A UDIOVISUALS R E VIEWS 129

mentary operates on the premise that if a civilization can be called ancient, golden, lost, or miraculous, enough has been said of it to satisfy the human mind. All three films have good views; all three are superficial.

Egypt: Land of Antiquity uses a simple operational scheme of following the Nile downstream and looking at easy buildings along the way. It has little sense of chronology or relative importance. Most of the monuments are screened by lines of American tourists; occasionally a stunned look in their eyes is translated as awe. Hieroglyphs are treated as a mysterious script. Karnak is old! The films information appears to come from the local guides. There are some good shots of stones. The climax comes when a tourist pants up the pyramid at Gizeh and stands to survey ancient and wondrous achievements in the desert. Post- cards would be cheaper.

Parts of Greece: The Golden Age are quite good. Trevor Howard narrates a com- mentary which tries too hard and is over- written, but is well spoken. The highlights of Periklean Athens are given the Treasury of Atreus and the Moschophoros as ancestors; korai are well photographed; the Olympic games are shown in an empty stadium, partly Delphi; the Battle of Marathon is fought with red poppy-Persians against golden wheat-Greeks in a high wind, closing with the dying warrior of the Aegina pedi- ments; Oedipus is shown at Epidauros; Perikles funeral oration is spoken against lengthy views of the Parthenon frieze. The best Greek art is said to have been made in the brief span 480 to 450 B.C. The Golden Age is the high point of human civilization, and brought forth tragedy and democracy, with background music. Some views are excellent, and the color is good. One seldom sees a whole work of art, however, though Perikles lips and the crotch of the bronze jockey get good detailed treatment. There are no living actors, which is a relief.

Journey into the Past assumes the past can be understood in 21 minutes. Egypt, Crete, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, Alex- ander the Great, Southern Italy, the Etruscans, the Romans, and Great Britain race past, with clear maps and good views of the most familiar monuments. Images come at a tremendous clip; there are good shots of the Segovia aqueduct, Hadrians wall, Greek coins. The film has tried to be interesting, b u t the pictures come so fast the explana- tions have little chance t o do them justice. Of the Greeks we learn, their art was quite different from that of the Egyptians. Mediterranean man still survives. The lesson

to be drawn is that European civilization was inspired by the past. If it took two hours, it might succeed, for there are flashes of talent.

All three films may be aimed at a fourth-grade audience, or possibly a t tired tourists whose own films did not come out well.

Pompeii: Death of a City. 1966. Produced by Arthur Whitney, narrated by Frederick Corke and Carl Esser. Color, 14 minutes. Rental $17.50, purchase $190.00 from Con- temporary FilmsiMcGraw-Hill.

Eric Hostetter Harvard University

This film consists of quickly shown details of Pompeian frescoes accompanied by the eyewitness account of the citys destruction by Pliny the Younger, a survivor of Vesuvius eruption. Although the film is based on the excellent idea of using ancient material to illustrate a contemporary text, it is unsuccessful. The beautiful frescoes, filmed in a colorful and impressionistic manner, are unfortunately taken out of context and forced into a strained illustra- tion of an extremely vivid text. If the producer had chosen from the numerous remains that eloquently bespeak the citys fate, he might have created a powerful and authentic film, but by choosing to illustrate it with fresco figures and occasionally land- scape scenes that were painted before the eruption, he corrupts the original meaning of the imagery. The fact that the same details of certain frescoes are used to illuminate very different moments of the narrated text clearly betrays this. At the same time the viewer is deprived of the opportunity to see the entire frescoes in their original context. The contrived manner in which the eruption of Vesuvius is portrayed and the intentional distortion of the frescoes colors are also troubling. Though the photography affords a good look at some brilliant painting, the film is misleading.

Buried Cities. Produced by Boulton-Hawker Films; educational collaborator D. C. Chip- perfield. Color, 14 minutes. Rental $10.00, purchase $165.00 from International Film Bureau.

Eric Hostetter Harvard University

This film illustrates many aspects of Pompeii and Herculaneum, including con-