In this documentary filmed on location in Paris, Richard Clay argues that the French Revolution of 1789 was not quite as clear-cut in terms of its progress as might first have been assumed. While the aristocrat/ revolutionaries distinction was certainly important, the Revolution also marked a change in ideology, with a serious attempt to obliterate all symbols of the royalist/ aristocratic regime. The effect was rather reminiscent of the attempt two and a half centuries earlier to replace Catholicism with Protestantism in the United Kingdom : aristocratic symbols were defaced, pictures destroyed and palaces attacked. The whole idea behind the revolution was to bring a new broom in and sweep away the old in favor of the new. This kind of agenda has its sinister side too; for this strategy was precisely what the Nazis pursued when they came to power in Germany in the early 1930s. The program hence stressed the importance of the Revolution not only for an understanding of the past, but the present as well.
In structural terms, "Tearing Up History" followed a structural pattern similar to most contemporary documentaries, with an academic presenter occupying most of the shots and interpreting what viewers see. Clay did a competent job, although perhaps he should reduce the amount of talk, and thereby let viewers make up their minds on what they see for themselves. A television program is not a university lecture: sometimes just voiceovers will suffice (as Kenneth Clark discovered in CIVILIZATION, broadcast over forty years ago now).
