Civilizations (2018) User Reviews

Really very good

[thecardigankid · 9/10 · 4 March 2018]

I am a lifelong fan of Kenneth Clark's original series (and its companion programs such as "The Ascent of Man" and "The Age of Uncertainty") but I think that the three presenters here really outdid themselves.

Let's be honest, Clark's view of the world is interesting and his classicism is compelling, but he was also proudly and famously a fairly conservative westerner at the end of the day. His view shouldn't be removed from TV channels, sure, but it's great to have an updated look at cultures from around the world, and taking into account another 50 years of scholarship since Clark wrote his piece (50!).

Another reviewer here - the only one thus far as I write this - lamented that both this and the original were only about art, not civilisation, and I feel I must defend. First of all, the original series was commissioned as a "personal view", not a wide-ranging study in the manner of Attenborough. But also both Clark in his first episode, and Simon Schama in this first episode, explain very clearly that they believe art is an access point into the mind of a culture. Schama states that art is where the essential nature of a particular culture expresses itself, where we can find a window into the people. And Clark of course quotes the great Ruskin: "Great Nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art." (Ruskin goes on to clarify that, while we must read all three of those books, only the art can actually be trusted as time goes on.)

Is it perfect? Well, of course not. 9 episodes can never encompass everything humanity has to offer. But isn't that the beauty of having decades of documentaries available to us? No single Attenborough documentary covers everything, but we have access to all of them. So too with the many works on civilisation and art, of which Clark is one, and now the impressive viewpoints of Schama, Mary Beard, and David Olusoga are another.

Civilisation, in spite of YouTube

[paul2001sw-1 · 9/10 · 6 May 2018]

I've often imagined I'd like the chance of offering up my personal version of history on television; what a history of art? Art is not so simply to reduce to a straightforward narrative, so this is a bold project for co-presenters Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga. And it's very heartening to see that the BBC hasn't tried to dumb down their commentary. In other BBC programmes I've seen Beard idiotically reciting Caesar's speaches in modern day Rome, and Schama presenting a fairly convetional wisdom; but here we get their true intellectual insights, and if in places the series is pretentious it's also hard to watch without genuinely learning something. 'Civilisations' has been contrasted to Kenneth Clark's famous series with almost the same title from 60 years previously, but without the latter's Euro-centric bias: to it's credit, though, it never feels to be taking cheap pot-shots at Europe, but rather puts Europe's acheivements (and failures) quite properly in their global context. This is the sort of programme that almost no-one but the BBC could make, and that even the BBC barely makes any more. In the age of YouTube, watch it while you can.

Life changing

[kate-911-98899 · 10/10 · 21 June 2021]

I've never "gotten" art, but this series changed my life. I feel like I understand it now, and it's so beautiful. The series explains how humans have expressed themselves through art, across different cultures and times.

Thank you for the amazing work.

This is an art history documentary series folks.

[jerbearmane3 · 10/10 · 6 April 2021]

Other reviews trounce this series because of what it isn't. That isnt fair. It never was an archaeology based program, BC Its a REMAKE of an Art hisytory series!!! Always educational and interesting, art history can be a bit much for the less academically astute. This is top notch work all around. Remember folks! You cant hate on a work of art bc it wasn,t what you thought it was.

The Politically Correct History of Art

[lavatch · 5/10 · 18 April 2018]

Kenneth Clark's landmark documentary series "Civilization" in 1969 was a breath-taking viewing experience and a guided tour through art and history with a master teacher. Of course, Clark's emphasis was on Western civilization.

In 2018, this series called "Civilizations" (in the plural) seeks to offer a more global perspective on art than that of Lord Clark. Unfortunately, the updated series is a sprawling survey of world cultures that lacks analytical depth in the attempt to understand the aesthetic and existential dimensions in art that were shared by world cultures.

If the producers of this program were genuinely interested in art through the ages with a global perspective, there should have been a more concerted effort to explore the collective unconscious of humankind as apparent in the universal creative process.

Schama is a fine scholar and a decent tour guide for the program. He recognizes that art is an expression of human desires, needs, and fears. He even cribs from Lord Clark, who asserted that it is easy to recognize civilization when looking into the face of its opposite in the barbarism of the Nazis. Schama has dusted off and updated Lord Clark's point by selecting the example of the destruction of art works in Palmyra by ISIS and the tragic death of the art curator Khaled al-Assad, the "protector of civilization."

The program is worth seeing for the beautiful photography and as an introduction to world art through the ages. But my personal reaction was an eagerness to return to view Lord Clark's "Civilization" series for a deeper appreciation and a truly profound understanding of the timelessness of art through the ages.

A poor remake of Clark's Civilisation.

[aljoclark · 2/10 · 3 March 2018]

First: the title. This is a ludicrous title for the series, because it is actually about art alone, and completely ignores all other aspects of civilisations - the science, mathematics and technology that makes civilisation possible; how they rise and fall; and even why they exist at all. Remains of Homo sapiens have been found which have been dated to around 300,000 years ago, but there were no civilisations until the last 10,000 years ago. This needs to be explained!

Also, it describes cave paintings which were created tens of thousands of years before civilisation, so they should be irrelevant if the title of the series actually has any meaning.

This criticism applies to Clark's series "Civilisation", but this new series, while similar, is far more incoherent, with several presenters instead of one, no structure, and claims made without any evidence: "These hand stencils do what nearly all art that would follow would aspire to. Firstly, they want to be seen by others. And then they want to endure beyond the life of the maker."

I would recommend the viewer to watch it with muted sound because visually it is great, but the commentary is distracting and adds little.

I expected more

[tannyg · 3/10 · 23 December 2018]

While visually I enjoyed this series, the hosts have very strong personal opinions, that often are exaggerated or unfair. They are pushing their own agenda too far. I especially found myself, in the episodes hosted by David Olusoga, having to mute the sound and just enjoy the art itself. His negativity, prejudices, obvious hate of the Western people's, and strong personal opinions repulsed me. He's somewhat unprofessional in fact!

Only Visual Art does not make up civilizations.

[rhsshr · 1/10 · 6 January 2019]

I had huge hope for this series. I did not even read IMDB reviews before giving it a try on Netflix. As episode by episode i gave chances my hope were increasingly lost until I felt forced to write a review here. Civilization is not just visual art. Civilization is mostly human development over time based on different factors. Technology forms a backbone here. Agriculture was the first steps towards creating modern civilization because it forced us hunter gatherers to settle down. Harnessing sun, Wind, water became other factors. Art too is an important parameter but where are other sources of art like music or folks stories or mythical creatures? Given the sheer presence of science and technology here I would give only one chapter to art when it comes to civilization. There are simply so many things that could have taken especially the water and the importance it plays in civilization. This series did came pretty close when it talked about Yangtze river in one episode but did not go down further. This series was mostly obsessed with European visual arts. There was a whole episode on dome. My question during that time was where is pagoda? Pagoda was to east as dome was to west. But it was not even mentioned. Utter disappointment.

Good but not enough.

[caicai1205 · 5/10 · 6 June 2018]

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? This documentary explained first two question which are where do we come from and what are we. However, it avoids the most important one, where are we going. Our human being writes down history, not for fun, it's for our children know the idea of what happened and what should be. We always want to keep our children away from danger, like tell them do not eat the red mushroom because it has poison. But if we only wrote the book and told them how beautiful the red mushroom is, they will pay the price which is their life, then learn.