Netflix is full of documentaries, on just about every imaginable theme. After our Top reco on these films which are well worth a course of History, here is a small complement with 5 excellent historical documentaries to discover.
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Five men and a war (2017)
Extraordinary documentary mini-series showing how Hollywood changed the Second World War and how the Second World War changed Hollywood, through the intertwined experiences of five filmmakers who interrupted their flourishing careers to serve their country: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra and George Stevens. The subject, already fascinating, is all the more amplified as it is carried by famous filmmakers and Hollywood talents: Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Lawrence Kasdan and Paul Greengrass. A colossal work carried out by the French specialist Laurent Bouzereau, well known to fans of making-of cult films, who sifted through more than a hundred hours of archives and news images, watched more than 40 documentaries and training films directed and produced by the five directors during the war, and studied 50 studio films and more than 30 hours of shooting and unedited images of their war films. All this to deliver a sum documentary in three parts of 59, 67 and 69 min. Unavoidable.
The War (2007)
Here too we are at the very top of the basket with The War. 14h documentary river (!) Signed in 2007 by the duo Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, justly awarded with 3 Primetime Emmy Awards, The war evokes the place of the United States during the Second World War, through the life of four American cities at the time of the conflict: Luverne (Minnesota), Mobile (Alabama), Sacramento (California) and Waterbury (Connecticut). The film tells the experiences of several people from these four cities, involved in the conflict on the European, African or Pacific theater and focuses on the effects of this war on them, on their families and on the community. Extremely rigorous, precise, illustrated by a number of patiently collected archive images, The war is a colossal synthesis, as fascinating as it is educational, over a crucial period of our History. Note also that the duo will be as strong with The Vietnam War, devoted to the conflict of the same name. Another (another) 18h documentary that they will take ten years to make. And that's good, it is also available on Netflix!
Hitler, a career (1977)
Famous German historian, but also journalist, editor and writer, Joachim Fest - deceased in 2007 -, recognized specialist of the Third Reich, was the author of a work in two volumes published in 1973, devoted to Hitler. Hitler. Volume 1: Youth and the conquest of power (1889-1933), and Hitler. Volume 2: The Führer (1933-1945). This 2h35 documentary, narrated in its French version by the actor Pierre Mondy, retraces the journey of Adolf Hitler, from the end of the First World War, from his political beginnings to his coming to power in 1933, dragging Germany into a racist and anti-Semitic totalitarian regime, triggering the outbreak of the Second World War. The documentary also deals with the fall of Hitler and the collapse of the Nazi regime, with the defeat of Germany in the war from the Battle of Stalingrad, passing through the Allied Landings in Normandy, until its suicide, April 30, 1945. In short, the entire historical spectrum, based on archival images of great quality. Logically very solid work. Note also, and for the record, that Joachim Fest is the author of Hitler's Last Days, published in 2004 by us, which served as the basis for the remarkable film by Oliver Hirschbiegel, The Fall, carried by an extraordinary and memorable Bruno Ganz in the twilight features of the dictator.
What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)
A legendary artist and passionate civil rights activist, Nina Simone marked her time as much as her time marked it. How did a child prodigy of the piano become a controversial Black Power icon? By mixing rare archives, testimonies from relatives - including Nina's own daughter - and exclusive audio tapes, What Happened, Miss Simone? retraces the extraordinary journey of one of the most appreciated and least understood artists of the 20th century.
The Last Man on The Moon (2014)
The fabulous History of the conquest of space and the Apollo missions has rightly fueled for years an atronomical quantity - no pun intended - of documentaries, with, often in the climax, the moon landing of Neil Armstrong, entered by the great door of History. The Last Man on The Moon returns to an astronaut clearly less known to the general public: Eugene Cernan. A moving story, by the way. Born March 14, 1934 in Chicago and died January 16, 2017 in Houston, Texas, He is the 11th lunar walker and remains, to this day, the last man to have set foot on lunar soil during the Apollo 17 mission, which will land on the Moon on December 11, 1972. With this mission, the American space agency, NASA, concluded the project launched in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, which aimed to bring men to the Moon. Richly illustrated with archival images and especially the precious testimony of Eugene Cernan who recalls this experience that changed his life, The Last Man on The Moon is really to be discovered.
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