Why do the IMDb robots (currently) feature a 2-star review for a series that's rated 8-stars? A shame. Hire better robots...or humans!
The complaints about Mark Cousins' accent are specious at best, moronic in practice. If you're looking for a PBS documentary style, please steer clear. Nothing against PBS, but this series has a voice and it's not just the accented narration. It's also the interstitial video work that provides a very personal take on the history of cinema.
Yes, the rising inflection is not your normal, bland American voice-over. It's distinct and nuanced and, to my ears, warm. OK, enough with the narration non-issue.
For anyone who's wanted a sweeping Film 101 course on the mechanics and effects of this infant art form, this is, to my knowledge the best you will get. Scorsese has attempted this in recent years and has had some ad hoc success (his PBS biography on Elia Kazan was a high point). What Cousins accomplishes is a poetic exposition on the grammars of the medium in a highly selective, yet globally inclusive trajectory of its history.
The most telling and powerful tool in his belt is the way he's able to jump from the 1920s to the 1970s or 2000s, when he's explaining the inventions of technique and the matrix of influence from progenitors to the next generation. For example, to hear one of Ozu's actresses talk about his manner of direction is invaluable. His simple, somewhat comic video-quality recreations of the "180 degree" rule (as well as those who love to break it), makes all YouTube studies obsolete, and somehow doesn't disrupt the unworried, well-paced narrative.
Good work, Mr. Cousins. Love your other films as well.
p.s. Calling him just a film critic and historian does a disservice to this series as well as his other film work. He's a director. And that's why this film doesn't feel academic. Thankfully.
The complaints about Mark Cousins' accent are specious at best, moronic in practice. If you're looking for a PBS documentary style, please steer clear. Nothing against PBS, but this series has a voice and it's not just the accented narration. It's also the interstitial video work that provides a very personal take on the history of cinema.
Yes, the rising inflection is not your normal, bland American voice-over. It's distinct and nuanced and, to my ears, warm. OK, enough with the narration non-issue.
For anyone who's wanted a sweeping Film 101 course on the mechanics and effects of this infant art form, this is, to my knowledge the best you will get. Scorsese has attempted this in recent years and has had some ad hoc success (his PBS biography on Elia Kazan was a high point). What Cousins accomplishes is a poetic exposition on the grammars of the medium in a highly selective, yet globally inclusive trajectory of its history.
The most telling and powerful tool in his belt is the way he's able to jump from the 1920s to the 1970s or 2000s, when he's explaining the inventions of technique and the matrix of influence from progenitors to the next generation. For example, to hear one of Ozu's actresses talk about his manner of direction is invaluable. His simple, somewhat comic video-quality recreations of the "180 degree" rule (as well as those who love to break it), makes all YouTube studies obsolete, and somehow doesn't disrupt the unworried, well-paced narrative.
Good work, Mr. Cousins. Love your other films as well.
p.s. Calling him just a film critic and historian does a disservice to this series as well as his other film work. He's a director. And that's why this film doesn't feel academic. Thankfully.