Watching "Our Century"

Just a side note, the album I'm working out of was put together by my grandmother Jane Gilbert (Smith) Rush, who carefully saved years worth of my dad's column.  The dates are recorded on each article in her own handwriting.

July 10,1988

Yes, I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for historical documentaries, from the vapid, though beautifully scored "Victory at Sea" to the voice of doom "World at War."  But the Arts and Entertainment Network has introduced such a superb one, judging form the first episode, that I have to postpone my promised column on videotape renting to tell you about it.

"Our Century" is its name, and last Monday's debut was an hour-long history of World War I.  As Edward Herrmann, who introduces the show, says, this particular episode was made by French filmmakers in collaboration with the French Ministry of defense, and so the perspective is French.  And, as I'll point out, a one hour documentary can hardly do a four year tragedy justice  But "Our Century" comes close, thanks to the simplicity and rationality of Jean Claude Dassier's narrative, and especially to the incredible quality and editing of its images.

My sole quibble is that many shots, filmed 70 years ago at speeds slower than the now standard 24 frames-per-second, are projected at modern speed, making the motion too fast.

The battle footage is beautiful in a fascinating, horrifying way.  Somehow, dedicated courageous camera operators with their clumsy, hand-cranked machines took wonderful shots of young men living, working, dying and being buried under conditions that would make a trench rat sick.  We see the boredom, the action, such innovations as armored wheelbarrows, barbed wire blowing up, soldiers from as far away as Indochina, kites to mark artillery, men entertaining themselves behind the lines because there was no regular leave, and Colonials of all stripes caught up in a slaughter that had no interest for them.

We see body blasting artillery, and the horror of gas that made men die "like flies, choking and vomiting, their throats on fire."

We see the joy of civilian life contrasted with the mind-deadening fatigue of military life.

We see ships blowing up, submarines being hunted, and men helplessly floundering about in the water before going under.  We see horses used en mass for the last time after thousands of years of warfare.

And most of all, we see mud.  Because if war had any one theme besides blood and rotting flesh, it had to be the insect infested, rat-tracked, clinging, stinking mud.

And when it was over, and it was never over for the grieving and the horribly wounded, we said, "Never again..."  for yet another time.

"Our Century" is shown on the Arts & Entertainment network on Monday at 9 p.m. and early Tuesday morning at 1 a.m.  Next week's chapter is on the Russian Revolution.

Malcolm Rush works in the composing room of the Bennington Banner.