Content area
Full text
Whether the viewer is a knowledgeable film buff or a recent student of film history, the sixpart documentary Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood is a must-see for all. The producers/directors Kevin Brownlow and the late David Gill managed to cover many of the highlights of Europe's greatest movies, directors, producers, stars, and technical marvels in a brief amount of time. Brownlow and Gill show an innate sense of style and great admiration for the European contributions with their use of rare footage and photographs matched with a great musical score by Carl Davis, a wonderful choice of narrator in Kenneth Branagh, and fascinating interviews with many of the people involved with the cinema at its inception. Richard Corliss in his review of the series for Time magazine called Cinema Europe "a glorious time machine, transporting the audience back to an era when it was possible to believe that nothing was more important than films and that they would constantly improve." Any viewer would definitely agree with this opinion.
The documentary is divided into six episodes, the first starting with an overall explanation of the beginnings of the movies in Europe. Then the next four episodes concentrate on the individual countries and their development of film: Scandinavian, German, French, British and some Italian and Russian examples. As Frank Thompson noted in his review for Film Comment, "it's fascinating to see how specific were the identities of national cinemas in those days before Hollywood's influence changed everything." It all flows smoothly from one episode to another and holds the audience's interest entirely. Intertwined throughout the documentary are historical film clips of actual events taking place at the time. This gives the viewer a truer sense of the state of Europe and its people, and why events changed the role of Europe in the development of the cinema. Also apparent is the particular care taken to show these old classics at the correct speed or as close to it as possible. The last episode ties up the series with a comprehensive look at Europe and the new film format-sound.
The first episode, "Where It All Began," starts with the very beginning of film productions and shows the early reactions of the first moviegoers. To any movie fan of...