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 New Price: $15.80 Brooklyn Bridge
Actors: Paul Roebling, Julie Harris, Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Richard Pini (II) 
Reviews for the Brooklyn Bridge  New Price: $6.99 Brooklyn Bridge
Actors: Paul Roebling, Julie Harris, Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Richard Pini (II) DescriptionThis award-winning program by filmmaker Ken Burns recaptures all the drama, the struggles and the personal tragedies behind this greatest of all achievements of America's industrial age. As this fascinating program reveals, it was the largest bridge of its era, marked by enormous construction problems and ingenious solutions. Witness the human heroics of the larger-than-life men who built the bridge that seized the imagination of New Yorkers and all Americans. Discover the enduring charm and beauty of this granite and steel structure, as you travel across its span to the heart of the metropolis.
Reviews for the Brooklyn Bridge  New Price: $4.99 Ken Burns's America: The Statue of Liberty
Actors: Arthur Miller, Milos Forman, Barbara Jordan, Jeremy Irons, Jerzy Kosinski DescriptionFilmmaker Ken Burns presents the definitive portrait of this great lady of the American imagination, in a program that won nominations for both an Academy Award and an Emmy. Follow her life, from her creation by French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, through her painstaking construction and accident-prone dedication in 1886. Interviews with ordinary Americans reveal a deep understanding of the unique place the statue holds in our hearts. Amazon.comKen Burns's fourth short film gives us a clear taste for the style that he made famous with The Civil War and Baseball. The first half of this hour-long program examines the design and construction of the Statue of Liberty using drawings, photographs, and readings (Jeremy Irons gives voice to French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, who designed the statue). As narrator David McCullough states, no one at the dedication ceremony mentioned immigration, but the statue became a towering symbol of America's open-door policy. The second half examines the meaning of the statue and of liberty itself. Comments by author James Baldwin, director Milos Forman, and politicians Barbara Jordan and Mario Cuomo reverberate, as does Paul Simon's song "American Tune," which bookends the picture. --Doug Thomas
Reviews for the Ken Burns's America: The Statue of Liberty  New Price: $11.99 The Congress
Actors: Arthur Miller, Milos Forman, Barbara Jordan, Jeremy Irons, Jerzy Kosinski Amazon.comKen Burns's film on "the closest thing to a National Temple" is a brief and vital history of the United States Congress--the building and the institution. While the executive wing receives most of history's ink, the legislative branch has a more varied and colorful story. Starting with golden-tongued orators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, the representatives were an eccentric lot, often pushing the limits of democracy with the power they wielded. Burns's formula of interviews, actors' readings, and wonderful photographs continue in this production although it's more streamlined. Covering 200 years in 90 minutes (the video version is slightly longer than the TV airing) is a tough job and we only stay a minute or two with key characters, many of whom you've never heard of. Burns may have bitten off more then he could chew with the vast history--much of it dealing with the slavery issue--but that was solved with his next project: his 11-hour masterpiece, The Civil War. --Doug Thomas
Reviews for the The Congress  New Price: $22.52 Triumph of the Will
Actor: et al. Adolph Hitler
Reviews for the Triumph of the Will  New Price: $169.26 Ken Burns' America Collection (Brooklyn Bridge/The Statue of Liberty/Empire of the Air/The Congress/Thomas Hart Benton/Huey Long/The Shakers)
Actors: Paul Roebling, Julie Harris, Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Richard Pini DescriptionThese seven brilliant programs by America's foremost documentary filmmaker comprise a glorious anthem to a great nation and its people. "Brooklyn Bridge" and "Statue of Liberty" chronicle the conception and building of these magnificent structures that grace New York Harbor. "Empire of the Air" is an absorbing history of radio and the men who created it, while "The Congress" is a fascinating portrait of this unique American institution. Opposites in almost every way, artist "Thomas Hart Benton" and politician "Huey Long" are portrayed in compelling biographies. "The Shakers" is a moving tribute to the most enduring religious experiment in American history.
Reviews for the Ken Burns' America Collection (Brooklyn Bridge/The Statue of Liberty/Empire of the Air/The Congress/Thomas Hart Benton/Huey Long/The Shakers)  New Price: $49.99 Horatio's Drive - America's First Road Trip
Actors: Keith David, Tom Hanks, Adam Arkin, Tom Bodett, Philip Bosco Amazon.comSubtitled "America's First Road Trip," Horatio's Drive captures the remarkable odyssey of Horatio Nelson Jackson, a doctor from Vermont who--accompanied by a former professional bicyclist and a bulldog named Bud--helmed the first trip from coast to coast in a car. In 1903, after making a $50 bet he could drive to New York City in 90 days, Nelson set off from San Francisco in a used Winton two-seater than he bought for $3000 and proceeded to cross a country where most roads, if they existed at all, were still made of dirt. Pulling together newspaper articles, period movies, and Jackson's own photographs and passionate love letters to his wife, famed documentarian Ken Burns crafts a love letter of his own to the automobile and the ways it has shaped American life. Horatio's Drive is both educational and completely entertaining. --Bret Fetzer
Reviews for the Horatio's Drive - America's First Road Trip  New Price: $29.88 Triumph Of The Will
Actors: Leni Riefenstahl, Sepp Dietrich, Josef Goebbels, Konstantin Hierl, Hermann Göring Amazon.com essential videoTriumph of the Will is one of the most important films ever made. Not because it documents evil--more watchable examples are being made today. And not as a historical example of blind propaganda--those (much shorter) movies are merely laughable now. No, Riefenstahl's masterpiece--and it is a masterpiece, politics aside--combines the strengths of documentary and propaganda into a single, overwhelmingly powerful visual force. Riefenstahl was hired by the Reich to create an eternal record of the 1934 rally at Nuremberg, and that's exactly what she does. You might not become a Nazi after watching her film, but you will understand too clearly how Germany fell under Hitler's spell. The early crowd scenes remind one of nothing so much as Beatles concert footage (if only their fans were so well behaved!). Like the fascists it monumentalizes, Triumph of the Will overlooks its own weaknesses--at nearly two hours, the speeches tend to drone on, and the repeated visual motifs are a little over-hypnotic, especially for modern viewers. But the occasional iconic vista (banners lining the streets of Nuremberg, Hitler parting a sea of 200,000 party members standing at attention) will electrify anyone into wakefulness. --Grant Balfour
Reviews for the Triumph Of The Will  New Price: $89.99 Thomas Jefferson: A Film by Ken Burns
Actors: Ossie Davis, Michael Potts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Waterston, Blythe Danner Amazon.comThe complicated life of Thomas Jefferson is the subject of this excellent documentary by noted filmmaker Ken Burns. Using techniques that will seem comfortably familiar to viewers of other films by Burns, historians and writers (including Joseph Ellis, Daniel Boorstin, Garry Wills, and Gore Vidal) appear on camera to speak about Jefferson, a cast of actors read the words of Jefferson and others. The visuals include beautifully photographed shots of Jefferson's famed estate, Monticello, other locations where Jefferson lived and worked, and a vast number of period drawings and paintings. Jefferson, who was born into a prosperous Virginia family but lost his father when he was young, became a skilled lawyer despite his natural shyness. And the story of how he became a public figure and rose to prominence during the American Revolution is told intelligently. Commentators, including the noted African American historian John Hope Franklin, grapple with the peculiar inconsistencies of Jefferson's life. The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, and some of what he wrote about race is both troubling and puzzling. This film (which covers Jefferson's entire life, including his two terms as the young country's president and his later years in Virginia) doesn't sidestep controversy but provides a balanced account of one of the most fascinating of all Americans. --Robert J. McNamara
Reviews for the Thomas Jefferson: A Film by Ken Burns  New Price: $19.70 Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film
Actors: Josh Hamilton, Barbara Feldon, Eli Wallach, Ansel Adams, David Ogden Stiers Amazon.comRic Burns's documentary for the American Experience series winningly persuades one to think of Ansel Adams as not only the greatest American photographer of the 20th century, but also one of its most treasured artists. Using the familiar formula of New York (and his brother Ken's documentaries), Burns vividly brings Adams's world to life. Narrator David Ogden Stiers is used minimally after the initial set-up, leaving the words to curators, authors, and family members who knew Adams's life and art best (Adams's own letters are also voiced). The film, sponsored by the Sierra Club to mark the 100th anniversary of the photographer's birth, makes a passionate plea for this man "who helped transfer the meaning of wilderness and what people thought about it." There is plenty of time for his magnificent pictures to be shown, often nicely accompanied by modern-day color films of the area. It's a must-see for any fan of Adams. --Doug Thomas
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