The Story Of Film: An Odyssey Review

20th Apr 2012

There are many obvious points discussed in this documentary; but you can’t tell the story of film without referring to them really. The documentary as a whole is chaptered mainly by timeline – but also by thematic groups. Examples of film used in each chapter can leap about in time, but stay relevant to what the focus of the project is about. Often an old classic will be used and then a more modern example is presented to show how film has repeated itself, or has influenced modern movie makers.

The production on the documentary is quite cheap as it largely consists of exterior location shots from around the world which do little to excite the brain. But of course there is a wide interspersal of footage from the films being discussed, as well as interviews with some film-making talent from around the globe.

Marc Cousins has a bit of a jarring speech pattern in his voice over and is a bit much to bare at times as he accents the end of almost every sentence with benign curiosity.

15 hours is a long time to listen to a guy speak in the same unenthused tone, so I’d suggest perhaps taking it in chapters at a time. Cousins really needed to provide the research and the writing for this documentary but to get someone else to do the talking (even if it was his opinion). Now if it was Kermode doing the talking (whether you like the guy or not) you’d have a presence that is altogether much more engaging. But then why stop there when you can just go ask someone like Patrick Stewart instead and have a properly trained voice and would make the 15 hours seem more like heaven and less like a chore.

It’s sad then that this rather large issue gets in the way of the enjoyment. The project as a whole is well researched and gives a broad range of cinema from around the world that will make true film lovers want to perhaps investigate further into certain continents and countries background in film – as pretty much everyone out there has a beginning in the industry somewhere.

The Story of Film is involving, highly informative but is a bit much to be entertaining.