Monday, 29 February 2016

BBC - The Art of Gothic

Andrew Graham-Dixon, an art broadcaster presents ‘The Art of the Gothic.’ There are three episodes in this series. As part of our directed study, we had to watch all three episodes and write a review. I’m personally not a fan of the Gothic genre as a whole, nor horror movies therefore this programme wasn’t particularly fascinating to me however what I did find interesting was all the information Andrew provided us about the 19th century. I do enjoy learning of history.

The first episode looks more at the mid-18th century England, called the ‘Gothic Revival.’ It also goes into depth about monsters, ghouls, ghosts and gothic pornography. I personally don’t believe in ghosts, or monsters or anything along those lines. I believe it’s all a fantasy however I know as a fact many people would disagree with me.

The second episode looks at the ‘Industrial Revolution’, including literature and art. I enjoyed this episode more than the first. It was interesting to learn of Prince Albert and Shelly’s novel, Frankenstein.

The third episode is quite different to all the above as it explores WW1 and the 20th century. After watching this episode, I realised that many aspects of the Gothic genre still live with us today in the 21st century.

Overall this programme was interesting to watch, mainly because it explored the historical background of the genre. There were some bits however where I had no idea what was going on due to the language used. I'm not so confident with my listening skills, as I do prefer to just read, meaning I had to replay some scenes before I moved onto the next in order to fully understand what's being said.

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