TV programs worth watching
Sun June 6 — June 12

The documentary genre in the cinema began as a reaction 
against the glamorised and essentially false picture of people's 
lives presented by Hollywood and the other major centres of film 
production.

Left-wing filmmakers in particular turned to documentary in their 
desire to show the reality of people's living and working 
conditions. In the USSR in the 1920s, then most notably in 
Britain from the beginning of the '30s, a small group of 
politcally conscious filmmakers sought to not only show the real 
world but to interpret it.

They did not limit themselves to filming actuality footage, but 
where necessary, they dramatised or re-enacted scenes, the better 
to expose not just the appearance of some phenomenon but its 
essence, its reality.

In the late '30s in the US film was finally taken up as a weapon 
of the New Deal by another group of progressive filmmakers. And 
Dutch Communist filmmaker Joris Ivens travelled all over the 
world to wherever people were in struggle.

They sought to show the heroism and dignity of labour, to show 
who really built the ships and dams, the dykes and bridges, who 
really grew the food and turned the wheels of industry.

Australian documentaries such as Coaldust and the films of 
the Waterside Workers' Federation Film Unit were also part of 
this tradition — films which took a stand, had a partisan 
viewpoint which they presented without apology.

Today, in television, the term "documentary" is used for anything 
that purports to be non-fiction and deals with a topic drawn from 
travel, wildlife, science or history.

The wholy dramatised "documentary" The Brooklyn Bridge in 
the series Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World (ABC 
7.30pm Sundays) forfeits its claim to be a documentary by 
submerging the real story of the building of this great structure 
in the "human drama" of the fate of its designer, his son and his 
daughter-in-law.

While it shows the innovative nature of the design, and the 
extraordinarily hard and dangerous work involved in the 
construction, the program skims over the graft and corruption 
that also featured.

Fraud by cronies of some of the Bridge company's Board members 
resulted in faulty wire being woven into the cables. When the 
faulty cables snapped and men died, we learn that the contract 
was taken away from that firm and awarded to another but not 
whether anyone was prosecuted.

How did the Bridge company expect to recoup its investment? What 
were the economic issues that made its construction so 
imperative?

One could be forgiven for thinking it was only the "vision" of 
the designer that was behind the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The program mixes actual newsreel footage with the re-enactment 
in a way that distinguished between the two, but it never 
uncovers the commercial essence of the project.

Nevertheless, it is well worth a look.

Another program that mixes real and enacted scenes even more 
skilfully is Ten Days To D-Day (ABC 8.30pm Sunday). It 
follows ten real-life characters through the dramatic 10-day 
countdown to D-Day.

Those still alive provide their recollections throughout the 
program. Those who did not survive the War are represented by 
diary entries and letters home.

All of them are portrayed in scenes at the time by actors. There 
is no false attempt to provide "drama". You are aware at all 
times that the acted scenes are merely fleshing out or 
illustrating the factual information in the commentary.

My comments last week about D-Day remain valid, but this 
excellent program does convey the sheer magnitude of the 
undertaking. Even so, One should remember that some of the 
offensives launched by the Soviet army on the Eastern Front 
involved up to ten times as many men.

SBS begins a season of six feature films by Stanley Kubrick this 
week as well as beginning a three-part documentary series 
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures in the Masterpiece 
timeslot (SBS 10.00pm Tuesdays).

The documentary is directed by Kubrick's brother-in-law Jan 
Harlan and features "unique film footage and photographs" 
provided by Kubrick's wife Christiane, so it eschews any 
criticism of the great man.

The Kubrick season begins with his unfortunate attempt to portray 
the horror of violence, A Clockwork Orange (SBS 9.30pm 
Sunday). The book was a big hit with trendies who seemed as 
thrilled with its use of Russian-derived words in the slang of 
its near-future gangs as with its portrayal of the near future as 
a police-state.

Kubrick seemed genuinely shocked when critics quizzed him as to 
why he made the violence in the film version so entertaining. He 
protested that it was shocking, not entertaining; that it was 
truly horrifying.

The critics were right, however. At the public screening where I 
first saw it, the young males in the audience came out absolutely 
stoked.

It was very noticeable that whenever there was a scene of 
violence, Kubrick distanced the audience from it: he drew his 
camera back, thereby lessening the impact of the violence, or he 
used surreal or stylised backgrounds, or extreme wide-angle 
lenses.

The violence is perpetrated by Alex (Malcolm McDowell) who is 
depicted as wittier, more intelligent and more honest than any of 
his victims, who are usually grotesque.

Anthony Burgess' novel is essentially fascist. Burgess has 
defended it thus: "it is preferable to have a world of violence 
undertaken in full awareness — violence chosen as an act of will 
— than a world conditioned to be good or harmless." 

Danny Peary, author of Cult Movies I & II, says of the 
film version: "Film's strong, gratuitous violence is 
objectionable (as is the comical atmosphere when violence is 
being perpetrated), but the major reason the film can be termed 
fascistic (sic) is Kubrick's heartless, super-intellectual, 
super-orderly, anti-septic, anti-human, anti-female, anti-
sensual, anti-passion, anti-erotic treatment of its subject."

The second Kubrick feature this week is Lolita (SBS 
10.10pm Thursday), the oddly successful black comedy about 
abnormal people. James Mason is the middle-aged Humbert Humbert 
who falls hard for his landlady's school-age daughter.

Sue Lyon underplays the nymphette of the title while Peter 
Sellers is splendidly manic as her secret lover. Not everyone's 
cup of tea but certainly worth a try.