Ken Burns "the War" (this Time Its The Big One) - Sept. 2007

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Rarely does "new" mean much to me. There are so many great things out there that somethings release date doesn't mean much to me but this is huge. They have been working on it for six years. (fairly typical of his painstaking filmaking of in depth multipart series such as this)

Ken Burns the director that basically redefined documentary film making as an "artform" with his documentary film "The Civil War" over a decade ago. Said to have been inspired by the glorious (seriously) book The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.

For many of us The Civil War was a turning point in our interests away from total immersion in the Entertainment of the MTV generation into "real" subjects even if , like myself we had NO interest in The Civil War before hand. He is credited with having sparked the current renaissance in educational subjects across the board from Science to Philosophy.

It was an amazing feat when it was released... it was the number 1 show for its inital run, and on PBS no less if you can believe that. A Documentary being that popular now thats a feat.

Really this guy has near divine status in the documentary filmmaking world. His masterpiece The Civil War

narrated by the amazing David McCullough is often cited as the best documentary film ever made and hands down the best documentary of our generation. I tend to agree and cant recommend anything much higher than The Civil War if you have any sort attention span and ability to watch an academic subject unfold whatsoever.

The Civil War is considered by many to be the single most important subject of american history. The first two and the last two episodes i almost think should be required viewing for U.S. citizenship.

You watch it the first time and you think its great.

You watch it the second time and you think its great.

But its that third time when you watch it and go... Oh, wow.

Like any good documentary The Civil War gets even better with a second or third viewing as a lot of the details are lost on first time viewers especially if they are new (like most of us were) to the subject. There are two spots in the series were it was actually hard for me to not cry. The newly remastered and addtional material added on the DVD release make it even that much better.

Other Works: (all very good but not the full blown masterpiece that TCW is) The West (the end of this one when the last of the "wild" Indian Tribes go down swinging, and the "Ghost Dance" out of desperation becomes a full blown religion is tearjerking), Lewis & Clark, Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, Jazz, Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip (narrated by Tom Hanks) , Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain

Anyhow:

September 2007

The War (that is The Big One)

by Ken Burns (Full Length K.B. Style 7 ish hours woot)

http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/news/20061106_TheWar.html

I can't imagine this being less than an amazing piece of work. Probably the most important world history documentary of the decade unless he has lost his touch. His first masterpeice was on the subject of the key act of american civilization. What promises to be his next masterpeice will be on the key subject of world history.

Currently "The World At War" is almost hands down the best documentary about WWII as a single subject start to finish. Its expected Kens work from very early reviews will equal or (if its even possible) exceed The World At War.