Having lately developed something of an allergy, bordering on phobia, to the sainted David Attenborough and all his works, I have been avoiding his programmes like the proverbial plague. However, I thought I ought to be fair and try his latest series, especially as it's about the wildlife of the British Isles and is being touted as his swansong (I wouldn't count on that).
What I found was, predictably enough, more of the same – the mixture as before, with only the locations changed: camerawork of such stunning virtuosity it bore little relation to any visibly reality, contrived narratives of jeopardy and hair's-breadth escape (or decorously filmed dispatch), blatant emotional manipulation aided by non-stop music, banal commentary saying very little except to issue the standard Attenborough Jeremiad in various forms. This was gee-whiz television, wildlife presented as a range of exciting attractions in a theme park, one that is sadly threatened with closure. The only difference was that this time we had a rare sighting of the man himself on screen, communing with puffins.
Disappointing then, but in no way surprising. I'm reminded of Richard Mabey's words on the subject of wildlife documentaries (and Ruskin's on a bird's nest), as quoted on this blog a year ago, in 'Scripts Co-Authored by Nietzsche and Barbara Cartland'. Also of the words of lepidopterist extraordinaire Matthew Oates: 'To us, nature is something we do through the BBC Natural History Unit and a television screen. It scares me rigid what's going on...' I think he's right to be scared – and Attenborough's latest is not going to help.
Monday 13 March 2023
Wild Isles
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"Camerawork of such stunning virtuosity it bore little relation to any visible reality, contrived narratives of jeopardy and hair's-breadth escape (or decorously filmed dispatch), blatant emotional manipulation aided by non-stop music, banal commentary saying very little except to issue the standard Attenborough Jeremiad in various forms" - utterly brilliant. I am waging a losing battle in my household where other members say, "Oh come on, the visuals are so lovely, who cares about the rest?" Me, I care, I don't want to be lectured however pretty the pictures. I am going to try your excellent summary out on my family and see if I can persuade them to turn to the dying days of Jeremy Paxman's University Challenge instead.
ReplyDeleteGood luck, Zoe!
DeleteFor a trivial but amusing version of Attenborough, have a look on YouTube for a production of David Ives's one-act play "Time Flies". I consider that Ives was born to make Neil Simon look like Chekhov, but he can be entertaining.
ReplyDeleteThanks George. I must admit I had never heard of David Ives – I don't think he's much known over here. Time Flies sounds like great fun – I'll seek it out on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteYou and me both, Nige. My epiphany came at a lunch with the "great man": de haut en bas misanthropy is not a good posture.
ReplyDeleteYes, he is remorselessly anti-human – and because he seems so 'nice', nobody notices.
DeleteI don't know if this is relevant. A man of some discernment, the Orthodox monk Seraphim (Eugene Rose), somewhere expressed disapproval of calendars with gorgeous nature photography. (I imagine filters and so on had been used to engineer the images.) He thought this encouraged people to focus on a kind of false Paradise. I might not be paraphrasing him correctly, but I'm sure I'm close to what he said.
ReplyDeleteDale Nelson
I think he had a point – and perhaps there is something of pseudo-religion about this idealisation and glorification of Nature. Thanks Wurmbrand.
DeleteLast night I watched ten minutes of the Great Pessimist's new series; in that time he had made me, with his apocryphal gloom, long for a drunken Gussie Fink-Nottle who famously said: "I know just the sort of stuff that's needed--simple, manly, optimistic stuff straight from the shoulder."
ReplyDeleteHear hear!
ReplyDelete