The first two or three episodes were very interesting; basically about the technology and art of film.
But once we reach the 50s, everything becomes about the political stance of film. And there's no nuance here - the narrator has exactly the political stance you would expect, and is only interested in movies that push his political agenda. At times the narration becomes almost comical! Shortly after seeing a Spanish movie that makes fun of the Catholic church (ha ha, those silly old Christians) we hit a movie that could possibly be interpreted as not being sufficiently deferential to Martin Luther King, as not treating him as a modern day saint, and this comes along with plenty of apologies from our narrator, that people back then at that time in the mid-sixties weren't yet sufficiently deferential to that name. And yet our narrator appears utterly oblivious to these two side-by-side behaviors.
So yeah, whether it's worth watching depends on what interests you. If you want to be reinforced in a bunch of ideas you already believe, go right ahead. But if you hope to learn anything non-ideological about film -- eg changes in technology, or the business model or, hell, even the end of the studio system, good luck. You might get a quick reference to something you should already know, but you won't get a deep analysis.
But once we reach the 50s, everything becomes about the political stance of film. And there's no nuance here - the narrator has exactly the political stance you would expect, and is only interested in movies that push his political agenda. At times the narration becomes almost comical! Shortly after seeing a Spanish movie that makes fun of the Catholic church (ha ha, those silly old Christians) we hit a movie that could possibly be interpreted as not being sufficiently deferential to Martin Luther King, as not treating him as a modern day saint, and this comes along with plenty of apologies from our narrator, that people back then at that time in the mid-sixties weren't yet sufficiently deferential to that name. And yet our narrator appears utterly oblivious to these two side-by-side behaviors.
So yeah, whether it's worth watching depends on what interests you. If you want to be reinforced in a bunch of ideas you already believe, go right ahead. But if you hope to learn anything non-ideological about film -- eg changes in technology, or the business model or, hell, even the end of the studio system, good luck. You might get a quick reference to something you should already know, but you won't get a deep analysis.