Registering with NZ On Screen means you can:
We won't share your data with anyone (see our Privacy Policy) and we won't spam you. It's that simple.
Presented by Kenneth Cumberland, Landmarks looked at New Zealand history through the landscape, and at man "coming to terms" with it. In this episode NZ's "last, lonely, remote" geography is framed as a stimulus for ingenuity. A narrative of "triumph over the elements" finds its flagbearer in the DIY story of jetboat inventor Bill Hamilton. Cumberland is donnish but game in pursuit of telling landmarks: exposing seashells alongside the Napier-Taupo highway (700m above sea-level) like a down-under Darwin, or in a gas-mask on an erupting White Island.
Landmarks began as a twinkle in my eye in London as I was watching Alistair Cooke’s 13-part series America when it was released on BBC-2 in 1972. What an amazing broadcaster and what a way to tell a country’s ...
Please keep your comments relevant to this title. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.
I loved this series so much. I know Kenneth must be well into retirement, and deserved too, but I wish there were more.
You need to be logged in to add to your favourites.
Short Film, 1964 (Full Length)
A classic NFU doco on a summertime Southern Alps crossing
Television, 1990 (Full Length)
David Bellamy-presented series on NZ natural history, features the kauri
Television, 2005 (Excerpts)
A satirical series in which Jeremy Wells pays homage to Cumberland
Television, 1992 (Full Length)
A documentary looking at four seasons in New Zealand’s Southern Alps
Film, 1987 (Full Length)
Film featuring Billy T James as a mad pilot in the Southern Alps
Television, 1993 (Full Length)
A documentary about the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on a nationwide tour
Television, 2005 (Full Length)
A doco on motorcycle engineer and rider Kim Newcombe
Finalist - Most
Outstanding Website
The ONYAs 2010
Best Entertainment Website
Finalist – Website design
Qantas Media Awards 2009
NZ ON SCREEN 2010
This website has been made with funding from NZ ON AIR ›
Jonathan
Posted at 10.18PM - 07.09.2010
Why is that despite all the advances in technology, a mushrooming of media studies degrees and film schools, and boosts to funding of the so-called creative industries, we can't match today the quality of Landmarks and its ilk. It seems as time goes on, the worse NZ-made TV gets. Cumberland was the David Attenborough of Kiwi TV. Brilliant stuff. Can you buy the series on DVD? I might just do that.