Lord Reith would be proud of the superb Civilisations
I’m not old enough to claim that Kenneth Clark’s sainted 1969 series Civilisation had any great edifying effect on me. But I am old enough to remember it being broadcast and my father being reverentially impressed. For him, that TV series and others, such as Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man (1973), were tantalising wonders that opened up a world of knowledge he would never have otherwise experienced.
Five decades on, as BBC Two’s reboot, Civilisations, got under way, it seems improbable at best (with so many other bright, shiny, alternative technology sources of information at our fingertips) that any single television series could have as enormous an impact today in that Reithian way.
Still, Simon Schama was clearly determined to give it a good go and, bar one or two quibbles, produced something very special indeed. The opening episode offered an expansive and wholly fresh-feeling survey of the rise of human creativity: from its dawn around 80,000 years ago to the first flowerings of social art in Mesopotamia, and on to the more sophisticated early cultural outpourings of the Minoan and Mayan civilisations among others.
“We are the art-making animal – and this is what we have made,” Schama declared. And that’s how he proceeded, demonstrating through many and varied examples from all corners of the globe, that the compulsion to create has been central to humankind from the earliest times. That after individual lives and great empires crumbled, what we remember them by are their creations.
The visuals were simply superb. So much so that it was tempting to block out parts of Schama’s eloquent commentary just to gaze in wonder a little longer. The high-definition images of a tiny yet breathtakingly vivid Minoan carving of armed combat from 1450BC – unearthed just three years ago – were as jaw-dropping as anything on Blue Planet II. Cameras were allowed to linger, rove surfaces, drink in detail.
Sometimes the rush to show us yet more monuments, murals and masks left questions unanswered. The why occasionally got lost in the what. The link between individual creative expression and the impulse to make the social art, the ritual art, the aggrandising art created for kings and warriors so often featured, went unexplored.
Even so, this was a superb start to a reassuringly commanding, that avoided the obvious and delivered on the scale, seriousness and ambition its subject demands. And which, though it’s available in its entirety now on iplayer, I look forward to savouring week by week, morsel by morsel, in the traditional TV way.
Speaking of fallen empires, Weinstein: the Inside Story (BBC One) was a report, co-produced by Panorama and the PBS series Frontline, into how the disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein, “concealed allegations of sexual abuse going back decades”.
This film went further than Channel 4’s Working with Weinstein last week, featuring numerous stories – all strongly denied by Weinstein – from former colleagues and associates, on both sides of the Atlantic, of predatory sexual behaviour and bullying, and exploring how this alleged behaviour went unreported.
Time and again, stories were told of hotel rooms, open bathrobes, requests for massages, and worse. Stories of advances spurned and careers said to have suffered. Other allegations were far more serious. Weinstein’s official response was almost always the same: denial, and the insinuation that greed was what drove his accusers. Yet, the similarities in the stories were not just striking, but shocking.
Of course, scandals and cover-ups have been part of the movie business since its earliest days. They are, however, rarely as earth-shattering as this one. Because what’s at stake here goes beyond the alleged offences of one man, however appalling, and puts an entire industry to shame for enabling him to think he was untouchable.
Noting that “Weinstein has admitted he has settled up to nine claims of harassment against him” over the years, the question at the heart of this film was to what extent fear, financial settlements and non-disclosure agreements allowed his alleged behaviour to continue unchecked over the best part of 30 years.
Weinstein continues to deny the majority of the claims made against him. But what programmes like this remind us of, is not just the weight of the accusations against Weinstein, but also the extraordinary power individuals can amass when they hold the hopes, dreams and careers of individuals in their hands. And that it will continue to occur, unless stronger systems are put in place to discourage exploitation and predatory behaviour.
Civilisations Weinstein: The Inside Story