Re: What Documentaries Influenced You Most and Why?

1. Memory of the Camps - 1945 - Narrated by Trevor Howard - original editing and treatment supervised by Alfred Hitchcock. This documentary on the liberation of the German concentration camps in 1945 was assembled in London that year, but never shown until FRONTLINE first broadcast it -- 40 years later -- in May of 1985. FRONTLINE acquired "F3080" in 1985 and commissioned the late actor Trevor Howard to record the original typed narration script. FRONTLINE broadcast the film just as it was found in the Museum's archives, unedited, with the missing sound tracks, and with the title given to it by the Imperial War Museum: "Memory of the Camps." The first broadcast was on May 7, 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps. Perhaps the most powerful documentary film ever made.

2. The Silent World - 1958 - co-directors Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle. One of the first underwater films shot in color, setting the bar for over fifty years of ocean exploration to follow.

3. The PBS series American Experience - 1991 to the Present - The title says it all. "Television's longest-running, most-watched history series." The finest historical documentaries about the 300-plus years of our noble experiment on television.

4. The National Geographic Specials narrated by Alexander Scourby (1913-1985). Perhaps the finest narrator of docos there will ever be.

5. Following the Tundra Wolf - Directors John Borden & Neil Goodwin - Narrated by Robert Redford. This film reveals for the very first time a relationship between predator and prey that is essential for both species, i.e. the wolf-caribou equasion. There are wolves in the wild today because of this film.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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