Cheap The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns (DVD) (Ken Burns) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns

The Civil War The Documentary
PBS's "The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns" is Ken Burns mammoth documentary on The War Between The States from 1861 - 1865. It went into minute detail about the beginnings of the election of Abraham Lincoln, secession of the southern states, anti-slavery movement in the north, John Brown, issues of states rights, and the attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Then it goes into the first year of the war where the Union was losing badly, but it also told about how the South was hurting badly too. It goes into the most important battle of the war, Battle of Gettysburg, the Emancipation Proclamation, the firing of several Union generals, Jefferson Davis's fight with the governors of southern states concerning funds, material and troops. The New York Draft Riots, Sherman's March to the Sea, the burning of Atlanta are also discussed in detail. There is extensive information on all the important figures, like Lincoln, Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson, General James Longstreet, ect; the list is endless. As you can tell this is a very extensive, detailed, documentary that is meticulously intricate methodology...all a nice way of saying this is a long, very long movie. It is 11 hours in 9 parts, each disc is one year with two episodes per disc except for disc one, which only has one episode. There are the actors who sort of play the characters, or more accurately read letters from real people. The best of the fine and distinguished list is Sam Waterston as Lincoln, whom Waterston had previously played in a play. Morgan Freeman reads Frederick Douglass and all other the African-American roles; Jason Robards as Ulysses S. Grant; M. Emmet Walsh as all the soldiers, all excellent in their readings. There are hundreds of pictures from the era, soldiers hanging out, just normal things that you'd expect, but a long way from some private filming a gun battle in Baghdad on his cell phone, but it drives home the point. It is an effective documentary that talks about everything that was relevant to the Civil War. My problem with the movie is it's length. Maybe it is OK when spaced out as one episode per night, but I tried to watch it in a week, and quickly burned out. Still, I can not deny it is a great documentary, highly recommended.

One of the finest documentaries ever
The Civil War by Ken Burns may be the single best thing that I have ever watched on television. There were so many moments of grandeur and tragedy interwoven into the show--it was remarkable to watch. <
> <
>The show's ability to create dramatic tension with only old photographs of Civil War battle sites and the people of the time, coupled with voice-overs was astounding to me--there was not one dramatic re-enactment in the entire series. <
> <
>Since the show was an extended miniseries (11 hours long) that meant that it could be leisurely yet thorough, and explore people and events from multiple points of view. <
> <
>Probably the most appealing single person in the series, for me, was Shelby Foote, a Southern historian who, throughout the series, provided an appreciative accounting of the Southerners who fought on the Confederate side, while making it clear that he had no appreciation for the practice of slavery. <
> <
>Along with the remarkable eloquence of the people who wrote the letters during that War, I appreciated the care that was taken by Ken Burns to find celebrities, like Jason Robards and Julie Harris, to read those letters aloud. They had such wonderfully evocative voices, and along with the mellow voices from historians like David McCullough and Shelby Foote, providing information and perspective, they made the experience of watching The Civil War magical. <
>