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Summary: the civil war (ken burns)
Review: arguably the greatest thing ever put on television.....this is the "i ching" of documentaries....
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Summary: Some Things Are Special Because They Were Made That Way.
Review: A captivating and masterful work of unusual depth and dimension, this film series is a fascinating, deeply moving, provocative, sometimes surprisingly lyrical, scholarly but absolutely accessible, haunting, and utterly addictive epic. I challenge anyone to remain impervious to its charms. In addition to offering a wealth of historical information, the series removes from abstraction the intimately human aspects of this remarkable event and illuminates them in a way that makes it possible for us to truly resonate. Multiple strands are skillfully interwoven while music and images from the era generate tremendous atmosphere, making the experience of viewing more like sitting on grandpa's lap while he shares this rich and compelling tale.
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Summary: Superb film about the event that made America a nation
Review: As a child of the public school system of the United States and with children now in school, I can accurately state that the real history of the American civil war is not being taught. In general, students are told that it was largely about slavery and the rights of blacks. Nothing could be further from the truth. The abolitionist movement was rather small and some of the antiwar riots that took place in the North were due largely to the resentment of men who did not want to fight and die for the blacks. This and many other misconceptions are set straight in this film series.
The causes and consequences of the war are presented in great detail, with an emphasis on historical accuracy. Even almost fifteen decades later, it is sad to watch the first episode and the events leading to the states seceding from the union. It is amazing to realize that there was still strong sentiment in most states for staying in the union. It is overstating to stay that the majority was pro-union, but it is accurate to say that the majority of white people in the Confederate States were not in favor of seceding in 1861.
In the beginning very few thought the war would last more than a few months, and there were some who thought that it would end with a peaceful political settlement. William Tecumseh Sherman was considered unfit for duty when he stated that it would be a long and bloody fight. As the events unfold, one cannot help but draw comparisons with the events in Europe in August 1914. As the armies of Europe marched off to war waved on by cheering crowds, no one thought that it would end four years later with one side totally destroyed after horrendous slaughter.
The civil war was the first war where massive citizen armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands clashed. In this tape you see scenes that could pass for what happened fifty years later in the fields of northwest France. Extensive fortifications of trenchworks, reinforced by barricades and stretching for miles. Dead men are left strewn across fields after leaving their fortifications to attack the enemy in their trenches. It amazes me to think that the Europeans repeated the American experience in world war one, somehow still believing that courage was strong enough to defeat armed men behind barricades.
The course of the war leads many different ways, but most often union defeats at the hands of dashing, talented Confederate military leaders. George McClelland has to go down as the greatest example of arrogant ineptitude in American history. Had he acted with anything approaching the dash of Lee, the war could have been ended in the first year. So many things went wrong, and yet in the end, as long as no other country intervened, a union victory was assured.
The conclusion put forward in the final tape is a bit overstated, but it is accurate. Before the war, the United States was a political entity where the emphasis was on the states. After the war was over, the emphasis was on the united, as it was the single event that forged a nation. No longer was a person first and foremost a Virginian or a Texan, forever more they would be an American from Texas or an American from Virginia.
Despite years of reading about the civil war, I still learned many aspects of the war from this tape, The producers have created a documentary masterpiece that should be required viewing of all citizens, current and potential.
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Summary: Perhaps the best documentary series ever
Review: There are only two contenders for the title: this series, and "The World at War". Buy both, as they are astounding examples of what TV can do as a medium. But if I were forced to make a choice, I would nominate this as the better of the two.The series is no tricky narrative or superficial dramatisation. It tells its story straight, accurately and well. But it is incredibly evocative of time and place. The voices of actors read the words of combatants, observers and commentators over a soundtrack of music from the era. Visuals are provided by contemporary photographs and beautifully-filmed moving shots of the landscape. The natural beauty of the land on which the battles were fought is powerfully evoked, while the faces of the men who fought there look back at us. Academics, especially Shelby Foote (whose Southern accent does much to give him an air of authority about his subject), provide description and anecdote. The effect is of a stately progression through the story of the first modern war, one that was sometimes noble, sometimes dreadful. There are moments that are harrowing, others that will inspire you. Sadly, there is no equivalent work on the history of my own country (Ireland). If there were, I would urge my own countrymen to see it. The true political and historical causes, course and consequences of the American civil war are things that every American should know about in depth. As is pointed out in the closing episode, before the civil war people would say "The United States are ..."; since its end, we have said "The United States is ...". It is the story of the conflict that created the modern U.S. and arguably of the modern age. Watch this and you will gain an appreciation of it that will stand to you and inform your opinions about war - about why some are worth fighting and how a just war must be fought. You must see it.
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Summary: Award Winning Documentary FINALLY Hits DVD
Review: Well after 12 years, Ken Burns' miniseries that started it all, The Civil War is finally hitting DVD. For those of you who enjoyed his other longies like Baseball, Jazz and New York, or even his 2 parters like Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson or Lewis and Clark, you will love this. This is the perfect film for History buffs and Non-History buffs alike. There are things that you don't read in the books in this series. For example, I've been to Gettysburg and I've read Mackinlay Kantor's book found in library kid's sections for ages. I know that when General Sickles accidently left Little Round Top unguarded On July 2, 1863, that a young General G.K. Warren saw the situation and called for a division to get into place, and there is a statue on Little Round Top to his memory. What I didn't know was that division was commanded by Maine professor Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and it was his "unlikely textbook maneuver" as David McCullough puts it that helped keep the Round Tops from falling into the hands of the Confederates. Whether you're a Civil War buff like me or not, you learn something new every day. This DVD set will be a welcome addition alongside not only my DVD copy of Baseball, but also "Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided" which aired on American Experience last year and is also narrated by McCullough. Like Baseball it has a gallery of names doing the voice overs, Sam Waterston, Garrison Keillor, Morgan Freeman, Jason Robards, Julie Christie, Studs Turkel, Charley McDowell and more. UPDATE 10/12/02: I just got my copy this morning. It is time to express my kudos to the manufacturer (for an example of this see my review on The Prisoner Mega Set). Back in 1990 when PBS video first released this series on 9 VHS tapes, the copy of episode 2 was partially cut. After David McCullough's last narration which foreshadows the Battle of Antietam (which will appear in episode 3) on the televised copy, Morgan Freeman gives what I think is the best of his Frederick Douglass voice overs of the entire series. On the pre recorded VHS of Episode 2 that was released in 1990, this last but touching segment of that episode was cut (even though the booklet that came in that slipcase accounts for it). The series was re-released on VHS with help from Turner Home Entertainment in 1994 around the time of the release of Burns' next mega hit "Baseball" and re-released again at least once more since, but I do not know of this was rectified at that time (you may email me if you have one of these sets, and you know if it was fixed there). Well I can't speak for the NEW 5 VHS set, but as for the DVDs, justice has been finally served. The missing clips HAVE BEEN RESTORED. So kudos to the folks at Warner Home Video (who co-released the set) and to someone at PBS Video for taking my phone call a few years ago seriously when I mentioned this injustice. After 12 years, Ken Burns epic The Civil War is preserved in a format that will live forever, a set of DVDs you always remember (and watch over and over, like me) about a time our nation can never forget. BUY IT! :-)
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Summary: The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns
Review: Just brilliant. A superb blend of pictures, music and narration.
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Summary: A stunning film, full of information and visually arresting
Review: Hal, a friend of mine from work, and I have similar reading interests, so it didn't surprise me to find out that he knew far more than I did about the Civil War. I'd recently taken a short course on the subject, a period in history that had not heretofore interested me in the slightest, and was enthused over the text for the class, Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson (for which see my review). In sharing that excitement with him, I discovered his own knowledge in that area--he's a nurse with a degree in engineering and a wide range of reading interests--and he recommended the Ken Burns collection of videos, The Civil War. I have to agree with him, it is an entertaining work. The interviews with Shelby Foote are, as Hal suggested they were, the highlight of the film. They make it worth viewing even for someone not necessarily interested in the Civil War era, and they might conceivably enkindle further curiosity. His laid back and genteel style of address, his thorough knowledge of and apparent impartiality for both sides in the conflict, and his delightfully anecdotal approach to the subject were a pleasure to both hear and view. (In fact this first introduction to the gentleman encouraged me to find out more information about him, ..., which gives a short biography and a list of publications by and about the man, some of which are available through Amazon.) The film's approach to the Civil War is, as it must be, through still photos of the event. This is the first war the ravages of which were caught on film to be presented to the public of the time and preserved for posterity, and the first time that this type of journalism brought the horrors and the true cost of the war to the American breakfast table as no other medium had yet been able. Although the modern viewer, used as he/she is to the visual terror of real time attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Gulf War may find the style more awkward, those of us who followed the Viet Nam War through the photojournalism of the time will feel a sort of recognition. The film presents a series of black and white photos of the war, of family keepsake photos of individual soldiers, of paintings and photos of some of the heroes of the war, and of the carnage of various battles. These are interwoven with video film of battlefields, buildings and memorials as they have been preserved today. Giving a more personal touch to these pictorial documents are the recitations of material from personal diaries, letters, and family anecdotes given by notable actors like Colleen Dewhurst, Jeremy Irons, Morgan Freeman, Sam Waterston, among others. My favorites of these recitations are the diary entries of Mary Chestnut ( by Julie Harris), a woman born in the antebellum south, who chronicled the events of the war from the first battle at Fort Sumpter to the surrender of Lee. She was the wife and the daughter of US Senators from South Carolina and a personal friend of Varina and Jefferson Davis, so she had extensive knowledge not only of the events of the era but of their political and social ramifications as well. She later published the condensed form of her very extensive diaries as a book entitled A Diary from Dixie ... The candor and insight of her observations as read in the Civil War by Ken Burns made me curious enough about her to add some of the books by and about her to my own wish list! A stunning film, full of information and visually arresting, it leads the viewer to find out more. I would recommend it as a classroom aid to teaching a subject that is often neglected by students as "boring!"
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Summary: This wonderful documentary deserves to be released on DVD!
Review: Ken Burn's "Civil War" is simply wonderful! I am puzzled though that 12 years after it's release, it is still not available on DVD. I fear that there may be some legal issues holding it up since all of Burn's other major documentaries have long been out on DVD. Please sign up with Amazon for notification of the DVD release as this may encourage the publisher to do it!
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Summary: The best Civil War documentary!
Review: Having watched it several times, it never ceases to captivate me. I hope they release a DVD version of this soon as I would grab it in an instant.
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Summary: Nearly a full days viewing of delight.
Review: It might take nearly a full day to watch all nine tapes back to back, but I can just about guarantee that you will spend endless hours watching and re-watching these tapes. I have become a history buff and it all really started here. Its like Shelby Foote says, any real understanding of what the U.S. is is found in an understanding of the Civil War. These videos grabbed my attention in 1990 and haven't let go. Revisionist history? I think not. The cinematography itself consists of a series of period stills that Burns seems to make to come to life with the narration. The narration consists of interviews with top Civil War historians/writers (i.e. Foote) mixed with exerts, beautifully narrated, straight from the pages of first-hand accounts such as the memoirs of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Sam Watkins, Elijah Hunt Rhodes, Whalt Whitman, Lee and Grant, and a host of others, most of which I was compelled to read for myself. There is little room for revisionism, even if there is still less room to fit all the stories in. The documentary's simplicity is what makes it beautiful, its beauty is what makes it moving, and it can move anyone onto the path of great intellectual and historical discovery.
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