European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 13, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Pm so special on Columbus hardly picture perfectly David Zurawik the Baltimore Sun pcs wants viewers to believe that Columbus and the age of discovery is a big big to event. It Isnit. The four part series is one of those Public television projects that s More interesting to talk about than to watch. The seven hour documentary which ran stateside this past week and might be picked up by the armed forces radio and television service has More in common with those had on the disk soporific films students must sit through in High school history classes than say Ken Burns the civil War. Burns work not Only spoke the language of television with great eloquence but actually enriched it. Columbus Speaks the language of the lecture Hall and textbook. The comparison is necessary because pcs presented Columbus the Way it did the civil War a across four consecutive nights of prime time. And the network used terms like a epic documentary a which critics applied to the civil War to describe this program. Its a a epic Only in the dreams of pcs publicists. But that does no to mean Columbus is a total failure. Its poor television but solid history. The documentary brings useful information to a larger debate in our society that centers on whether celebrating the 500th anniversary of Columbus discovery of America is a Good and healthy impulse or another sorry example of ethnocentric thinking. Headlines such As Hail Columbus dead White male have been appearing Over published stories on the matter for the past Ali documentary mixes punch with Defiance by Walter Goodman the new York times his past weeks biography of Muhammad Ali on the stateside arts amp entertainment Cable network catches the courage Independence and Sharpness that made the boxing Champion an admired figure outside the ring too. The hour with its scenes from the big fights and the hype that accompanied them covers his career from his youth As an Amateur Boxer when he was still known As Cassius Clay a to his Gold medal in the 1960 Rome olympics to his interrupted years As Champ. There he is doing his famous preflight theatrics especially before the 1963 match with Sonny Liston that made him no. 1 a the world did not dream when they Laid Down their Money that they painting of Columbus Santa Maria. Year or so. Its a debate that Calls for More solid information rather than political rhetoric. The information is there in Columbus but is so poorly presented that the question is whether viewers will stay with the show Long enough to hear it. Admittedly producer Zvi Dor Ner had a huge problem in terms of to technique How to present life in the 14th and 15th centuries when you have virtually no visuals to work with. Burns at least had still photographs to use from the civil War. Dor nerds answer is to use a Hodgepodge of non fiction to techniques trying to hold them together with the baling wire of a lecture Hall narrative featuring historians such As Franklin Knight from Johns Hopkins University. The commentators Are distinguished for their scholarship but none of them is a Shelby Foote of civil War Fame in terms of to presentation. And what a strange visual creature Dor Ner winds up with. The first hour takes viewers to would see a total eclipse of it was t just brashness. The challenger predicted he would win in five rounds and Liston decided not to come out for the sixth. When Arthur Ashe one of the admiring observers interviewed Here says a the talked for All of us a he is speaking less of the fighters punchy rhymes than of his Defiance of Power and Public opinion. In the 1960s he converted to the nation of islam and changed his name a thumb in the Eye to the White establishment. In 1965, As the documentary shows Ali took revenge in the ring on Floyd Patterson who continued to Call him Clay and seemed to represent the sort of respectable Black athlete Whites could easily Root for. Ashe is pained by the victors cruelty in that bout when Ali taunted the battered Patterson and refused to end his pain and humiliation with a final punch. Alias championship was lost outside the ring in 1967 when he was sentenced to five years in prison for refusing to be drafted because he opposed the Vietnam War. The sentence would be overturned but his boxing career seemed ended at its height. His astounding comeback in the 1970s in Lough fights against Joe Frazier and George Foreman powerfully if briefly captured Here remains More than just a sports Story. Dick Schaap the sports reporter expresses the modern Day Genoa to help us understand 1 -4th Century Genoa a to get context Tor Columbus and his world. The form Here is part travelogue part journalism with historian Mauricio Obregon As reporter. Obregon was another of Dor Ncry a bad Calls. In to terms he s Pedantic and olt put Ting a the opposite of viewer Friendly Foote in the civil War. But just when you Are getting comfortable with that Mode of presentation. Dor Ner shifts to historical re creation. The series follows a Spanish Crew of sailors As they retrace the journey of the Nina Pinta and Santa Maria in reproductions built to commemorate the anniversary of Columbus trip. The next two hours Are spent with the re creation but Dor Ner gets too involved with it. And the foils eventually becomes the real modern Day actors instead of the historical journey they Are commemorating lie piles on too Many extraneous stories and the connection Between narrative thread and viewer is lost. In the end its too bad Columbus is such mangled to. The documentary does one thing exceptionally Well it examines the Impact of Columbus discovery through different perspectives looking not Only through the eyes of White americans of european descent but also through the eyes of african americans american indians hispanics and others. Some Call this being a politically Correct a a and some critics will say the show fails because of this tendency meaning that it tries to attend no one and is afraid to take a stand. But multicultural sensitivity is not what a wrong with Columbus. Its what a intellectually right about it. Columbus his world and its effect on 500 years of the american experience is a huge sprawling wriggling Critter. The Nice thing to say about such pcs productions which bite off More than they can Chew is that they deserve credit for trying. But maybe Given the producers inability to solve the fundamental to problem of not having visuals in a visual medium its More honest to say Columbus should not have been made As a to documentary. Maybe Xerox the National endowment for the humanities and the corporation for Public broadcasting could have better spent their Money backing other to shows. Muhammad Ali As Champion in 1977. Feelings not just of fans but of Many who care less about boxing yet were knocked out by the Man himself when he says the Story would have ended on the right note if Ali had stopped when he took Back the championship from George Foreman in 1974. After that there were Downs and ups ending with him showing the effects of so Many years of blows to the head. Still in 1978, the year the 36-year-old Ali was beaten by and then beat Leon Spinks he is seen telling the cameras a a in a actually a pretty Man. In a not conceited in a the hour is convincing about both his Beauty in the ring and his strength outside it. After All the clowning Muhammad Ali ends up with his dignity intact. October 13, 1991 sunday a
