New Michael Wood documentary

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Chiliarch
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New Michael Wood documentary

Post by Chiliarch »

According to Michael Wood's website we can expect a new documentary about Alexander from him.

This is what it says :

Michael is currently abroad filming for his latest project searching for the lost site of Alexander the Great's most epic and important battle - The Battle of Gaugamela.

Having thoroughly enjoyed his 'Footsteps' documentary I, for one, am looking forward to this.

Susanne
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by Fiona »

Hello Susanne,
thanks for this great news.
I remember Michael Wood's description of Issus, it was so vivid, and the bit where he imitated the three different speeches was so funny. I'm looking forward to this too.
Nice to see another Hephaistion avatar around the place!
Fiona
Chiliarch wrote:According to Michael Wood's website we can expect a new documentary about Alexander from him.

This is what it says :

Michael is currently abroad filming for his latest project searching for the lost site of Alexander the Great's most epic and important battle - The Battle of Gaugamela.

Having thoroughly enjoyed his 'Footsteps' documentary I, for one, am looking forward to this.

Susanne
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by Tantalus »

Thanks Susanne. I look forward to it.

Some people have belittled Wood as a historian. But I have always enjoyed his In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. Sure it doesn't offer the in-depth analysis that you find in some scholarly Alexander books. But I didn't expect it to. The fact that he went to the sites of the events was exciting to me.

I also really liked his Conquistadors. Which is another area of history I often travel to from my armchair.
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by marcus »

Hi Tantalus,
Tantalus wrote:But I have always enjoyed his In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. Sure it doesn't offer the in-depth analysis that you find in some scholarly Alexander books. But I didn't expect it to. The fact that he went to the sites of the events was exciting to me.
Well, it was a travel programme, for a start. Also, Wood rather suffered from the same problem that is always going to dog anyone producing a programme on Alexander - if he made it too detailed, enough to satisfy the pedantic amongst us (among which I often count myself, I hasten to add), then it would end up being rather bad TV. So a briefer, more populist approach, with as little ambiguity and controversy as possible, is the approach he has to take ... and then he gets criticised for not being rigorous enough.

I loved "Footsteps", continue to do so, and will look forward to the new programme.

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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by Tantalus »

Exactly. I think he walked the line pretty well. He didn't bore the general public with scholarly minutiae and it was still interesting for those familiar with Alexander. The Battle of Gaugamela should be good. I would even enjoy just detailed video of the battle field. Although I can't recall at the moment what if anything is there today.


OT -
I finally put up an avatar. It's a coin of Demetrius Poliorcetes that I have. It shows him sporting the sacred horns of Ammon and the Royal Diadem.
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by athenas owl »

Love watching his works. The visuals are fantastic. Sometimes I wish he would leave the "history" out. I'm so left wing I'm a redneck, but Wood loses me when he spins the history from a modern peace loving perspective (very alien to those days don't you think?). And the comparisons to Stalin and stormtroopers...irritating.

Even the one on India, lovely...and I can't remember what it was he said, but my husband was laughing at me because i was castigating Wood through the screen.

But I do like Wood and love the places he goes. I should just watch them like a drinking game..everytime he says something that I disagree with strongly I drink a shot. :D
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

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athenas owl wrote:... I should just watch them like a drinking game..everytime he says something that I disagree with strongly I drink a shot. :D
That is funny! :lol:
athenas owl wrote:... but Wood loses me when he spins the history from a modern peace loving perspective (very alien to those days don't you think?). ...
Actually I don't really remember what he said. Like you I was mainly fascinated by the video of the sites. The sites that I will never get to.

But if so, there's always going to be some stragglers left behind from the Brotherhood of Man and Fusion days. But I'm not one of them.
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by athenas owl »

Tantalus wrote:
athenas owl wrote:... I should just watch them like a drinking game..everytime he says something that I disagree with strongly I drink a shot. :D
That is funny! :lol:
athenas owl wrote:... but Wood loses me when he spins the history from a modern peace loving perspective (very alien to those days don't you think?). ...
Actually I don't really remember what he said. Like you I was mainly fascinated by the video of the sites. The sites that I will never get to.

But if so, there's always going to be some stragglers left behind from the Brotherhood of Man and Fusion days. But I'm not one of them.
Oh, we agree that the whole "Brotherhood of Man" is a load of..well..something. Wood doesn't believe that either...it's his comparison of Alexander and the Macedonians to modern totalitarian dictators and states that I find especially grating.

If you do the drinking game, I recommend straight quality vodka..less of a hangover. :D
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by Paralus »

athenas owl wrote: I should just watch them like a drinking game..everytime he says something that I disagree with strongly I drink a shot.
To re work that:

Everytime I say something someone disagrees with I should drink a shot.

I'd need a Stephen Spielberg budget.
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by agesilaos »

Tantalus, the pedant in me won't allow you to get away with it; Demetrius sports bull's horns which imply kinship with Poseidon not the ram's horns associated with Ammon, as seen on Lysimachos' Alexander tetradrachms.

As I remember Wood couldn't get to see Gaugamela in the Footsteps due to the political situation vis-a-vis Iraq. I just hope it is well grounded in the sources, after all it will just be a plain, not terrifically scenic!

I think it was a Discovery programme that had every battle wrong with no debate over how the battle went just 'it happened this way', might work for the kiddies but on the drink when your ranting method I'd have been blotto before Granikos!
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

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agesilaos wrote:Tantalus, the pedant in me won't allow you to get away with it; Demetrius sports bull's horns which imply kinship with Poseidon not the ram's horns associated with Ammon, as seen on Lysimachos' Alexander tetradrachms.
And most likely the coin will have Poseidon on the reverse with his trident on board a trireme prow or the "winged Victory" of Samothrace (Athena Nike) onboard a trireme prow. These celebrate the Besieger's famous victory over Ptolemy at Salamis.

The poor old Besieger: it was, in large part, downhill from there. A bit of dallying about with "courtesans" in the Parthenon, a trip to Megara and the Peloponnese and then the confrontation at Ipsos.

He did manage to have that crawling, obsequious paean sung to him by lickspittle Athenians welcoming their next Macedonian master. He then made it to king of Macedonia before the Macedonians decided they could no longer afford his Alexander lifestyle and deserted him.

A fascinating character.
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by Alita »

I'm really looking forward to this! Not just for what he'll say or the great history of the place (Mesopotamia, ancient Assyria, lost 10 tribes etc) but I've heard it's one of the most beautiful places in the near East.

And a very warm Happy Birthday to Michael Wood (23 July).
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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by marcus »

Alita wrote:I'm really looking forward to this! Not just for what he'll say or the great history of the place (Mesopotamia, ancient Assyria, lost 10 tribes etc) but I've heard it's one of the most beautiful places in the near East.
I think it depends on which bit of the Middle East you're talking about. As far as I am aware, the area around Erbil, which is where Gaugamela was, is pretty much a dusty plain. There are mountains to the north and, further away, to the east; but I don't reckon Gaugamela itself is particularly pretty, and certainly the pictures I have seen don't look it. There are some beautiful parts to the Middle East - but there's quite a lot of it, so one would have to be more specific.

Incidentally, do we know when this programme is going to be shown? And where?

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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

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We do, indeed, Marcus. According to Maya Vision International, the producers, the programme will be aired on The History Channel/BBC Worldwide on 14th September at 9 p.m.. It's titled 'Alexander's Greatest Battle' and lasts 50 minutes. This is what it says on their website :

Michael Wood travels through Syria and Iraq to uncover the story of Alexander the Great’s decisive battle against the might of the Persian Empire in 331 BCE.
Ancient writers agreed that it was fought somewhere near the city of Irbil in northern Iraq, but the exact location has never been discovered.
Using dramatic new finds in the UK – a cuneiform clay tablet in the British Museum and a papyrus dug up in Egypt – Michael sheds new light on the course of events.
Then to reconstruct the campaign, he follows Alexander’s route through Damascus and Alleppo to the river Euphrates in Syria and travels into Northern Iraq with the British and US military.
Exploring a landscape long barred to outsiders by Saddam Hussein, he carries out a detailed reconnaissance on the ground with US forces on patrol between Mosul and Kurdistan.
Accompanied by the Head of British forces in Iraq, General Sir Rob Fry, he pieces together the dramatic events that led to this ancient War of the Worlds, and finally, with the help of Kurdish villagers, solves a mystery that has baffled historians and archaeologists for centuries.

And damn and blast (if you'll pardon my French) if he hasn't given a talk on 'In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great' at the Winchester Festival on the 17th July. Missed that!

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Re: New Michael Wood documentary

Post by marcus »

Chiliarch wrote:We do, indeed, Marcus. According to Maya Vision International, the producers, the programme will be aired on The History Channel/BBC Worldwide on 14th September at 9 p.m.. It's titled 'Alexander's Greatest Battle' and lasts 50 minutes.
Thank you!
And damn and blast (if you'll pardon my French) if he hasn't given a talk on 'In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great' at the Winchester Festival on the 17th July. Missed that!
Darn it - that would have been interesting. Not that I would have been able to be in Winchester on 17th July anyway ...
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