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The Best of the Real West 2-pack |
List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $13.46 |
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Reviews |
Features:
Description:
Don't infer too much from the title of this documentary series; The Real West doesn't aim for anything like a revisionist history of America's frontier. Each hour-long installment of this History Channel presentation follows the format that has been almost mandatory for television documentaries since Ken Burns's The Civil War: emotional, sometimes even actorly readings from diaries, letters, and official documents designed to bring the past to life, coupled with testimony from a variety of historians meant to put it all in perspective. The comparison really ends there, however; whereas Ken Burns was almost forced into making a masterpiece by the unending complexity of the tragedy he was disinterring, The Real West tends more often to cast little more than side glances at the messy, real-life intricacies of the events it chronicles. Instead, as this boxed set of four episodes proves, the same tall tales that have been pleasing fans of Old West folklore for decades get trotted out once more, albeit with an ironic appreciation for their role as unreliable but inspirational myth that's inevitable with a century or more of hindsight. The modern-day definition of heroes can be a little broader than before as well. Sitting Bull & the Great Sioux Nation offers a sympathetic portrait of the brave Lakota chief, while Wild Women profiles Calamity Jane, Belle Star, and Annie Oakley, whose adventures were as rip-roaring as any man's. Episodes covering the Texas Rangers and The Battle of the Alamo are not as refreshingly unorthodox, but no less entertaining as they recount the deeds of bravery that, while coming under some fire as inaccurate, have been beloved for decades now. Kenny Rogers makes a surprisingly apt host for these unchallenging but enjoyable walks through familiar history, his gravelly narration and slick Western duds a perfect combination of plain-folk authenticity and what Buffalo Bill Cody used to call "the show business." --Bruce Reid
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