The Civil War (TV series)

The Civil War
A side portion of the 1991 VHS box set of nine volumes
Genre	Documentary
Written by	Geoffrey C. Ward Ric Burns
Directed by	Ken Burns
Voices of	Sam Waterston Jason Robards Julie Harris Morgan Freeman Garrison Keillor Arthur Miller George Plimpton
Narrated by	David McCullough
Country of origin	USA
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	9
Production
Producer(s)	Ken Burns Ric Burns
Cinematography	Ken Burns Allen Moore Buddy Squires
Editor(s)	Paul Barnes Bruce Shaw Tricia Reidy
Running time	690 minutes/11 hours 30 minutes (9 episodes)
Production company(s)	Kenneth Lauren Burns Productions (Florentine Films), WETA-TV
Distributor	PBS
Release
Original network	PBS
Picture format	1.33:1
Audio format	Mono
Original release	September 23–27, 1990
External links
Website
Production website

The Civil War is the 1990 American television documentary miniseries created by Ken Burns about the American Civil War. It was first broadcast on PBS on five consecutive nights from September 23 to 27, 1990. Approximately 40 million viewers watched it during this broadcast, making it the most-watched program ever to air on PBS. It was awarded more than 40 major television and film honors. A companion book to the documentary was released shortly after the series aired.^[1]

The series was remastered for its 12th anniversary in 2002, although it remained in standard definition (SD) resolution. To commemorate the film's 25th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination, the film underwent a complete digital restoration to high definition format in 2015. This completely restored version aired on PBS September 7–11, 2015.

Production

Mathew Brady's photographs inspired Burns to make The Civil War, which (in nine episodes totaling more than 10 hours) explores the war's military, social, and political facets through some 16,000 contemporary photographs and paintings, and excerpts from the letters and journals of persons famous and obscure.

The series' slow zooming and panning across still images was later termed "Ken Burns effect". Burns combined these images with modern cinematography, music, narration by David McCullough, anecdotes and insights from authors such as Shelby Foote,^[2] historians Barbara J. Fields, Ed Bearss, and Stephen B. Oates; and actors reading contemporary quotes from historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Walt Whitman, Stonewall Jackson, and Frederick Douglass, as well as diaries by Mary Chesnut, Sam Watkins, Elisha Hunt Rhodes and George Templeton Strong. A large cast of actors voiced correspondence, memoirs, news articles, and stood in for historical figures from the Civil War.

Burns also interviewed Daisy Turner, then a 104-year-old daughter of an ex-slave, whose poetry features prominently in the series. Turner died in February 1988, a full two and a half years before the series aired.

Production ran five years. The film was co-produced by Ken's brother Ric Burns, written by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ric Burns, edited by Paul Barnes with cinematography by Buddy Squires.

Music

The theme song of the documentary is the instrumental "Ashokan Farewell", which is heard twenty-five times during the film. The song was composed by Jay Ungar in 1982 and he describes it as "the song coming out of "a sense of loss and longing" after the annual Ashokan Music & Dance Camps ended."^[3] It is the only modern piece of music heard in the film. It became so closely associated with the series that people frequently and erroneously believe it was a Civil War song. Ungar, his band Fiddle Fever and pianist Jacqueline Schwab performed this song and many of the other 19th century songs used in the film.^[4][5] Schwab's arrangements in particular have been acclaimed by many experts. Musicologist Alexander Klein wrote: "Upon watching the full documentary, one is immediately struck by the lyricism of Schwab’s playing and, more importantly, her exceptional arranging skills. What had been originally rousing and at times bellicose songs such as the southern “Bonnie Blue Flag” or the northern “Battle Cry of Freedom” now suddenly sounded like heart-warming, lyrical melodies due to Schwab’s interpretations. The pianist not only changed the songs’ original mood but also allowed herself some harmonic liberties so as to make these century-old marching tunes into piano lamentations that contemporary audiences could fully identify with".^[6]

A major piece of vocal music in the series is a version of the old spiritual "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder", performed a cappella by the African American singer, scholar and activist Bernice Johnson Reagon and several other female voices. The song appears on Reagon's album River of Life.

Voices

Episode list

Each episode was divided into numerous chapters or vignettes,^[5] but each generally had a primary theme or focus (i.e., a specific battle or topic). The series followed a fairly consistent chronological order of history.

Reception and awards

The series received more than 40 major film and television awards, including two Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, Producer of the Year Award from the Producers Guild of America, People's Choice Award, Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award, D.W. Griffith Award, and the US$50,000 Lincoln Prize, among dozens of others.

The series sparked a major renewal of interest in the Civil War. It was widely acclaimed for its skill in depicting and retelling the events of the Civil War, and also for noticeably drawing huge numbers of viewers into a new awareness of the genuine historical importance of this conflict. Prior to this series, the Civil War had been somewhat neglected in popular historical consciousness. After this series, there was a vast new sudden upturn in popular books and other works on the Civil War.^[12]

Robert Brent Toplin wrote a book in 1997, Ken Burns's The Civil War: Historians Respond, which includes essays both from critical academic historians who felt their topics of interest weren't covered in enough detail in the series as well as responses from Ken Burns and others involved in the series' production.

Remastering

12th Anniversary

The entire series was digitally remastered for re-release on September 17, 2002 in VHS and DVD. The DVD release included a short documentary on how a Spirit DataCine was used to transfer and remaster the film.^[13] The remastering was limited to producing an improved fullscreen SD digital video of the film's interpositive negatives, for broadcast and DVD. The soundtrack was also remixed.

Paul Barnes, Editor & Post-Production Supervisor, Florentine Films at that time commented:

"Ken Burns and I decided to remaster The Civil War for several reasons. First of all when we completed the film in 1989, we were operating under a very tight schedule and budget. As the main editor on the film, I always wanted to go back and improve the overall quality of the film. The other reason for remastering the film at this time is that the technology to color correct, print and transfer a film to video for broadcast has vastly improved, especially in the realm of digital computer technology... We also were able to eliminate a great deal of the dust and dirt that often get embedded into 16mm film when it is printed."

25th Anniversary

For the 150th anniversary of the end of the War, and the 25th anniversary of the series, PBS remastered the series in high-definition. This work involved creating a new 4K Ultra High Definition digital master of the film's original camera negatives and was carried out in association with the George Eastman House, where the original 16mm negatives are preserved. It aired on PBS September 7–11, 2015.^[14] Blu-ray and DVD editions were released on October 13, 2015.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack featuring songs from the miniseries, many of which were songs popular during the Civil War, has been released.

See also

• The War, World War II documentary by Ken Burns

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Civil War (TV series)

• PBS: The Civil War
• The Civil War at the Internet Movie Database
• Alexander Klein's interview with pianist Jacqueline Schwab