The Great War: The Complete History of World War I (Koch)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: C+     Program: B-

 

 

When something claims to be the complete history of anything, one has to be cautious.  Usually, it’s a tag meant to elicit excitement in an otherwise mundane thing that’s less than complete.

 

But that’s not the case with The Great War.  This three-disc set boasts being “the complete history of World War I,” and if it isn’t then it’s pretty close.

 

Narrated by Patrick Boniface, The Great War is a five-episode series — one episode for each year of the war — that explores nearly every battle and troop movement of World War I.  And so complete is this documentary that, unless you’re an historian or just really into history, you’ll find your thought processes swimming in a sea of battle names, troop sizes, and battle deployments.

 

As documentaries go, this one is fairly uncommon because there are only two elements — the narrator and period news reel footage.  At first, this is a neat concept. But quickly, by the second episode, the novelty wears off.  One begins to notice the reuse of footage, and Boniface is acceptable as a guide but leaves a lot to be desired thanks to his dry approach to the material.  After a couple episodes, one will be left begging for other voices (historians, relatives, anything) and other views (reenactments, photos, anything) to break up the monotony.  Not helping matters any is the soundtrack, made up of stock sound effects and amateurish synthesizer symphonic compositions.  While it provides the necessary sonic bridge for the documentary, it can become quite distracting and, frankly, annoying.

 

The length of the documentary doesn’t help, either.  Each episode runs about 45 minutes, and when one combines them all together and mixes in the poor execution and dry elements of the program, the completeness of the history of World War I is quickly forgotten.  You just want to know how long until it’s over.

 

That said, this is a fairly complete account of the war.  The beginning and ending, the parts of the war with the most action, both feel rushed.  This is unfortunate because these are arguably the most interesting parts of the war that was defined by its immobile trench warfare.  But the middle, meaty parts of the documentary are crammed with information.  This information, though, would probably come across better in a book about World War I.  In other words, this is a set more appropriate for classroom watching or research purposes rather than home enjoyment.

 

If one were to watch it home, though — or in a well-equipped classroom, I suppose — one would find an average technical presentation.

 

Since the documentary is nothing but nearly 100-year-old film footage, it will only be as good as that old footage.  And, in this case, that footage is a mixed bag.  Some of it looks decent, especially for being as old as it is.  But other footage is a disaster.  Besides missing frames, some of the news reels have tears, stains, and other debris all over them.  And some of the footage looks like it was projected and re-recorded.

 

The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is noticeable better, but that’s because the three elements — narrator, effects, and score — are all new.  So the sound is great relative to the video quality of the set, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.  The soundscape is relatively flat, and the elements get reused so much that it becomes boring fast.  It’s not as iffy as the visuals, but the sound is still problematic.

 

On the extras side, there are three bonus documentaries — “Land Warfare Technology,” “Air Power Technology,” and “Sea Power Technology.”  The titles essentially speak for themselves.  They’re three documentaries about how World War I was waged.  No more, no less.  They don’t add that much to the set, but, again, if this set is being viewed in a classroom setting they might be helpful.

 

Ultimately, what this set comes down to for those interested in World War I is that claim of it being “the complete history.”  The Great War is certainly exhaustive, but there were certainly things left out.  But as a Eurocentric overview of the war, this set is hard to beat.  That is, if one can ignore the narrative and technical failings of it.

 

 

-   Dante A. Ciampaglia