|
|
Genres
Television
Low-Price DVDs
Family
Nonfiction
Collections
Browse by Title
Featured Partners
| | |
|
|
|
The World at War (30th Anniversary Edition)
|
Our Price: $40.49
Availability: Usually ships in 7 to 13 days
Average Customer Rating: 
Manufacturer: A&E Home Video
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Sir Max Aitken, Robert Boothby, Lord Butler, Vannevar Bush
Directed By: Hugh Raggett, Ted Childs, David Elstein
|
|
|
|
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780767065757
Format: Box set
ISBN: 0767065751
Label: A&E Home Video
Manufacturer: A&E Home Video
Number Of Items: 11
Publisher: A&E Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2004-08-24
Running Time: 1357
Studio: A&E Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1974
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Translations needed!
Comment: This 30th Anniversary Edition of The World at War has been reviewed extensively at this site, and I agree with the majority of reviewers that this series is one of the greatest documentaries about World War II. However, I have to complain that translations are often wanting. For example, in the two-part bonus to the series on Disc 10, entitled The Final Solution, there are long stretches of archival footage of German-language speeches and documentaries that contain NO TRANSLATION into English. These sections of the series are a void to those viewers who do not speak German. The World at War series is an English-language production, but this bonus documentary, as wonderful as it is in other respects, fails to reach most of its audience when translations are not provided. It is frustrating to see and hear these stretches of documentary that are inaccessible to those of us who do not understand German.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's great to have this on dvd at an incredible price
Comment: I watched this series on PBS in the seventies and was forever hooked! there has never been such a definitive work done on world war two as this, nor do I expect there will be in the near future. Sir Laurence Olivier's subperb narration guides you through almost every aspect of the most defining period of the twentith century.You can never grow weary of viewing this fine production as every time you view it, you will surley pick up on something you missed on the last viewing! All real, no phoney reenactments. A never ending history lesson.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Deadly... Dubbing
Comment: Most of the other reviewers have covered the high points and All together the series does a decent job of covering many of the highlights of the second world war. However, the incredibly oppressive use of dubbing to add explosions along with other repetitive, unnecessary and imminently distracting and mind numbingly false sound effects proves to be extremely detrimental to the experience of watching this series. Dubbing is often done on old reel footage from Big Two, however in this case the experience is so overwhelmingly oppressive and poorly executed that it strays to the obscene. For example in one scene there is a dog attempting to jump into the interior of a bomber and the dubbing "experts" saw fit to add a loud whining sound on loop over the video.
As others have said, the history is good, the narration is illuminating but the sound is so bad that it detracts from the whole experience to teeth grating and ultimately the diminishing of the message with a overriding sense of falseness that this addition of sounds that are not only unnatural but dishonest to the material. Adding to the shoddy sound is the Journalistic nature of the discourse. This is to say that they are only talking about certain portions of the war that are of "interest" to them and many of the things they cover (or more often don't cover at all) leave a somewhat inaccurate impression of the actual war. I'd recommend the BBC history of world war II or simply "The War" much more over this collection.
Customer Rating:
Summary: History of WWII
Comment: This was how I learnt about the second world war, this series didn't romantisize the era as many movies and docos did (and still do) As this series was made in the early seventies many of the survivors were still alive to account for the events first hand. It is heavy viewing yet so well written and presented that I don't think this series will ever be obsolete.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Essential viewing!
Comment: Want to see the best series made about the 2nd World War? Want to know how a documentary series should be made? And the narration! Essential viewing for all generations. Brilliantly made.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
|
Sir Jeremy Isaacs highly deserves the numerous awards for documentaries he has earned: the Royal Television Society's Desmond Davis Award, l'Ordre National du Mérit, an Emmy, and a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. His epic The World at War remains unsurpassed as the definitive visual history of World War II. The Second World War was different from other wars in thousands of ways, one of which was the unparalleled scope of visual documents kept by the Axis and Allies of all their activities. As a result, this war is understood as much through written histories as it is through its powerful images. The Nazis were particularly thorough in documenting even the most abhorrent of the atrocities they were committing--in a surprising amount of color footage. The World at War was one of the first television documentaries that exploited these resources so completely, giving viewers an unbelievable visual guide to the greatest event in the 20th century. This is to say nothing of the excellent, comprehensible narrative. Some highlights: - A New Germany 1933-39: early German and Nazi documentation of Hitler's rise to power through the impending attack on Poland
- Whirlwind: the early British losses in the blitz in the skies over Britain and in North Africa
- Stalingrad: the turning point of the war and Germany's first defeat
- Inside the Reich--Germany 1940-44: one of the most fascinating documentaries that exists on life inside Nazi Germany, from Lebensborn to the Hitler Youth
- Morning: prior to Saving Private Ryan, one of the only unromanticized views of the Normandy invasion
- Genocide: this film is one of the most widely shown introductions to the Holocaust
- Japan 1941-45: although The World at War is decidedly focused more on the European theater, this is an important look into wartime Japan and its expansion--early 20th-century history that lead to Japan's role in World War II is superficial
- The bomb: another widely shown documentary of the Manhattan Project, the Enola Gay, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki
The World at War will remain the definitive visual history of World War II, analogous to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. No serious historian should be missing The World at War in a collection, and no student should leave school without having seen at least some of its salient episodes. Rarely is film so essential. --Erik J. Macki
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
