The Story of Film: A New Generation Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Story of Film: A New Generation Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 31, 2023

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of The Complete Story of Film.

The Complete Story of Film encountered so many ultimately hilarious delays in being released on Blu-ray that I started a running joke with another film journalist friend who was getting the same seemingly endless "street date change" announcements from Music Box Films. After each and every PR blast alerting us to yet another delay, I'd ask, "What? Are they including [insert name of movie released that particular week] now?" Hey, when you've advertised your documentary as the complete story, it had better be complete, hadn't it? Of course, since people are still evidently making and releasing films up to and including the very day you may be reading this, a complete story may be well nigh impossible. One way or the other, the long wait for The Complete Story of Film may be worth it for those who like a whirlwind tour through decades of international cinema, with an approach which amounts to a more or less "meta" demonstration of so-called "montage theory", though there may be some stylistic and even content quirks here that could chafe against certain sensibilities. Written, directed and narrated by Mark Cousins (to frankly varying effect), The Story of Film: An Odyssey was first broadcast in 2011, and then a decade later Cousins followed things up with The Story of Film: A New Generation, which premiered at Cannes in 2021. This Blu-ray collection aggregates both pieces in a four disc set.

As daunting as it must have seemed to try to give an overview of the history of film from its inception until, um, Inception, in a way The Story of Film: An Odyssey may have offered an easier task for Mark Cousins than this 2021 follow up. That might seem counterintuitive, but if one considers the fact that they're parsing decades of material, there's obviously more material to parse, and as such both particular examples and sometimes sweeping generalizations might be easier to navigate. There are few who would argue with at least some of Cousins' choices for "all time classics" or at least paradigms of whatever concept Cousins was covering at any given moment in The Story of Film: An Odyssey, but my hunch is some may in fact question some of Cousins' assertions about lasting quality with regard to this survey, which covers only the last decade or so since the first documentary's broadcast.

In that regard, as excellent and/or enjoyable as you may have found either or both of them, would you instantly put either Booksmart or Baby Driver into the same "eternally beloved" category as, say, Citizen Kane and/or The Passion of Joan of Arc? In other words, the first documentary's perspective of so much time may have given it a bit more "breathing room" than is afforded things here, and as a result, some of Cousins' choices may seem even more flabbergasting than some in that first documentary were.

As with the first documentary, though, it's Cousins' unique ability to make connections between disparate pieces that can provide undeniable interest, as in an opening gambit that kind of hilariously cross cuts between the Joker's spastic dance on steps in Brooklyn with Elsa singing "Let It Go" from Frozen. Cousins also perhaps relies a bit less on Hollywood this time, which in and of itself is kind of ironic, given his whole set up for the first documentary that a lot of film history is kind of xenophobic, but which then repeatedly returned to Hollywood films for its examples.

The documentary might occasionally be faulted for some of its "artier" moments, as in a conceit whereby various "everyday people" close their eyes in order to experience their "inner movies". This is contrasted with more salient analysis of actual film imagery where Cousins actually does a good job of weaving overt surface appearance with sometimes subliminal meanings.

The Story of Film: A New Generation Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Story of Film: A New Generation is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Music Box Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in a variety of aspect ratios, but with much of the newer footage in 1.78:1. This presentation may fare at least marginally better than The Story of Film: An Odyssey, in that a lot of the examples used in this piece were digitally captured, and so the kind of quasi-interlaced appearance I mentioned in my The Story of Film: An Odyssey Blu-ray review, and which can also be seen here, is not quite so prevalent. A lot of the film clips actually look nicely sharp and well detailed, and the newer footage is often crisp as well. For a documentary supposedly focusing on the 21st century, there is still quite a bit of archival footage that goes back to the dawn of celluloid (or at least to the first documentary), and so there are definitely quality variances that can be spotted.

The Story of Film: A New Generation Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with the video side of the things, the sonics of the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track on this follow up documentary may benefit from the surround soundtracks utilized by the more contemporary films in this collection, which gives at least a somewhat more consistent sense of immersion throughout. As with the first documentary, there are some kind of frankly odd interstitials with natural ambient environmental sounds which can also dot the side and rear channels. Once again, Cousins' lilting brogue is front and center and always easy to discern. As with the first documentary, a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track is also an option. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Story of Film: A New Generation Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only on disc supplement is a Trailer (HD; 1:27) for The Story of Film: A New Generation, which is offered on Disc Four of this four disc release. However, the very nicely designed quasi-DigiPack (all cardboard which unfolds into five sections, with discs in cardboard sleeves) features a wonderful insert booklet which rather incredibly lists all of the films utilized, so that those interested might go back and do their own independent research.

The Story of Film: A New Generation Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It may have just been a case of "film clip overload" after having made it through the 900 plus minutes of The Story of Film: An Odyssey, but I didn't find this follow up quite as consistently engaging. It's often just as provocative as the first documentary, though, and it's certainly as audacious, maybe even more so, since it wants to create so much content out of such a relatively short span of film production years. Technical merits are generally solid, and The Story of Film: A New Generation comes Recommended.