Details
Movie Description
Historian-documentary director Ken Burns creates a careful and vivid portrait of westward expansion in this PBS nine-parter. Archival photos, old maps, and vintage music deepen the documentary's historical feel; actors' reading of first-person narrative fragments from old letters, newspapers, and other documents add intimacy to the experience.
Synopsis
"The West" is presented (and executive produced) by filmmaker Ken Burns, director of the acclaimed documentaries "The Civil War" and "Baseball." Here, director Stephen Ives examines the numerous ways in which the American psyche has been defined by "manifest destiny" and the trek westward. Using diaries, letters, archival footage and more, Ives provides a multi-layered history of this broad landscape. This epic covers the personalities, stereotypes, religious and racial issues associated with this part of the country, and the struggle of those who settled there.
Finally, spectacular footage of the mountains, plains, rivers, and canyons of the West makes this documentary both a visual, as well as an informative, treat for all.
Film Notes
DVD Features:
Region 1
Keep Case
5-Disc Set
Single Side - Single Layer
Full Frame - 1.33
Interactive Features:
Scene Access
Originally aired on the PBS network September 15, 1996 (the series ran for eight nights).
This collection includes the following episodes which are each available individually:
"The People"
"Empire Upon the Trails"
"The Speck of the Future"
"Death Runs Riot"
"Grandest Enterprise Under God"
"Fight No More Forever"
"The Geography of Hope"
"Ghost Dance"
"One Sky Above Us"
See each episode record for more complete information.
Copyright 1996 The West Film Project, Inc./Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association, Inc.
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