Anyone else going to this? I'm a huge Burns fan, and hope that he'll discuss particulars of Knoxville / ET's role in the Civil War....Ft. Sanders, Greenville (home of Andrew Johnson and a county that vacillated between Union / South throughout the war and only county in the South who has monuments to both North and South, IIRC), General Morgan, etc. Link: http://www.tennesseetheatre.com/event/719603/an-evening-with-ken-burns-mystic-chords-of-memory/
I would if I lived closer. Also a big fan of Burns. How could you leave an e out of Greeneville? I was born there and that extra e is kind of a big deal.
Baseball is one of the best documentaries ever made. Civil War was incredible. Jazz was fantastic. The newer on on Prohibition was real good, too.
He almost always delivers. The one on Jack Johnson is fantastic and I really liked the National Park doc, as well as the Central Park Five. Shockingly, the one on World War II was just alright to me. The recent one on Vietnam was the first documentary I've seen that really went into detail on all perspectives, including a number of North Vietnamese vets and citizens.
Going to try to make it with my dad. I have watched the Civil War Series a dozen times. Ashokan's Farewell is the prettiest music ever written, IMO.
This is probably obvious to all but the quality of his work is heavily dependent on the source material. If not for Shelby Foote and The Glory of Their Times, his Civil War and Baseball series would have been doa.
First sentence is correct for every documentary. I completely disagree with the second sentence re: The Civil War. And I have read a thing or two about that war. Shelby Foote was not the first and only to tell those stories. Admittedly there are some things in his work that don't show up anywhere else but those don' show up in the film except for the apocryphal story he tells about Bedford Forest being the last casualty at Shiloh. Burns drew from lots of places: Lincoln's letters, McCLellan's letters, Frederick Douglas's letters, Grant's memoirs, Longstreet's memoirs, the diaries of Elisha Hunt Rhodes and Sam Watkins (this dude is as witty as Mark Twain), the history of the iron brigade, slave diaries, etc. Foote's commentary is nice. It adds to the series. Love hearing the guy talk. He is definitely an expert on Shiloh and Vicksburg and the whole western campaign. As far as readable histories of the Civil War, I greatly prefer Catton. And the documentary seemed to be as greatly influenced by him as any other writer including Foote. Foote, for instance has a much less negative view of McClellan than the tone that the documentary decided to take. He also has a much lower view of Sherman than the documentary did. What's more, the theme of the Civil War documentary is absolutely dominated by slavery and the idea that the war transformed into a fight for human freedom. Foote rarely if ever mentions slavery. It is nice to include Foote's southern perspective. And I don't think it should be completely discounted: "we're fighting because you're down here." But the idea that Foote is some kind of unapproachable Civil War guru whose work is an invaluable source is really really off. The documentary could only hit the high points of the Civil War. What's there is indeed present in Foote, but it's there in 100 other places as well.
Aha! Learn something new everyday I suppose. Thanks for your reply! I too don't think there is enough credence placed on the "we're fighting because you're down here" of Foote.
Wow - that will be money, IMO. The History of Jazz is often overlooked, given the size and popularity of his other works, but it might be the overall best documentary he’s done, save the Civil War.
