The Story of Film: An Odyssey

Mark Cousins’ history of world cinema, The Story of Film: An Odyssey, is an event in itself, a wide-reaching, insightful 15-episode documentary that examines and contextualizes work by directors from Buster Keaton to Akira Kurosawa, from Jane Campion to the brothers Coen. Using innovation as his unifying concept, Cousins paints a glorious and lavish picture of cinema’s cumulative development, including how filmmakers from around the world have not only pioneered but borrowed, even stolen, to advance the form and language. TCM (Turner Classic Movies) took Cousins’ work to another level, turned it into a cineaste’s dream. Drawing from its unparalleled library, TCM enriched the American television premiere of the series by surrounding each installment with full-length showings of some of the feature films and short subjects that the series referenced – 119 of the former, dozens of the later. TCM viewers thus had the opportunity to see not just familiar classics such as Singin’ in the Rain and A Fistful of Dollars but rarely shown silent and/or foreign films such as F.W. Murnau’s 1927 Sunrise, the 1958 Egyptian drama Cairo Station and the 1967 Czech comedy Daisies. For its inclusive, uniquely annotated survey of world cinema history, The Story of Film: An Odyssey is honored with a Peabody Award.