ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607190092
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM MAURSTAD DALLAS MORNING NEWS
It was the original remote control, fulfilling, as Cliff Robertson intones in his opening narration, ``man's dream of extending his power and influence beyond the reach of his arm.'' As we quickly learn in ``The Story of the Gun,'' people have been pointing and clicking for more than 600 years. (It's no coincidence the first TV remote control was shaped like a pistol).
The two-part, four-hour special from the A&E cable network opens with plenty of verbal firepower as Robertson waxes on about the gun's ``power over life and death,'' and declares it ``the single most influential object of all man's inventions.'' (The program airs tonight at 10 and Monday night at 11.) Later on, one of the show's chorus of experts explains that three tools contributed to the settling of the open plains - the windmill, the plow and the Colt revolver. But it's hard to imagine anyone is going to be coming out with a four-hour special on the story of the windmill or the plow anytime soon.
Four hours sounds like a long time, and ``The Story of the Gun'' confirms that indeed, it is. Producers Yann Debonne and Rob Lihani trace the gun's evolution back to those ancient times when catapults and long bows were the superweapons of the day. As it turns out, there is a lot we don't know about the gun's early days, and the first two hours of ``The Story of the Gun'' are filled with phrases like ``some genius,'' and ``an unknown genius in an unknown country on an unknown date'' Are you taking notes?
Still, there are plenty of interesting tidbits to be gathered along the way: Gun barrels derived their name from the cannons, the gun's precursor, which resembled barrels. The term ``firearms'' came from the days when men appeared to have arms of fire when they used matchlocks, early guns that erupted in a poof of smoke and fire. And then there was the 16th-century treatment for a gun wound. A mixture of oil and wine was injected into a living dog; the dog was then boiled, and the resulting mess was applied to the wound. Understandably, historian Ian Hogg concludes that back then ``to be mortally wounded was the best you could hope for'' - a hope the dog no doubt shared.
Moving at 150 years an hour, ``The Story of the Gun'' takes the viewer from the Middle Ages, when ``hand cannons'' were as dangerous to the person shooting as to the person being shot at, to our current Desert Storm days of laser sights and thermal scopes. The producers are meticulous, detailing each new improvement in reliability, ease of use, firepower.
While this approach is technically thorough - the most gun-oblivious viewer will be able to chart the development from matchlock to wheel lock to flintlock - it is also frustratingly narrow.
For all the acknowledgments of the gun as an instrument of social change, ``The Story of the Gun'' never examines these changes in any detail. It notes, for instance, that the shrinking of the gun into a hand-weapon made concealment, and therefore homicide, an easy matter. But with that, it's off to the next technical improvement. It might have been interesting, say, to compare homicide rates before and after the emergence of the handgun.
In all of its four hours, ``The Story of the Gun'' finds little room for context and consequence. And while the gun's history is one of technical problem-solving and engineering genius, we gain no sense of these men who devoted their lives and skills to building a better gun. Consider Dr. Richard Gatling - inventor of the Gatling gun, precursor of the machine gun. He thought his creation would make warfare so deadly and futile, it would ensure peace. Such naivete would seem unthinkably ludicrous if we hadn't seen it at work a hundred years (or so) later in the development of the atom bomb.
And then there's John Thompson, whose claim to fame is the Thompson sub-machine gun. He intended it for close-quarter combat (a ``trench broom'' he called it). But with World War I over, the government showed little interest. So, savvy businessman that he was, he marketed it to the public - for $175 you could have one delivered to your doorstep. Of course, he found a market for his gun, but it wasn't the ranchers he pictured in his advertising (cowboys with machine guns - there's an image of the 20th century for you). It was, of course, gangsters, who just loved the ``Tommy gun'' and its firepower. Who knows how many cops and civilians were gunned down with them? All ``The Story of the Gun'' has to say on the subject is that it was ``the gun that made the '20s roar.''
Tellingly, in a 600-year odyssey of the object that ``defined who we are and the world that surrounds us,'' there is a total of two women. There is, of course, Annie Oakley, who distinguished herself by being so skilled at the manly art of gunplay. We learn of her exploits during the show's overly long focus on the Wild West. The show spends more than an hour on those Wild West days, which amount to about 30 years. While that may seem out of proportion - by comparison, ``The Story of the Gun'' wraps up the last 30 years in about 10 minutes - it is understandable. The Wild West and its guns are so steeped in lively and beloved myths - no complicating implications to skirt around.
The other woman is an expert from the Smithsonian who pops up a couple of times. The rest of the talking heads are men, invariably devoted gun collectors. Speaking with a collector's enthusiasm, these experts are as much a part of the gun's story as tellers of it. You don't sense much in the way of academic distance, for example, when R.L. Wilson holds up a six-shooter and exclaims, ``When collectors have the opportunity to get a hold of an object like this one, which was one of Jesse James' revolvers, it's truly like obtaining the Holy Grail.''
And so it goes, as ``The Story of the Gun'' pursues its trail of technical details. The show marches to its conclusion, Cliff Robertson gravely intoning that ``like their history, the future of guns will reflect the future of mankind.'' And as he speaks, the screen is filled with smoke. Emerging from the smoke, a group of M-16-toting soldiers appear and we are left to wonder what it means that in their masks and camouflage gear, they hardly look human at all.
THE STORY OF THE GUN
10 p.m. Sunday and 11 p.m. ET Monday
A&E cable
(c) 1996, Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-07-18-96 0608E
LENGTH: Long : 114 linesby CNB