As a stay-at-home artist, I tend to rely on my much-too-large of a collection of movies for background noise and companionship. I don’t get cable so I rely on downloads for any new influx and am looking for some suggestions for some quality produced documentaries and historical series that are hopefully available on a torrent site. I tend more towards history than nature shows; I am listening more than watching. I also like extended series that will engage me for multiple hours.
An example of those series which I have enjoyed tremendously and will happily re-watch a number of times:
PBS American Experience (just about all of them and most recently the The Lobotomist, John Addams, the one on Whaling and the Donner Party were especially good).
Terry Jones’ series on The Crusades and The Barbarians.
BBC’s series on The Beauty of Maps.
The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (an especially great series done about 1996 - never saw a better documentary on WWI).
Check out the History Channel’s Boudica documentary. It’s got old British guys talking about Roman battles! Not sure how much they charge for it- the History Channel tends to make their stuff expensive.
Three Men In A Boat, and its followups. The first one follows the Jerome K. Jerome journey. Griff Rhys Jones, Rory McGrath and Dara O’Briain travel around Britain in various water-going craft. Currently 8 hours of documentaries.
Coast. An amazingly thorough and involved series about the coasts of Britain and surrounds.
Time Team. Archaeology show. Been going for 17 years.
The Smithsonian Folkways Collection podcast is amazing, 26 or so hours about Moses Asche and Folkways Records, and the collection of records. Just amazing. And they play the whole song they are discussing, not just a little snippet =)
My all time favorite documentary series was James Burkes’ “Connections” series, on the history of technology. Fascinating stuff, narrated briskly and entertainingly by Burke himself.
I’ve got Schama’s History of Britain downloading now. Trom, I should have said that I have all of Ken Burns’ works already.
Guano - Unfortunately, the Three Men in a Boat series hasn’t shown up in any of the searches I’ve done on the current torrents I am using. I do have one of the* Time Team* specials on Westminster Abbey downloading now as well. I’ll see how I like it before looking at the others.
Evil Captor - I remember those Connections series! The first series or two was really good but I thought that later, he was making some really questionable stretches of connectivity…
Aruvqan - I am very intrigued with the Folkways series you mentioned. I have never actually listened to a podcast before…
One of my favourite documentaries of recent years was The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon, M & K being two early filmamkers in the years after the turn of the 20th century. They used to go around northern England filming everyday scenes and then charging people to marvel at the sight of their own image. Someone found a ton of their material in a shop a few years ago, and it was restored.
It was just a fascinating glimpse into that period. Normally when you see very early film footage it is of some historical event or is rather formal, but this was just ordinary people sort of hanging out, pouring out of factories, taking day trips to the seaside, that kind of thing. I’ve never seen footage of that vintage that looked so real, if you know what I mean.
You’d probably like podcasts if you’re doing something else anyway; there’s no chance you’d want to look at something. It would have been hard for me not to watch The Power of Art!
I don’t know if you can download or stream them, but the series POV and Independent Lens have some fabulous documentaries.
If you like American Experience you’d probably like American Masters too. There’s programs on John James Audubon, Cole Porter, Edward R. Murrow, Carol Burnett. Who else? James Brown, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Cary Grant.
Nova is very reliable as well. They frequently feature historical subjects as well as science and nature.
Oddly, I am the opposite. I occasionally will put on the radio but find myself stopping what I am doing all the time to write down a certain song or to listen more closely. With The Power of Art, I am already very familiar with the works of art which he is discussing. And I guess I have gotten really accustomed to half-watching or just glancing at whatever is on and getting the gist of it.
Rape of Europa seems to be in the aug/sept rotation for PBS. Excellent documentary about the quest for art, the attempts to hide it and protect it during WWII.
Ken Burns has done a number of significant documentaries, but, IMNSHO, his Civil War, is the best. It’s style of narration became influential, with many shows copying it.