Simon Schama's Power of Art

A History of Britain

Stretching from the Stone Age to the year 2000, Simon Schama's Complete History of Britain does not pretend to be a definitive chronicle of the turbulent events which buffeted and shaped the British Isles. What Schama does do, however, is tell the story in vivid and gripping narrative terms, free of the fustiness of traditional academe, personalising key historical events by examining the major characters at the centre of them. Not all historians would approve of the history depicted here as shaped principally by the actions of great men and women rather than by more abstract developments, but Schama's way of telling it is a good deal more enthralling as a result. Schama successfully gives lie to the idea that the history of Britain has been moderate and temperate, passing down the generations as stately as a galleon, taking on board sensible ideas but steering clear of sillier, revolutionary ones. Nonsense. Schama retells British history the way it was--as bloody, convulsive, precarious, hot-blooded and several times within an inch of haring off onto an entirely different course. Schama seems almost to delight in the goriness of history. Themes returned to repeatedly include the wars between the Scots and the Irish and the Catholic/Protestant conflicts--only the Irish question remains unresolved by the new millennium. As Britain becomes a constitutional monarchy, Schama talks less of Kings and Queens but of poets and idea-makers like Orwell. Still, with his pungent, direct manner and against an evocative visual and aural backdrop, Schama makes history seem as though it happened yesterday, the bloodstains not yet dry.

The Story of the Jews

Simon Schama explores the story of the Jewish experience from ancient times to the present day.

The American Future: A History

The American Future: A History is a four-part documentary series written and presented by Simon Schama which aired on BBC Two in the UK during October 2008, in the run up to the 2008 US presidential election. The first episode was broadcast on BBC Two at 9:00pm on 10 October 2008, and it was shown over four consecutive Fridays. The series saw Schama travelling through the United States as he investigated the conflicts from its past in order to understand the country's contemporary political situation. Schama presents and discusses both presidential candidates, Democratic Barack Obama and Republican John McCain from a historical point of view, emphasizing strongly the former. The documentary takes viewer to an epic journey through the history of the modern United States, but it also why Schama personally believed Barack Obama would be the ideal choice as the next president of the United States.

Marie Antoinette: A Film by David Grubin

This was a very human account of the lives and deaths of Marie Antoinette and Louis the XVI focusing primarily on Marie. It is an account of their lives from birth to death and the circumstances leading to the downfall of the French monarchy.

The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution

A film that looks at the genius of JMW Turner in a new light. There is more to Turner than his sublime landscapes - he also painted machines, science, technology and industry. Turner's life spans the Industrial Revolution, he witnessed it as it unfolded and he painted it. In the process he created a whole new kind of art. The programme examines nine key Turner paintings and shows how we should re-think them in the light of the scientific and Industrial Revolution. Includes interviews with historian Simon Schama and artist Tracey Emin.

Remembers…

What are the secrets of our favourite TV shows? Famous names from both sides of the camera reflect on making some of the most popular and influential programs of all time.

Civilisations

The story of art from the dawn of human history to the present day—for the first time on a global scale. Inspired by Civilisation, Kenneth Clark’s acclaimed landmark 1969 series about Western art, this series broadens the canvas to reveal the role art and the creative imagination have played across multiple cultures and civilizations.

Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution

In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" - claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence. This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee Of Public Safety - the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France. Contesting Robespierre's legacy is Slavoj Zizek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who believes the road from Robespierre ran straight to the gulag and the 20th-century concentration camp. The drama, based on original sources, follows the life-and-death politics of the Committee during "Year Two" of the new Republic.

Real Time with Bill Maher

Each week Bill Maher surrounds himself with a panel of guests which include politicians, actors, comedians, musicians and the like to discuss what's going on in the world.

Question Time

This topical debate series based on Any Questions? typically features politicians from at least the three major political parties as well as other public figures who answer pre-selected questions put to them by a carefully selected audience.

Simon Schama: The Road to Auschwitz

In the most personal and unflinching film of his career, historian Simon Schama confronts the enormity of the Holocaust and the catastrophe experienced by its victims. In a journey that ends with his first visit to Auschwitz, Simon travels across the Continent to explore how the Holocaust was far more than a Nazi obsession that played out in gas chambers, but a European-wide crime of complicity. From bullets in the Lithuanian lands of his ancestors to bureaucracy in the Netherlands, he reveals how deep-rooted prejudice was weaponised to turn people against their Jewish neighbours. As a moving interview with a survivor reveals, the story of how ‘evil comes step by step’ remains powerfully relevant today.

Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

The big names behind the big stories. Laura Kuenssberg talks to those making the news, inside and outside politics.

Rough Crossings

Simon Schama presents a drama-documentary that charts the extraordinary journey of the American slaves who fought for the British side in the American War of Independence and were then led by a young Englishman to Africa. There, they struggled to establish a colony in Sierra Leone, where they could be free.

Schama on Rembrandt: Masterpieces of the Late Years

Simon Schama explains the style, theme and concept of Rembrandt's late masterpieces.

Van de Schoonheid en de Troost

To his guests – artists, scientists, writers, philosophers and musicians – Wim Kayzer in Of Beauty and Consolation asks the philosophical question: What makes this life worth living?

Simon Schama's Story of Us

Art and culture define us - but in an age of change, who are we now? In divided times, Simon Schama asks whether art, music and words can be the threads that bind us together.