“ Devoid of talking heads, 1971 consists entirely of archival footage, augmented by the audio from interviews both vintage and newly recorded. As a work of curation, it’s endlessly eye-opening, even for those well versed in the period — no surprise given that Asif Kapadia, a master of the archive documentary (Amy, Senna), serves as series director. Some of the material has never before been presented publicly, and all of it stands well clear of overused sound and video bites and clichéd narratives. Kapadia oversees the show as a whole, and individual episodes are helmed by James Rogan and series producer Danielle Peck — four each, all of them clocking in around 45 minutes. Even at six hours altogether, 1971 could never be an encyclopedic survey, though lesser filmmakers might have tried. To this team’s credit, the series never reaches for a grand-gesture summing-up. Instead it drills in on turning points in the careers of particularly influential and emblematic artists. Following radial through-lines, it reveals the six degrees of separation among seemingly disparate figures or unrelated topics. At times the flow is discursive and conversational; at others the story progresses by jumps and jarring juxtaposition. Some episodes overlap. There’s never a sense that the doc is designed to prove a preordained point. ”