Harvey-10 Review of Shooting the Past

Shooting the Past (1999– )

Splendid three part series with Timothy Spall especially good in an excellent cast

[5 February 1999]

Wonderful idea: a picture library with an archive of 10 million pictures is under threat when it is purchased by a company intent on saving only the most valuable (Man Ray etc.) pictures and dispensing with the rest. The efforts to save the entire collection by the staff of the library are wonderful. They throw most of their energies into convincing the American buyer that although not valuable in monetary terms the collection has immense social value, and tells unbearably beautiful and tragic 20th Century stories. Marvellous denouement and superb performances all round. The minimalist music was especially good.