The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
''The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century'' is a 1996
documentary series that aired on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
. It chronicles
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
over eight episodes. It was narrated by
Salome Jens
Salome Jens (born May 8, 1935) is an American dancer and actress of stage, film and television. She is perhaps best known for portraying the Female Changeling on ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' in the 1990s.
Early years
Jens was born in Milwau ...
. In the UK, the programme was renamed ''1914-18'' and was narrated by
Dame Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Regarded as one of Britain's best actresses, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her ...
.
The series won two
Primetime Emmy Awards: one for
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons (; born 19 September 1948) is an English actor and activist. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969 and has appeared in many West End theatre ...
for
Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, the other for Outstanding Informational Series. It was funded in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
. In 1997, it was given a
Peabody Award.
Production
The documentary series was produced by KCET/Los Angeles along with the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and the
Imperial War Museum in London. It took five years to make
and cost five million dollars.
Blaine Baggett was the executive producer and
Jay Winter
Jay Murray Winter (born May 28, 1945) is an American historian. He is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History at Yale University, where he focuses his research on World War I and its impact on the 20th century. His other interests include r ...
was the chief historian.
It aired in the United States on PBS in November 1996.
In contrast to the 1964 BBC production titled ''
The Great War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
'', which focused primarily on the military and political aspects of the war, this 1996 documentary, in keeping with more recent trends in historiography, used a wide variety of types of sources to cover social, cultural, economic and personal perspectives on the war in addition to the military and political.
[Cigognetti, L. and Sorlin, P. (2010) "History on Television: The Problem of Sources" in Bell, E. and Gray, A. ds''Televising History: Mediating the Past in Postwar Europe'', New York: Palgrave Macmillan.]
Voice cast
*
Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow ( ; born 10 June 1941) is a German-American actor. His international breakthrough was his portrayal of the good-hearted and sympathetic U-boat Captain "Der Alte" ("Old Man") in the 1981 war film ''Das Boot''.
He is also known f ...
as
Kaiser Wilhelm II
, house = Hohenzollern
, father = Frederick III, German Emperor
, mother = Victoria, Princess Royal
, religion = Lutheranism (Prussian United)
, signature = Wilhelm II, German Emperor Signature-.svg
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor ...
*
Martin Landau
Martin James Landau (; June 20, 1928 – July 15, 2017) was an American actor, acting coach, producer, and editorial cartoonist. His career began in the 1950s, with early film appearances including a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's ''North ...
as
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
*
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell (born Malcolm John Taylor; 13 June 1943) is a British actor, producer, and television presenter. He is best known for portraying Alex DeLarge in ''A Clockwork Orange.'' He was born in the Horsforth suburb of Leeds and raised i ...
as Charles Stockwell
*
Ian Richardson
Ian William Richardson (7 April 19349 February 2007) was a Scottish actor.
He portrayed the Machiavellian Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's '' House of Cards'' (1990–1995) television trilogy. Richardson was also a leading S ...
as
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...
*
René Auberjonois
René Murat Auberjonois (; June 1, 1940 – December 8, 2019) was an American actor and director. He was best known for portraying Odo on ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (1993–1999). He first achieved fame as a stage actor, winning the Tony A ...
as
Jean Jaurès
Auguste Marie Joseph Jean Léon Jaurès (3 September 185931 July 1914), commonly referred to as Jean Jaurès (; oc, Joan Jaurés ), was a French Socialist leader. Initially a Moderate Republican, he later became one of the first social dem ...
*
Paul Mercurio
Paul Joseph Mercurio (born 31 March 1963) is an Australian actor, dancer, TV presenter and politician. Mercurio is best known for his lead role in '' Strictly Ballroom'' 1992 and his role as a judge on TV series ''Dancing with the Stars''.
H ...
as Cyril Lawrence
*
Liam Neeson
William John Neeson (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Tony Awards. In 2020, he was placed 7th on ''The I ...
as
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
*
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes ( ; born 22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shak ...
as
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced b ...
*
Michael York
Michael York OBE (born Michael Hugh Johnson; 27 March 1942) is an English film, television and stage actor. After performing on-stage with the Royal National Theatre, he had a breakthrough in films by playing Tybalt in Franco Zeffirelli's ''Ro ...
as
Harold Owen
William Harold Owen (5 September 1897 – 26 November 1971) was the younger brother and biographer of the English poet and soldier, Wilfred Owen. He was born at the home of his paternal grandparents in Canon Street, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, where hi ...
*
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons (; born 19 September 1948) is an English actor and activist. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969 and has appeared in many West End theatre ...
as
Siegfried Sassoon
*
Natasha Richardson
Natasha Jane Richardson (11 May 1963 – 18 March 2009) was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, Richardson was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaug ...
as Vera Brittain
* Louis Gossett Jr. as W. E. B. Du Bois
* Jane Leeves as Caroline Webb
* Marion Ross as Käthe Kollwitz
* Nastassja Kinski as Rosa Luxemburg
* Martin Sheen as Frank Golder
* Udo Kier as Armin T. Wegner
* Yaphet Kotto as Kaphe Kamar
* Ned Beatty as Herbert Hoover
* Timothy Bottoms as Silver Parrish
* Helen Mirren as Margaret Randa
* Rupert Graves
* Elya Baskin as Yakov Yurovsky
* Leslie Caron as Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), Czarina Aleksandra Romanov
Episodes
# "Explosion" – Covers the causes of the war, focusing on international tensions resulting from rapid economic, technological, and social changes, as well as how the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria sparked a continent-wide war.
# "Stalemate" – Covers the German army’s initial advance through Belgium and France which was stopped at the First Battle of the Marne, Battle of the Marne and quickly followed by the armies digging extensive systems of trenches.
# "Total War" – Examines how the war spread geographically and extended beyond the front lines to civilian populations, including the Turkish massacre of Armenian civilians.
# "Slaughter" – Focuses on the battles at Verdun, the Somme, and Passchendaele.
# "Mutiny" – Examines the growing despair on all sides, culminating in revolution in Russia and a mutiny among a large portion of the French army.
# "Collapse" – Covers the German army’s failed offensive in spring 1918 attempting to end the war before the United States army arrived in large numbers, and the resulting collapse of the German government.
# "Hatred and Hunger" – Covers the continuing blockade on Germany as the Allies drew up the Treaty of Versailles, with considerable focus on
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
’s role in the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Paris Peace Conference.
# "War Without End" – Examines the cost of the war and its continuing reverberations through the rest of the 20th century.
Awards
The documentary was a critical success and received several awards:
* Two Emmy Awards
* Alfred Du Pont Journalism Award
* George Fopster Peabody Award
* Producers Guild of American Vision Award
* International Documentary Association: Best Limited Series Award
Book
A book of the same title, by Blaine Baggett and Jay Winter, was released along with the broadcast of the television series in 1996. Like the television series, the book covers social, cultural, economic and other issues in addition to the political and military aspects of the war. Though the book is a companion to the television series, it is written to stand on its own as a history of the war.
References
External links
PBS website for the series*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century
Peabody Award-winning television programs
1996 American television series debuts
1996 American television series endings
1996 British television series debuts
1996 British television series endings
1990s British documentary television series
Documentary television series about World War I
English-language television shows
1990s American documentary television series
BBC television documentaries about history during the 20th Century