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DVD : Alistair Cooke's America
starring: Alistair Cooke
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: Exempt Binding: DVD EAN: 5014503158224 Format: PAL Label: 2 Entertain Video Manufacturer: 2 Entertain Video Number Of Items: 4 Publisher: 2 Entertain Video Region Code: 2 Release Date: October 18, 2004 Running Time: 650 minutes Sales Rank: 3552 Studio: 2 Entertain Video |
List Price: £49.99 Amazon.co.uk's Price: £32.18 You Save: £17.81 (36%)Prices subject to change. |
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.co.uk Review:
A classic from what now seems like the Golden Age of TV documentaries, Alistair Cooke’s America was first broadcast in 1972-3 and it remains, along with the contemporary The World at War, an example of how documentaries should be made: there’s none of the flashy editing, wobbly camera-work, over-intrusive music or costumed actors prancing around in the mode of Simon Schama’s fussy History of Britain for example. Here there is just scenery, the odd map or illustration and—most importantly—Cooke himself talking directly and unhurriedly to camera. Over 13 leisurely hours, he narrates a 'personal history' of his adopted country, beginning with his own arrival as a fresh young Cambridge graduate in the 1930s before taking us back to the very foundations of America, its colonisation, the war of Independence (told in an admirably non-partisan way) and so on through momentous and turbulent decades right up to the early 1970s, where Civil Rights and protest movements are high on the agenda.
Throughout, Cooke interweaves anecdotes and digressions into the main narrative, charming the viewer with his storytelling precisely in the manner so beloved of listeners to his admirable Letter from America. By the end he has a warning that, although delivered in 1973, remains as telling today as it did then: America, like Ancient Rome as depicted by Gibbon in his Decline and Fall, stands poised between its remarkable vitality and its equally remarkable capacity for decadence. Whether, like Rome, the USA becomes a victim of its own internal divisions or somehow manages to pull back from the brink still remains to be seen.
On the DVD: This four-disc set is neatly presented in digipack format, and includes a Pebble Mill at One interview with Cooke in which he discusses the series. --Mark Walker
Average Rating: 
Rating:
- Bold, authoritative and grippingI've had three great American experiences this year. The first was visiting New York and Washington for the first time. The second was reading Paul Johnson's History of the American People. The third was watching Alistair Cooke's 1972 Personal History. I'm glad I read Johnson's tome first, because it's a long read, Cooke provides the breathtaking pictures: the buildings, the landscape, the people.
I sat through the episodes with a notebook because I was so in awe of Cooke's nonchalant ... Read More
Rating:
- Superb - engaging and authoritativeI've rented this and watched it with my wife. I can genuinely say that it is compelling. I echo the statements made by others concerning the brilliance of Cooke's presentation - it is the 'personal history' claimed in the title. The style is at times detached - as you'd expect of a historian - yet is never cold. Although made 35 years ago, by the nature of its content, little has obviously aged in a manner that makes it feel out of date or irrelevant. It's only as you reach the last episode when Cooke ... Read More
Rating:
- The Greatest documentary of them all!Without doubt this is the finest documentary I have ever seen. This is Alistair Cooke at his most regal best. A perfect Christmas present. If I had to live on a desert island and could take only one DVD this would be it.
Rating:
- At Last -- Cooke's Superb SeriesI fell in love with this series when it was first shown on American television in 1972-1973. I was fifteen years old, mad about history, and immediately embraced this marvelous narrative accompanied by location visits, old paintings and prints, and period music. When videotapes of television series began to be sold, I would have gladly paid almost any price for AMERICA, but it was sold only to libraries and educational institutions. I unashamedly borrowed the series from the library and copied it off for ... Read More
Rating:
- Alastair Cooke's "America"This major piece of television was produced in the early 1970's and was billed as "A Personal History of the USA" by Alastair Cooke. It has aged very well and indeed should be compulsory viewing for the modern documentary maker as it is a classic in terms of style and presentation. Modern TV programmes feature presenters making one line pieces to camera and then moving off stage right. Cooke is a natural teacher - he talks to the camera without notes, without autocue, and he talks with great authority, ... Read More
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Alternatively: Buy direct from Amazon.co.uk
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Alternatively: Buy direct from Amazon.co.uk
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