@mensch1066

4 years ago

I feel as though this episode is a step in the wrong direction after the recent Iranian, Gouzenko and Operation Unthinkable videos. In addition to the errors on the map others have noted (Western Sahara being French controlled; Sudan somehow having its post-2011 borders), there is some pretty egregiously lazy editing of the stock footage. For example, around the seven minute mark David is talking about Arab attitudes towards the Soviets, but the footage is of students and tutors in Oxford or Cambridge in England! The beginning of the discussion about Lebanon after the 12 minute mark shows a U-boat firing its deck gun and German soldiers firing their kar98s, neither of which has anything to do with the topic at hand. Additionally, while I'm sure the British had flimsy prop-driven biplanes at Habbiniyah at some point right after the Great War, they certainly did not when they tried to negotiate a new treaty with the Iraqis after World War II. Yet that's the footage we see after the nine minute mark. Mentions of rioting in Baghdad after the four minute mark is accompanied by random footage of men marching through snow. I understand that virtually all stock footage is to some extent a contrivance. Most World War II documentaries use propaganda footage to illustrate panzer divisions on the march, for instance. With very few exceptions (the explosions of the Hindenberg and the battleship Barham come to mind) there is some artificiality if not fabrication of most footage from these time periods. However, I can't see much excuse for not bothering to align the footage with what is being described onscreen. It's as though some editing assistant just queued up some licensed newsreel footage from British Pathe or whoever, saw that "Iraq", "Egypt" or "Lebanon" was somewhere in the title, and then just used part of that newsreel regardless of whether the clip was relevant or not. I can't make sense of what I'm seeing onscreen otherwise, and I'm frankly disappointed.

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