The World at War

[xolo]

A grey day of endless rain and wind, perfect for watching that bleak masterpiece, "The World at War". The local PBS station used to show an episode each Saturday afternoon in '73 or '74, not too long after it came out in the UK. It was perfect timing for me. I was beginning to develop a sense of history, and the impermanence of the present. I loved hearing family and acquaintances talk about what they remembered of that time, like a distant age of myth to me, but something that, for them, was relatively recent in their memories. It's like no documentary I've seen before or since. Olivier narrates it, and, I suspect, had substantial input into the narration. He uses silence to great effect, and sounds so resigned, so matter of fact when narrating horrors that are almost past imagining. It's that quiet manner that gives the narrative so much power. These things really happened, and all the tears, and all the regrets that ever were, cannot unmake one bit of it.

A rainy afternoon just completes the mood for me.

Original posted at https://rain-gryphon.dreamwidth.org/134959.html