary to end all war documentaries

Utterly brilliant. Powerful and evocative. The most compelling documentary series ever made concerning war. It's tone offers a stark contrast to the often gung-ho attitude towards World War 2 that the media exhibits. Rather than opting for screaming about the horror of war, it allows Sir Laurence Olivier's quiet voice to take a back seat to the true images of war: corpses everywhere, explosions, terrified citizens and soldiers, broken men, indifferent politicians, mistakes that cost thousands of lives, the suffering of the innocents. Most of all it truly brings home that mankind is capable of when all normal rules of "civility" are removed. There is something distinctly Hobbesian about man in a true state of nature, he will return to a more beastly form capable of crimes that will still shock and fascinate 60 years on. Perhaps there could be a follow up series called "The century at war" for the twentieth century was truly the century of horrors. I feel it is an irony of immense magnitude that it took an event which caused the death of 50 million people to produce such a compelling and excellent series such as this.