By the same director, I watched the two series about the Vietnam war and WWII with great interest. I was very much looking forward to this one, too.
I don't know much about the real history of prohibition, even if countless movies were made about that period of the American troubled history.
The general idea I got was that prohibition was a bad idea and it just contributed to the strengthening of criminal organisations, especially in the Chicago area. However, I did not know how it came to be a law.
Turns out, there was a huge problem with alcoholism in the US. Linked to the macho culture and traditions of the European immigrants, alcohol promoted "social" moments reserved to men, who often squandered their wages at the saloon. In its wake followed poverty, domestic abuse and cirrhosis.
The fight was very much between the rural protestants (dry) and the city-dwellers of all other religious denominations (wet).
After the first episode, that sets the story in motion - albeit very slowly and with an overdose of American politics I found tedious - the documentary starts to hint at the fact that prohibition was mainly a conservative idea (therefore bad) and that the bootleggers were good people, because they provided customers with a product customers were perfectly entitled to buy.
This is just like suggesting that the sale of of hard drugs should be legal, because nobody has the right to interfere with the self-destructive instincts of individuals. That is a fact, but when these instincts interfere with a reasonable functioning of society, I find it highly objectionable.
I don't like the morally ambiguous stance of the story and I also find the minute details fo the politics behind it quite boring. Perhaps best suited to a liberal, American audience or just not well made.
I don't know much about the real history of prohibition, even if countless movies were made about that period of the American troubled history.
The general idea I got was that prohibition was a bad idea and it just contributed to the strengthening of criminal organisations, especially in the Chicago area. However, I did not know how it came to be a law.
Turns out, there was a huge problem with alcoholism in the US. Linked to the macho culture and traditions of the European immigrants, alcohol promoted "social" moments reserved to men, who often squandered their wages at the saloon. In its wake followed poverty, domestic abuse and cirrhosis.
The fight was very much between the rural protestants (dry) and the city-dwellers of all other religious denominations (wet).
After the first episode, that sets the story in motion - albeit very slowly and with an overdose of American politics I found tedious - the documentary starts to hint at the fact that prohibition was mainly a conservative idea (therefore bad) and that the bootleggers were good people, because they provided customers with a product customers were perfectly entitled to buy.
This is just like suggesting that the sale of of hard drugs should be legal, because nobody has the right to interfere with the self-destructive instincts of individuals. That is a fact, but when these instincts interfere with a reasonable functioning of society, I find it highly objectionable.
I don't like the morally ambiguous stance of the story and I also find the minute details fo the politics behind it quite boring. Perhaps best suited to a liberal, American audience or just not well made.