Post-script: 'historians' and 'truth.'

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

A post-script to my previous post - some of you might like this - it's from the last U.S. election night coverage on the BBC - it's the wee small hours of the morning (Obama's big victory speech was on at 5am here) and methinks someone has been enjoying the BBC's 'hospitality' room a bit...but I love Dimbleby's little comment right at the end here...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3v-wmqc27U&feature=related and there' this, too... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCQrnSQ4rTo&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=D638E3BA48901241&index=21 (that should be the Dead Ringers / Simon Schama's fee sketch: the woman who is now head of BBC2 factual programming - and salaries - thinks the man is a towering genius whose book 'Citizens' changed her life. Blimey. Explains a lot about BBC history programmes, though: the pro-English Revolution 1640's set drama the Devil's Whore was dropped by the BBC (I'm guessing when they realised Charles 1 wasn't going to be the 'hero') and made instead by the independent Channel4).

P.P.S. For a taste of BBC things to come, the entire episode of Schama's last televisual rant against the French Revolution has been posted on Youtube. Dig the spotty teenage Robespierre, and the even spottier Danton (who looks like a wino), scabby Marat, not to mention the hideously deformed David himself - the old 'French Revolution as Zoo' approach....it's not pleasant, but anyone out there who wants more stuff for essays etc. on right-wing/revisionist/reactionary/pop cultural 'takes' on the revolution can use this as a good example of the genre. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDi6jyifhY4

Comments

[misatheredpanda.livejournal.com]

- "strange line-dance of death", "David's contribution to the decapitation campaign", "orgies of public hugging"

- the little aristocrat extras and their silly expressions (especially the 'fear' for the animals at the very beginning)..... I just want to take them home!

- the whole bit about the king's death

- gratuitous close-ups of Corday dressing herself

- Schama's variable pronunciations of 'Robespierre'

- Danton using his 'inside voice' to deliver speeches

- apparently the Oath of the Horatii sparked the revolution?

- and my favourite part: Schama telling us what we think. IT'S ALL CLEAR TO ME NOW. IT WASN'T ART, IT WAS WITCHCRAFT!!!

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

gratuitous close-ups of Corday dressing herself

First: I really want to know how her stockings hold. Second: ...is putting a gigantic butcher's knife right there, between the fragile skin of your thigh and the fragile linen of your stockings, really safe, Charlotte? Third: same question as the first, but with the gigantic butcher's knife involved.

[misatheredpanda.livejournal.com]

I was just wondering about Marat's reaction to her pulling the knife out from there.