Everything about The Ascent Of Man totally explained
The Ascent of Man (
1973) was a groundbreaking
BBC documentary series, produced in association with
Time-Life Films, produced by
Adrian Malone, and written and presented by
Jacob Bronowski.
Overview
The 13-part series was shot on
16mm film. Executive Producer was Adrian Malone, film directors Dick Gilling, Mick Jackson, David Kennard, David Paterson. Malone and Kennard later emigrated to Hollywood, where they produced
Carl Sagan's . Jackson followed them, and now directs feature films.
The title alludes to
The Descent of Man by
Charles Darwin. Over the course of thirteen episodes, Bronowski travelled around the world in order to trace the development of human society through its understanding of
science. It was written specifically to complement
Kenneth Clark's (
1969), in which Clark argued that art was a major driving force in cultural evolution. Bronowski wrote in his 1951 book
"The Commonsense of Science" :
"It has been one of the most destructive modern prejudices that art and science are different and somehow incompatible interests". Both series had been commissioned by
David Attenborough, then controller of
BBC2, although he'd moved on by the time
The Ascent of Man was aired.
The book of the series,
The Ascent of Man: A Personal View by J. Bronowski, is an almost word-for-word transcript from the original television episodes, diverging from Bronowski's original narration only where the lack of images might make its meaning unclear.
Just over a year after the series appeared, Bronowski died.
Series outline
- "Lower than the Angels" (describes evolution of the head)
- "The Harvest of the Seasons" (agriculture and the first settlements)
- "The Grain in the Stone" (tools, early human migration)
- "The Hidden Structure" (fire, metals and alchemy)
- "Music of the Spheres" (the language of numbers)
- "The Starry Messenger" (Galileo's universe)
- "The Majestic Clockwork" (explores Kepler and Newton's laws)
- "The Drive for Power" (the Industrial Revolution)
- "The Ladder of Creation" (Darwin and Wallace's ideas on the origin of species)
- "World within World" (the story of the periodic table)
- "Knowledge or Certainty" (There is no absolute knowledge)
- "Generation upon Generation" (cloning of identical forms)
- "The Long Childhood" (The commitment of man)
Reruns in the UK
In the late
1990s Douglas Adams recorded new introductions and afterwords for a
rerun of the series on the British satellite channel
UK Horizons. This was billed as the first complete rerun of the series in more than a decade. However, each episode was cut by up to five minutes to make room for the new material and for commercial breaks.
In about
2000 it was reported that the BBC had been approached by
Channel 5 which wanted to screen the series in prime time, but the BBC refused to lease the rights.
Shortly afterward, BBC Two began a rerun as part of its
Learning Zone block, in late night and early morning time slots, and cut by five minutes per episode. The reason for the cuts in this case is unclear, since BBC Two has no commercials.
In fact the complete series hasn't been broadcast uncut in Britain since
1986, although the BBC Knowledge channel (the forerunner of
BBC Four) screened some selected complete episodes.
Video release
United States and Canada
The series is available from several suppliers - including
Ambrose Video Publishing
(
video or
DVD) and
Documentary-Video (
video or
DVD).
United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand
The series was belatedly released on PAL VHS and on Region 2 & 4 PAL DVD in the UK in early
2005, initially on
mail order only. It received a general release on
April 18 2005. This version doesn't include the pieces by Douglas Adams; the only extra feature, apart from a comprehensive illustrated booklet on the making of the series, is a short reminiscence by
Sir David Attenborough, who commissioned the series. This DVD set has also been released in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Further Information
Get more info on 'The Ascent Of Man'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://the_ascent_of_man.totallyexplained.com">The Ascent of Man Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
