Civilisations | |
---|---|
Genre | Documentary, Art history, History of art |
Presented by | Simon Schama, Mary Beard, David Olusoga |
Opening theme | Tandis Jenhudson |
Composer | Tandis Jenhudson |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 9 |
Production | |
Executive producers | Denys Blakeway, Michael Jackson, Mark Bell, Jonty Claypole |
Producers | Melanie Fall, Ian MacMillan |
Production location | Global |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Production companies | BBC, Nutopia |
Original release | |
Network | BBC Two |
Release | 1 March 2018 |
Civilisations is a 2018 British art history television documentary series produced by the BBC in association with PBS as a follow-up to the original 1969 landmark series Civilisation by Kenneth Clark. Individual episodes are presented by Simon Schama, Mary Beard, and David Olusoga, [1] with music composed by Tandis Jenhudson. [2] The PBS release differs in several respects, including series narration by Liev Schreiber. [3]
On 25 March 2014, Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, announced a commitment to a new version of Lord Clark's original Civilisation. [4] The new Civilisations series was officially announced by the BBC on 20 December 2015. [5]
While Clark's original Civilisation focused on the influence of western European art, Civilisations presents a global perspective on the role that art has played in shaping civilisations across the world, filming across 6 continents, and in 31 countries.
The series is a co-production with The Open University, who provided academic input into the programmes. [6]
As a companion to the series, the BBC released Civilisations AR, an augmented reality smartphone app that enabled users to view and explore art and historical artefacts from around the world. It was developed internally by a BBC Research and Development team based in London, in collaboration with Nexus Studios. [7]
The app's exhibits include:
The Civilisations Festival was a season of events organised by the BBC in partnership with museums, galleries, libraries and archives across the UK, created to coincide with the airing of the Civilisations programme. [8] It runs from 2 to 11 March 2018 and the trailer for the festival was released on 8 February 2018. [9]
Profile Books issued two tie-in volumes adapted by Mary Beard and David Olusoga from their episodes; respectively, these books are Civilisations: How Do We Look / The Eye of Faith ( ISBN 978-1781259993) and Civilisations: First Contact / The Cult of Progress ( ISBN 978-1781259979).
The series was launched at a preview event at the National Gallery in London on 6 February 2018. [10] Sir David Attenborough, who commissioned the original series with Kenneth Clark, made a special guest appearance, saying he "cannot wait to see the series". He also stated that the BBC could not simply have reproduced the approach of the original series, stating "Society has changed. We have an international society, a multi-ethnic society. You can't just do it in the way we did it." [11] The first trailer was released on 7 February 2018. [12]
Civilisations premiered on 1 March 2018 on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. [13]
Episode | Title [14] | Presented by | Description | Release date |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Second Moment of Creation" | Simon Schama | Creativity and imagination as essential to human culture. | 1 March 2018 |
2 | "How Do We Look?" | Mary Beard | Images of the human body throughout ancient art. | 1 March 2018 |
3 | "Picturing Paradise" | Simon Schama | Depictions of nature and landscapes. | 1 March 2018 |
4 | "The Eye of Faith" | Mary Beard | Religious art and iconoclasm. | 1 March 2018 |
5 | "The Triumph of Art" | Simon Schama | Mutual influence of the Islamic Golden Age and European Renaissance. | 1 March 2018 |
6 | "First Contact" | David Olusoga | Global exploration and its impact among distant cultures. | 1 March 2018 |
7 | "Radiance" | Simon Schama | Colour and light in the visual arts. | 1 March 2018 |
8 | "The Cult of Progress" | David Olusoga | Reflection and reaction to colonialism and imperialism. | 1 March 2018 |
9 | "The Vital Spark" | Simon Schama | Fate of art in the age of industrialism and commodification. | 1 March 2018 |
The List gave the series 4 of out 5 stars, based on viewings of the first two episodes: "it's a visual feast as the cameras sweep across ruined cities and townships or focuses in for tight close-ups to emphasise the exquisite details of relics, pottery and sculpture. Even more inspiring is the breadth of knowledge, beautiful nuggets of information and insights into ancient worlds. Accessible and intelligent, Civilisations conveys a message of globalism, revelling in the variety of our species' ingenuity on an international scale." [15]
The Daily Telegraph in its review of the ninth and final episode concluded: "as nine discrete lectures, delivered by three of our most captivating cultural commentators, interrogating how we view art and what it means to us today, this has been a fascinating project that was undoubtedly worth the effort." [16]
Mark Lawson approved of the series but noted that the "format of TV as lecture theatre" had not changed since the 1969 original. He wrote: "the BBC has spectacularly and intelligently remade its 1969 hit in a way that reflects shifts in cultural and art historical thinking. Less apparent is any sense of fresh reflection about how and why art should be put on TV." [17]
BBC's arts editor Will Gompertz described the series as "patchwork programmes with rambling narratives that promise much but deliver little in way of fresh insight or surprising connections." He commented that although the scripts were "far from being literary masterpieces, the camerawork is of the highest quality throughout [with] plenty of delicious visual treats". He concluded: "a well-intentioned, well-funded series that has top TV talent in all departments but which ended up being less than the sum of its parts." [18]
Andrew Ferguson reviewed and contrasted Civilisations with its 1969 original. Ferguson recommended the series and praised the "stunning" imagery. However, he criticised the departure from Clark's chronological approach and a tendency to dwell on the function of featured works of art, particularly if the piece is considered to have preserved the power of an elite class. He wrote: “In the hands of our narrators, art is reduced to an instrument of oppression. If you are uncomfortable with this approach—seeing the glories of human creativity reduced to tools for class warfare—too bad." [19]
The London Evening Standard also provided a comparison with the original series: "Is Civilisations better than Civilisation? It’s different, it’s got modern sensibilities and different perspectives. But it lacks Clark’s authority: his judgments carried weight, though they were challenged in a later series by John Berger. It also lacks the coherence of his single story of Western culture and, yep, cultural relativism is the name of the game. But it reminds us of humanity’s boundless creativity." [20]
The Washington Post art critic Sebastian Smee described the PBS series as "compulsory viewing for a new generation of viewers". [21] Smee rejected any comparison with the original: "In truth, the comparison is invidious. Civilisation was great, but the series is 50 years old, and looks it. Today, neither Lord Clark’s benign pomposity nor his open disdain for contemporary culture would fly. His focus, too, on the West seems perverse in our globalized era, when we all have become more conscious of the complexity of interactions between cultures throughout history." [21]
Former BAFTA Breakthrough Brit Tandis Jenhudson [22] composed the original music for the series, as well as the main title theme (which features soprano Caroline Kennedy). A digital soundtrack will be released on 23 September 2018 and his score will also form the soundtrack of the BBC Civilisations AR augmented-reality app on both iOS and Android. [2]
Released as Civilizations by PBS in the United States, the individual programmes have distinct treatments and narrative arc, with Liev Schreiber as the series narrator. [3] While maintaining the principal contributions of Schama, Beard, and Olusoga, joining them are international artists and experts including religious studies scholar Jamal J. Elias, INAH anthropologist Rebecca Gonzalez-Lauck, art critic Jonathan Jones, Egyptology professor Salima Ikram, Asian Art Museum director Jay Xu, and history professor Maya Jasanoff. [23]
Episode | Title | Description | Broadcast |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "The Second Moment of Creation" | Creativity and imagination as essential to human culture. | 17 April 2018 |
2 | "How Do We Look?" | Images of the human body throughout ancient art. | 24 April 2018 |
3 | "God and Art" | Religious art and iconoclasm. | 1 May 2018 |
4 | "Encounters" | Global exploration and its impact among distant cultures. | 8 May 2018 |
5 | "Renaissances" | Mutual influence of the Islamic Golden Age and European Renaissance. | 15 May 2018 |
6 | "Paradise on Earth" | Depictions of nature and landscapes. | 12 June 2018 |
7 | "Color and Light" | Color and light in the visual arts. | 19 June 2018 |
8 | "The Cult of Progress" | Reflection and reaction to colonialism and imperialism. | 26 June 2018 |
9 | "What is Art Good For?" | Fate of art in the age of industrialism and commodification. | 3 July 2018 |
Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television, presenting a succession of programmes on the arts from the 1950s to the 1970s, the largest and best known being the Civilisation series in 1969.
Michael David Wood, is an English historian and broadcaster. He has presented numerous well-known television documentary series from the late 1970s to the present day. Wood has also written a number of books on English history, including In Search of the Dark Ages, The Domesday Quest, The Story of England, and In Search of Shakespeare. He was appointed Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester in 2013.
The Ascent of Man is a 13-part British documentary television series produced by the BBC and Time-Life Films first broadcast in 1973. It was written and presented by Polish-British mathematician and historian of science Jacob Bronowski, who also authored a book adaptation. Intended as a series of "personal view" documentaries in the manner of Kenneth Clark's 1969 series Civilisation, the series received acclaim for Bronowski's highly informed but eloquently simple analysis, his long, elegant monologues, and its extensive location shoots. The programme began broadcasting on BBC2 at 9 pm on Saturday, 5 May 1973 and was released in the US 7 January 1975. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the documentary was again broadcast on BBC4 in the Summer of 2023.
Sir Simon Michael Schama is an English historian and television presenter. He specialises in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University.
Antiques Roadshow is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom to appraise antiques brought in by local people. It has been running since 1979, based on a 1977 documentary programme.
A civilization or civilisation is a complex society
Civilisation—in full, Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark—is a 1969 British television documentary series written and presented by the art historian Kenneth Clark.
Dame Winifred Mary Beard is an English classicist specialising in Ancient Rome. She is a trustee of the British Museum and formerly held a personal professorship of classics at the University of Cambridge. She is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and Royal Academy of Arts Professor of Ancient Literature.
A History of Britain is a BBC documentary series written and presented by Simon Schama, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 30 September 2000.
Simon Schama's Power of Art is an eight-part BBC TV mini-series examining the works of eight artists, the context surrounding one of their works and the message they intended to convey with these. It was written, created, narrated, and presented by Simon Schama. The series was first broadcast in October 2006 on BBC2, and was aired in multiple countries from 2006 to 2008, even being translated to Persian and Italian. The series is presented in chronological order with the oldest artists being the earliest episodes and the most recent artists being the last episodes. The series looks at the following artists and works:
David Belton is a director, writer, and film producer. His experiences as a BBC reporter covering the 1994 Rwandan genocide led him to write the original story and produce the film Shooting Dogs, directed by Michael Caton-Jones, which dramatizes the events at the Ecole Technique Officielle. It was retitled Beyond the Gates for its 2007 U.S. release. He has directed documentaries and drama-documentaries and documentaries for PBS and dramas for the BBC. His book, When the Hills Ask for Your Blood was published in January 2014 by Doubleday.
The Great British Bake Off is a British television baking competition, produced by Love Productions, in which a group of amateur bakers compete against each other in a series of rounds, attempting to impress two judges with their baking skills. One contestant is eliminated in each round, and the winner is selected from the three contestants who reach the final.
Nutopia is an independent television production company established in 2008 with offices in London and Washington, D.C. It specializes in making non-scripted and documentary television programmes, including America: The Story of Us for History, One Strange Rock for National Geographic and Civilisations for BBC.
Call the Midwife is a British period drama television series about a group of nurse midwives working in the East End of London in the late 1950s and 1960s. The principal cast of the show has included Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, Helen George, Bryony Hannah, Laura Main, Jenny Agutter, Pam Ferris, Judy Parfitt, Cliff Parisi, Stephen McGann, Ben Caplan, Daniel Laurie, Emerald Fennell, Victoria Yeates, Jack Ashton, Sam Huntington, Jeff Branson, Jorja Fox, Missy Yeager, Tammy Lauren, Ashley Hamilton, William Sanderson, Greg Mullavey, Andrea Anders, Linda Bassett, Laura Donnelly, Jane Elliott, Charlotte Ritchie, Kate Lamb, Reagan Pasternak, Sarah Sutherland, Holliday Grainger, Casey LaBow, Heather Hemmens, Zoe McLellan, Meera Jasmine, Jodi Lynn O'Keefe, Lindsey Kraft, Jennifer Kirby, Annabelle Apsion, Vanessa Lengies, Genevieve Buechner, and Leonie Elliott.
The Story of the Jews is a television series, in five parts, presented by British historian Simon Schama. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two in September 2013 and in the United States on PBS in March and April 2014.
Wolf Hall is a British television series adaptation of two of Hilary Mantel's novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, a fictionalised biography documenting the life of Thomas Cromwell.
Tandis Jenhudson is a Emmy-nominated British composer, musician and medical doctor, best known for his work on film and television soundtracks. He has also received two Royal Television Society award nominations and is the first composer to have been honoured as a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit.
David Adetayo Olusoga is a British historian, writer and broadcaster. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester. Olusoga has presented historical documentaries on the BBC and contributed to The One Show and The Guardian.
A House Through Time is a documentary television series made by Twenty Twenty Television for BBC Two. The first series aired in 2018, a second in 2019, a third in 2020, and a fourth in 2021, with each examining the history of a single residential building in an English city. A fifth series, in 2024, features apartment blocks in London and Berlin.
Vienna Blood is a British-Austrian procedural drama television series set in Vienna, Austria, in the early 1900s. Based on the Liebermann novels by Frank Tallis, the series follows Max Liebermann, a doctor and student of Sigmund Freud, as he assists Police Detective Oskar Rheinhardt. By providing psychological insights into the subjects’ motives, they investigate disturbing murders with success. A continuing sub-theme is the growing antisemitism against the Liebermann family. Max is a member of a liberal British Jewish family in Leopoldstadt, a traditional Jewish district, while Oskar, a lapsed Catholic, is based at that district's police precinct.