The Story of Film: An Odyssey

What starts as an interesting and insightful watch turns to a slog and eventually a total bore. Not all narration has to be Morgan Freeman, but Cousins is monotone to the point of parody, and ending every sentence with the same inquisitive inflection. Very clear bias, too -- when you spend an entire episode on Sholay and only acknowledge Star Wars as a footnote at the end, you're pretty clearly misrepresenting your documentary by calling it "The Story of Film." Ugh.

A good primer on historical & world cinema, it is let down by Cousins being a poor narrator and the original footage (besides the interviews) being undynamic. When it comes to the 1970's and more contemporary film some of Cousins' choices are bizarre; why spend 20 minutes each on Sholay & Baz Luhrmann, and why even talk about House of Flying Daggers, Fahrenheit 9/11, Avatar & Inception in the final episodes? No mention of PTA, Carpenter, Argento, etc. and Cassavetes gets less than 5 minutes.

Cousins may be pretentious and think that the greatest things in film are deep focus and long static shots after 1970, AND his narrative inflection is maddening for the first 3 hours...but then you settle in because pretentious he may be, but the dude LOVES movies and has presented a knowledgeable and enlightening work that scours every nook and cranny of film for the last hundred years, leaving you with an easy couple hundred new movies on your watch list and with your horizons broadened.

Rule #43 on the list of ways to get me to like your film: Play choice film clips from history and around the world regularly. Rule #87: Interview Charles Burnett. That said, I offer this caveat on the series: I could have done without the excessive Hollywood bashing, esp. in the early episodes--Cousins raised the issue of movies as lies in the first episode, then oddly used it to hammer popular films while ignoring it in others. I would have preferred a more nuanced approach.

It's insightful, and its global perspective is welcome, but there are so many places where the narration becomes pretentious that it often becomes grating. It's a decent history of film, but not nearly as brilliant or comprehensive as it wants you to think.

It does serve as an interesting and successful history of film. Even at 15 hours, they couldn't possibly expect to capture everything, but they sure came damn close! Still, I have to say that the judgmental and listless tone of the narrator kept annoying me, like nails on a chalkboard! For anyone who wants to really, and I mean really learn about cinema across cultures, time periods, and mentalities, this is a great experience.

I really like this survey of film; it is a better sampling of world cinema than similar endeavors of the past. It is clearly limited by length, so I'm not upset by omissions. I do think it neglects narratological elements a bit, since it discusses formal, social, and historical aspects of film almost exclusively. This is its biggest failing (and that's coming from someone with a formalist bent!). He also doesn't touch on totally different ways of reading film, but time constraints are at play.

I have immense respect for the work that Cousins has done here, and for his knowledge in matters of film. He has his idea of how to read film history and he sticks to it, but that just really makes it a little bit grating when some opposition is finally voiced (Stanley Donen) and never countered. I'm sure everyone can name a film they know he left out, but I'm not really interested in that sort of picking and choosing. In 15 hours the story of film could hardly have been told better.

A must-see dive into the ocean of cinema and its innovators. Regardless of any differences of opinion of a viwer with his remarks, Cousins is the one and only brave soul who has ever dared to present such an opus, an overview of the world cinema in a documentary series. His work is a celebration of innovation and diversion and a reference guide to younger audiences for many important creators and films.

Cocteau deha, welles kusursuz, hitchcock usta, vigo yenilikçi, leone babamız hatta nazi yönetmen bile zeka küpü. Be aq herkes bu kadar efsane yönetmense bu boktan filmleri kim çekti. Bu gerçeği kabullenin efsane dediğiniz çoğu yönetmen overrated. bir de bergman ile hitler'in yönetmeni filan eşit süre alıyor (!) Daha düşük de verilebilir bu dümdüz popülizme ama tarihi çok seviyorum hele konu filmlerse ve incelemeyse...