The Martin Luther King speech on Vietnam that I mentioned: https://youtu.be/HISxIFwjO70?si=5e1jWkolBHL_wowO
This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost. For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:
In this case, the old blog post is here: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2013/11/television-addiction-part-4.html
This is also part of my Television Addiction series. For my explanation of what the Television Addiction series is and why I'm doing it, see: https://youtu.be/T5CEQ9-35xA and http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2021/04/television-addiction-article-on.html
Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States
Another history documentary.
This documentary series is at times spectacular. Oliver Stone is no stranger to cinematic storytelling, and, in the earlier episodes especially, he brings all his storytelling abilities to this project. The archival footage, the dramatic music, and the bold narration all contribute to the feel of watching something epic.
The first 5 or 6 episodes are examples of documentary history at its absolute finest.
The problem, from an entertainment perspective at least, is in some of the later episodes the editorializing gets in the way of the story telling. For example, the episode on the 1980s is less a coherent narrative than it is just a list of all the reasons Reagan sucked. The episode on George W. Bush is the same. I don’t disagree with Oliver Stone’s politics, but the powerful narrative thrust of the early episodes gets a bit muddled in the later episodes.
Still, inspite of the fact that the narrative quality of the series is not entirely consistent over all 10 episodes, the high points of this series more than make up for the low points. It’s well worth checking out.
Sidenotes:
1). I’m not sure all this information has ever been in one documentary series before. I remember having to learn all my information about the untold history of the United States in piecemeal fashion. I learned one thing here, another thing there, and just gradually accumulated knowledge.
Now it’s possible to just watch this documentary, and in 10 short hours accumulate all of this knowledge in one go. Which brings me to my next point:
2) It’s really surprising they allowed this to be on TV.
And 3). One last observation: Oliver Stone is famous for his conspiracy theories in his movie JFK, but fortunately he largely stays away from conspiracy theories in this series. (He hints that relations between Kennedy and the CIA were not good, but stops short of trying to explicitly connect any dots.) In The Untold History of the United States, Oliver Stone largely sticks to facts that, while they may not be largely reported, are not contested. I think this series is credible.
(In my youth I was on-board with some of the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, but over time I’ve come to agree with Chomsky that spending too much time speculating on unknowns is a waste of time. For Chomsky’s thoughts on why we shouldn’t waste time speculating about conspiracy theories SEE HERE.)
Related Playlists:
Scripted Reviews Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x5BKcEIufNKlS58JHU_glyL&si=Pje0KQqIqOgWGGUI
Television Addiction: Oh, the TV Shows I've Seen: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x5dG-fZus5AmF1kQSDBfSDJ
Television Addiction Part 4: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7tGOeUw5E7xQBVO_DQ3xcn&si=lM1iMgfWSgaA3Bzf
History Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x52uI39vSXVrJvUFjdN9QkL&si=dICJTZngZlwi8WIT
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