People's Century
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People's Century is a television documentary series examining the 20th century. It was a joint production of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom and Public Broadcasting Service member station WGBH Boston in the United States. First shown on BBC in 1995, the series comprises 26 parts, each spanning one hour dealing with the major socio-economic, political, and cultural movements that shaped the 20th century. The documentary won the International Emmy Award among many other awards.
The series is interwoven with vivid interviews with people from all walks of life. It documents people during significant times with footage of landmark events, combined with personal photographs. The series was given expressive theme music by composer Zbigniew Preisner. The British version was narrated by Sean Barrett and Veronika Hyks, and the American edition by actors John Forsythe and Alfre Woodard.
One memorable aspect of the series is its title clip and title music, which form a finely edited depiction of moments of significance from the 20th century. It begins with images from World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, World War II, the Space Age, the May 1968 student revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Cold War, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The piece was done in the city of Prague, in the Czech Republic.
People's Century was coproduced by the BBC and WGBH with executive producers Peter Pagnamenta and Zvi Dor-Ner, respectively; along with producer David Espar.
[edit] The series
- Age of Hope - (1900) - The start of the 20th Century, a stable, unequal yet optimistic era where people were beginning to be introduced to new technologies and ideas.
- Killing Fields - (1916) - World War I
- Red Flag - (1917) - The Russian Revolution
- Lost Peace - (1919) - The emergence and failure of the League of Nations in the inter-war years.
- On the Line - (1926) - Economic growth and the redivision of labour caused by mass production
- Great Escape - (1927) - Cinema.
- Breadline - (1929) - The Great Depression, its effects in Britain, the United States and Chile, and the emergence of the New Deal.
- Sporting Fever - (1930) - The rise of sport as a form of mass entertainment.
- Master Race - (1933) - Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, from the election of Adolf Hitler to the 'Final Solution'
- Total War - (1939) - World War II.
- Fallout - (1945) - Nuclear power and weapons, from El Alamogordo to Chernobyl.
- Brave New World - (1945) - The Cold War, up to the erection of the Berlin Wall.
- Freedom Now - (1947) - Decolonisation in India and Africa.
- Boomtime - (1948) - the rebuilding of Europe and the economic boom in the West, up to the 1973 Oil Shock.
- Asia Rising - (1951) - Japan and South Korea's economic development.
- Living Longer - (1952) - The Growth in Medicine, including the irradication of smallpox and polio, the third world population boom, AIDS and the return of tuberculosis
- Endangered Planet - (1959) - Environmentalism.
- Skin Deep - (1960) - Racism and the civil rights movements in the United States and South Africa.
- Picture Power - (1963) - Television, from its introduction in pre-war Britain to its use as a newsgathering medium in the Gulf War.
- Great Leap - (1965) - China, from the revolution in 1949 to the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao Tse Tung.
- Young Blood - (1968) - The Baby Boomer generation, from the post-war baby boom to student radicalism in the West in the 1960s.
- Half the People - (1970) - The emancipation of women, from the Suffragettes to the 1996 Beijing conference on the status of women.
- War of the Flea- (1973) - the revolution in Cuba, Vietnam War and the Afghan War.
- God Fights Back - (1979) - Secularism in the Middle East, followed later by Islamic revolutions in Iran and Afghanistan; also the rise of evangelism in the United States.
- People Power - (1989) - The end of socialism in Europe and the fall of the Soviet Union.
- Fast Forward - (1997) - Globalism and the New World Order experienced in the United States, Russia, China and India; also the beginnings of the Internet and the break-up of Yugoslavia.
