Conspiracies

Netflix's original documentary series, Conspiracy, focuses on different events such as the moon landing, Hitler's death, and the Cold War. I watched the episode on Hitler's death and it was pretty interesting. They walk through the original account of his death, which was that he shot himself in the head and his men set him on fire in a shallow grave. Most people accept this as truth, but there are people out there who believe this was a cover up. This show is a great watch for anyone who enjoys history or conspiracies.




The show brings on multiple experts, who attempt to debunk mysteries and put together conspiracy theories. In this episode the main expert starts to walk us through the events that followed Hitler's alleged death. The show puts together a timeline to take the viewers through history, to follow what is going on. They make good arguing points throughout the documentary, one being that the German government were the first to announce Hitler's death. Each expert brought on gave new insights into the conspiracy. Each was an expert in a different field and looked at different information. The show does this so that it is not just one person trying to build a case. They have multiple experts all coming together to make their case, which helps to build a strong conspiracy.




The documentary, to keep viewers attention, recreates the events so we can see what happened. They recreate the way that Hitler allegedly died and was buried. It was pretty gruesome. The scene shows blood spatter after he shoots himself, and then shows his body thrown into a grave with gasoline poured over his body. They also showed live footage from World War II at different points in the episode. This helps to bring it to life, seeing actual events that took place. Most of these shots are on battle fields, showing artillery guns firing, people shooting weapons, etc. All of the actual footage shown in this documentary is in black and white, but all of the recreated scenes are shown in color. The recreated scenes are all shown in dim lighted shots. The directors probably did this to make the scenes eerie, since it has to do with the most evil people to walk the earth.




The documentary uses a narrator to help with transitioning from one scene to the next. The narrator gives a little bit of information as an introduction for a scene. The narrator also gives a brief background of an expert who is being introduced, The producers elected to play music throughout the documentary, with the tempo setting the tone for the scenes. During the suicide scene, the music is low and speeds up when he shoots. During the actual footage of fire fights, violins are played at a faster tempo to add intensity. Most of the music in this episode is played with fast tempo. Music is also played while experts are talking. The music is quiet enough to not distract from what is being said, but loud enough to set the tone.




This episode does a thorough job of poking holes in the death of Hitler. It makes you wonder if Hitler actually escaped. This is important for a conspiracy. If it makes a person think and question what they originally believed, then it is doing it's job. The documentary goes over a handful of documents that were declassified decades after WWII. These declassified documents show how untruthful governments can be to hide information from the public. This helps to make viewers believe the conspiracy, because it makes you wonder why the government would hold back information.