Customer Reviews

The Plague (History Channel)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Without going into too much detail, this documentary is amazing. The speakers are all experts in their respective fields, and the historical accuracy is beyond reproach. I found no such "religious hatred" anywhere in the film; again, pure historical accuracy. (To put it very VERY lightly, medieval Christians weren't exactly friendly to their Jewish neighbors. Look into it before getting all defensive, please.)
An excellent base of information for anyone with an interest in this watershed event in human history.

The Plague is a very fine documentary by The History Channel; it gives us a great deal of information about the "Black Death" or what was probably the bubonic plague that killed up to half of Europe's and Asia's population when it spread uncontrollably in the late 1340s. While this film is extremely educational, there are some not so pretty scenes (the flagellants walking from village to village, for example) that make me want to warn you that small children and sensitive people could be upset by some of the footage. On the other hand, however, it is an excellent telling of the story; and the pace moves along very well. There's lots of time spent to make sure that we really understand what happened and how; things never felt rushed. In addition, the quality of the print is excellent.

Some may say that the reenactments of events that occurred during The Plague are overdone or poorly acted but I thought it was all done rather professionally and with great care. I particularly like the way the filmmakers wove together reenactment scenes with interviews with today's scholars who know so much about the illness; and the narration was also done very well. It is through all these things put together that we get the complete story of this outbreak of bubonic plague and how it rushed through so much of the world so fast; and we see how physicians of the day were powerless to cure people of it or prevent it for that matter. We see the flagellant movement gaining strength and then waning in Germany; we learn how the Church was challenged by the devastation and we also learn about wealthy people who tried to escape the plague by fleeing cities for country estates where they were more isolated. In addition, the film covers the blaming of Jews for the plague simply because Jews were not exactly well liked.

Of course, there's much more information here than I'm going to give to you, including the prevailing theories of what caused the disease, how the illness spread and the other things desperate people did to try to ward off the plague. I don't want to spoil it for you!

Overall, this excellent documentary does a top-notch job; we learn the story of the "Black Death" and what happened during its outbreak and after it faded, too. I highly recommend this film for anyone studying this period in history; and people studying how infectious diseases spread in the past as well as how they spread in our times would do well to add this to their collections.

A perfect E squared (entertainment/education). Very well done and interesting documentary on mankinds deadliest killer ever! If you enjoy medieval histroy then this is a must. The plague transformed the face of Europe and affected life in inumerable ways. I highly recommend this entertaining and educational DVD.

As a high-school teacher for history and English foundations, I must utilize movies as a visual aide supplement to help them connect with the characters, setting, dialogue... I strongly recommend using this dvd to support your curriculum to teach on all levels of student learning (auditory, kinesthetic, visual).

This DVD arrived in record time. I was very impressed at the response and handling of this order. Even though I have retired from teaching, I teach part-time at the Community College and this DVD will fit right in with the era of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Thanks for the outstanding service. B.L.

History is not always pretty. When great and sustained misery is visited upon people, they too often show the worst side of their nature. In this case the misery was the black plague that killed millions in Europe over a period of about five years.

It was blamed, by some, on the convenient Jews, and they were villified and slain for a disease that killed them in the same proportion as non-Jews. The plague brought about the flagellants, who, in their religious fervor, went around publicly flogging themselves to expiate the sins of mankind and for the entertainment of others. Much of the misery of the plague was actually increased by the falsely pious Christians who thought the plague was a punishment from an angry God. This dvd presentation shows this but treads lightly, too lightly, perhaps.

This dvd is, all in all, a remarkable presentation. Settling to the soul, it is not. And the question it provokes is: could it happen again? It did, with the flu pandemic of 1918, and it may recur, worse next time, because of the fact that airplanes carry travelers thousands of miles in just hours.

I teach 9th grade English, and show my students this documentary before we read Romeo and Juliet. The show is educational, informative, and keeps my Freshmen's attention from beginning to the end. Highly recommended.

THIS DOCUMENTARY IS VERY DETAILED AND HIGHLY INTERESTING AND VERY EDUCATIONAL. YOU WILL LEARN MUCH FROM THIS PROGRAM. THE DIRECTOR AND HIS STAFF ARE TO BE COMMENDED. THERE'S MUCH HERE TO WATCH. THE REENACTMENTS AND COSTUMES AND LOCATIONS WERE ON THE MONEY. VERY GOOD DEAL FOR THE MONEY.

I bought this series to help my daughter on a project she was doing for school. It worked for the purpose I intended. I wanted to have something visually she could watch to spark her interest a bit more so she would want to research it further in books. It basically gave her a storyline that she was able expand on with further research. Great series I enjoyed it also!

"The Plague" (which is also available as a bonus feature in the History Channel's DVD "The Dark Ages") is an entertaining, but lengthy, 90 minute documentary full of reenactments and expert analysis. It focuses on several events and characters during the Plague, particularly the brilliant French surgeon to Pope Clement VI, Guy de Chauliac, the Flagellant movement, and pogroms against the Jewish people. The documentary follows several characters in its telling of this watershed event. Joan, the daughter of King Edward III of England, traveled to Spanish Castile to marry Prince Peter. Though she was likely the most protected person in Europe, she did not escape the disease (her illness is not depicted in the documentary). A Jewish trader traveled from Geneva to Venice as the Plague followed his journey. He was attacked, tortured and forced to confess to poisoning the wells as part of the widespread persecution of the Jewish people. In Strasbourg, France on Valentine's Day 1349, 2,000 Jewish people were burned at the stake. Many left to find refuge in Poland. The Plague sparked the zenith of the Flagellant movement with men reenacting the Passion of the Christ causing great commotion and threatening authority wherever they went.

The best part of this documentary, for this reviewer, was the information on surgeon Guy de Chauliac. He did not flee for his safety, but stayed to treat Plague victims (becoming ill himself) so he could study the disease. Though he was a product of the times, and tried such treatments as fire to protect the Pope, he also used more practical means of treating the disease and used this experience to write "The Great Surgery" that was based more on observation than on superstition and theology.

The documentary, of course, covers key issues like cause (bubonic plague, pnuemonic plague, even a brief mention of anthrax) and its spread. As one reviewer mentioned, it does not address the persecution of cats which killed off the main predator of the flea-infested rats. The exhumation of a mass grave of Plague victims in Montpellier, France where the teeth are studied for clues on the origin of the disease is touched on. Death statistics, psychological effects in such things as art, the privatization of religion and the turn towards science, the rise in the standard of living for survivors, and the labor shortage which pushed the need for labor-saving innovations are also examined. This documentary is not comprehensive, of course, but it is still a little lengthy for this reviewer's liking. Still, it is a nice, entertaining overview of the greatest biological disaster of all time.