Comparing Two World War II Documentaries

World War II was a brutal time in history and is still extensively studied till this day. Many documentaries have been produced that talk about this event which revolve around the stories and the events that were experienced by the people during that time. Many of these documentaries are typically told in the expository mode, with is a style of narration that is often synonymous with the use of the ‘Voice of God’. In this analysis, two documentaries will be covered and compared. The documentaries being explored will be the fourth episode of World War II in Colour titled Hitler Strikes East and the second being the fifth episode of Evolution of Evil titled Adolf Hitler.  Both these documentaries apply a similar format in documentary making that is typical of World War II themed documentaries. However, their overall application of the voice-over and its tone is quite different.

From the surface, we can see plenty of similarities between the two documentaries. They both explore similar themes in relation to World War II, both utilise archival footage relevant to the period, and most importantly utilise the ‘Voice of God’ mode. World War II in Colour was narrated by Robert Powell and Evolution of Evil: Adolf Hitler was narrated by Alisdair Simpson. The similarities between these voice-overs that are very typical of the ‘Voice of God’ mode are the fact that they are older men who give the impression that they are confident and appear to have copious knowledge on the information that they addressing.  Charles Wolfe would describe it as, in his article Historicising the ‘Voice of God’…, would describe it as “connoting a position of absolute master and knowledge…”. Furthermore, these voice actors are also celebrities in this area of documentary voice-overs. They are the one of the few popular BBC voices used in war documentaries, which we can is comparable to David Attenborough with his nature documentary voice-overs. The celebrity status of the voice-over actors in the two listed documentaries in this analysis, give that further credibility and interest to their ‘Voice of God’ approach.

Here you can see two styles of the ‘Voice of God’ narration by paying attention to the use of language to describe a person or an event:

Despite being similar in the choice of style in the voice-over, the approach in the presentation of the narration through the voice-over is quite different. Robert Powell in World War II in Colour seems to have less of an agenda or an unbiased view compared to Alisdair Simpson in Evolution of Evil: Adolf Hitler. The narration done by Powell appears to be more about what happened during the events as they unfold (what happened in the evasion of Russia). Simpson’s narration feels as though as he is trying to sway the audience into believing something to be undeniably true (Hitler being evil). This key difference also runs parallel with the wording in their titles. World War II in Colour sounds like an unbiased exposition of the events in the war. In contrast, Evolution of Evil, is essentially telling the premise and agenda of the documentary. Overall, despite being similar in form, the differences in two voice-overs can be found in the choice of language and tone.

Here we can see two documentaries that appear to be similar on paper but are quite different in their overall delivery. There is a diverse use for the ‘Voice of God’, but ultimately serve the same purpose – to deliver information as if it were the absolute truth.