World at War

The World at War represents the expository mode of documentary film making because it utilizes the conventional voice of God type narration. The narrator in this documentary is Laurence Olivier. Olivier has the deep authoritative male voice that voice of God narrators are suppose to have. In addition to this quality though, Olivier was also casted as the narrator because the producer Jeremy Isaacs wanted to use a star personae in order to attract a bigger audience.

Throughout the documentary, Olivier's voice is describing what exactly is taking place on the screen. In the section of the documentary that we saw in class, there were no eyewitnesses or experts interviewed. Everything was controlled. This form of documentary film making is often criticized, though, because the voice of the narrator seems to take precedence over what is actually happening in the film. Instead of concentrating on the images, the audience is focusing more on the narration. Due to this, the audience is unable to make their own assumptions about what is happening since they are flat out told by the narrator.

Overall, the documentary World at War is remarkably objective. The goal of it is just to give the facts about World War II. Since the filmmaker had to do vast amounts of research on the topic before actually constructing the documentary, he is considered to be the teacher. The audience is the willing receptive pupils because we are listening to what the filmmaker is telling us about the subject matter.



In the 20th episode of the documentary, the final solution is talked about. As the narrator, Olivier says, "You will find it grim viewing, but watch it if you can. This happened in our time but must not happen again." At this point, the film goes from being objective to subjective. The documentary is no longer just stating the facts; it's telling the audience to do something.