Simon Schama's History of Now ambient background
CinebyCineby
Simon Schama's History of Now backdrop

Simon Schama's History of Now

Simon Schama's History of Now

2022•Documentary
Similars

In his most personal project to date, Simon Schama looks back at the dramatic history that has played out in his lifetime. Best known for writing history, he has lived a fair bit of it too. Born in 1945, on the night of the bombing of Dresden, Simon grew up as part of a generation determined to rebuild the world from the ashes of war. In this film, he reveals the stories of artists and writers who have been at the forefront of the fight for truth and democracy, often at great personal cost.

Simon Schama · Writer

Hugo Macgregor · Director

StatusEnded
LanguageEN
First Air DateNov 27, 2022

Episodes

Episode 1 - Truth and DemocracyE160m

Truth and Democracy

Simon opens the film with Picasso’s Guernica. Painted in 1937, in response to the bombing of a small town by the Nazis in the Spanish Civil War, no work of art has so powerfully captured the true horror of civilian bombings. Ever since, Picasso’s masterpiece has stood as a testament to the power of art to preserve the historical record and to speak truth to power.

Nov 27, 2022

Episode 2 - EqualityE260m

Equality

Simon Schama explores the artists at the vanguard of the fight for equality in the decades after the Second World War. He revisits his childhood as a Jewish boy in Southend and his memories of seeing James Baldwin debate William Buckley at the Cambridge Union, explores the story behind Nina Simone's classic civil rights song Mississippi Goddam, and meets Coleman Woodson Junior, who was part of the historic Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.

Dec 4, 2022

Episode 3 - The Price of PlentyE360m

The Price of Plenty

After the Second World War, there were deep divisions in America about how to move forward. Should it be a social democracy, in which a benevolent state would look after its most vulnerable citizens? Or should it put its faith in individual enterprise and the free market to provide plenty for all? Simon Schama examines how the filmmaker Charlie Chaplin and author Ayn Rand created radically different visions of how this new postwar world should work, and how writers such as Rachel Carson drew attention to the damage being inflicted on the natural world. He talks to author Margaret Atwood about how Carson inspired her own work and to photographer Edward Burtynsky about his photographic projects to document haunting images of the pursuit of consumerism.

Dec 11, 2022

Actors

Simon Schama

Simon Schama

Self - Presenter

Recommendations

American Masters
Mysteries at the Museum
History 101
Doctor Who Confidential
Biography
American Experience
TYSON
1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything
The New York Times Presents
The Story of Film: An Odyssey
The Andy Warhol Diaries
30 for 30
The Reluctant Traveller with Eugene Levy
Top Gear
The Witcher: A Look Inside the Episodes
Eli Roth's History of Horror
Baseball
E! True Hollywood Story
How Do They Do It?
JANET JACKSON.

Similars

The Legends of Paris: A Tale of the 19th Century Artistic Scene
The Face of Britain by Simon Schama
Karin och Carl Larsson
Art of China
Lost Women Art
Art of the Western World
Art of Germany
The Great Epochs of European Art
Simon Schama's Power of Art
Houses of Art
Rebuilding Ancient Rome
Becoming Frida Kahlo
Leonardo da Vinci
The Greatest Museums of the World
Baroque! From St Peter's to St Paul's
Art That Made Us
Sister Wendy's Story of Painting
The High Art of the Low Countries
Art of France
The Art of Gothic: Britain's Midnight Hour