Thursday, April 17, 2014
Inside the Hunt for the Boston Bombers, review: 'riveting'
Inside the Hunt for the Boston Bombers (Channel 4), a documentary retelling of the manhunt that followed the 2013 attacks at the Boston marathon, was riveting. But the problem was that, at the time, the real hunt enthralled millions as it was played out on TV. So for many of us the events mimicked television drama from the minute we were exposed to them.
The documentary combined real footage, dramatisations based on witness testimonies, and interviews with FBI bigwigs and Boston police. It is customary here to complain about programme makers slotting in dramatisations, blurring the boundaries between a true story and a good story, but anyone who watches TV news these days must realise that no such boundaries exist any more. Because if Inside the Hunt for the Boston Bombers showed one thing above all else it was that the grammar of TV drama, newsgathering, and whatever you want to call real life are now pretty much the same thing. Everyone has a camera and everyone is performing. That goes for the Boston police recalling events in this documentary, saying things such as "Game On", as much as the bombers themselves, making a public statement, knowing their actions would be endlessly broadcast – as they were here again.
Yet at the same time it was only because so many people were filming the event that the police were able to identify the suspects. And at every turn it was the broadcast media, for better or for worse, who harried events along – forcing the police to release pictures, hijacking the helicopter camera feed in the final chase. The irony was that the programme was called Inside the Hunt for the Boston Bombers, as if somehow all of this information was sub rosa. Nope: most of it was shown somewhere, live on countless channels, endlessly disgorged and chewed over. It looked pretty much like a TV show when it happened. No wonder that it made such a great one with a judicious edit.
READ: TV & RADIO HIGHLIGHTS
Source : http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568414/s/3972a248/sc/42/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cculture0Ctvandradio0Ctv0Eand0Eradio0Ereviews0C10A7710A0A20CInside0Ethe0EHunt0Efor0Ethe0EBoston0EBombers0Ereview0Eriveting0Bhtml/story01.htm
