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Entertainment News for Senior Citizens
PBS to Air Epic Documentary About World War II Next
September
Promotion begin this Wednesday to during two nights
of military history for Veterans Day
 November 7, 2006 - PBS (Public Broadcasting
Service) has announced that it will air the new Ken Burns documentary
series, THE WAR, in September 2007 and begin promoting it this
week (see sidebar below). The seven-part documentary series,
directed and produced by Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history
and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by
following the fortunes of so- called ordinary men and women who get
caught up in the greatest cataclysm in human history.
Plans call for THE WAR to air over two weeks
beginning on Sunday, September 16 from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. In
addition to the national broadcast on PBS, THE WAR will also air
simultaneously on PBS High Definition Channel with surround sound. PBS
will repeat each episode the night it airs, stage marathon viewings on
the weekends, and launch the film as a weekly series after its first
two-week run.
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on
Entertainment for Seniors |
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The series will also be rebroadcast on PBS's World
Channel following the original broadcast. A web page dedicated to THE
WAR will also be launched this week at
http://www.pbs.org/thewar.
Burns will show highlights of the film at the
International Conference on World War II at the National World War II
Museum in New Orleans on November 16. (The conference dates are November
16 - 19, 2006.)
Six years in the making, this epic 14-hour film,
reminiscent in scope and power of Burns's landmark series THE CIVIL
WAR, focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically
distributed and quintessentially American towns -- Waterbury,
Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and the tiny
farming town of Luverne, Minnesota.
These four communities stand in for -- and could
represent -- any town in the United States that went through the war's
four devastating years. Individuals from each community take the viewer
through their own personal and quite often harrowing journeys into war,
painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives
and those of their neighbors, as well as the country they helped to save
for generations to come.
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PBS Military Movies This Week |
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PBS will begin promoting THE WAR
this
Wednesday, November 8 between the broadcast of three productions from
Thirteen/WNET New York that deal with World War II: SECRETS OF THE
DEAD: DOGFIGHT OVER GUADALCANAL, a modern investigation of the
legendary World War II showdown between an American and Japanese pilot,
using restored vintage planes and computer-generated recreations
(November 8, 2006, 8:00 - 9:00 p.m. ET); WARPLANE, the story of
the evolution of air power (November 8 & 15, 2006, 9:00 - 11:00 p.m.);
and SECRETS OF THE DEAD: BOMBING NAZI DAMS, a profile of one of
the strangest missions of World War II, the dropping of the bouncing
bomb on Nazi dams (November 15, 2006, 8:00 - 9:00 p.m. ET). |
"The Second World War was so massive, catastrophic
and complex, it is almost beyond the mind's and the heart's capacity to
process everything that happened and, more important, what it meant on a
human level," said Burns.
"Every person in the country was deeply affected by
this war, whether in battle, at home, at work, or in the case of
Japanese-Americans, in internment camps. By focusing on the personal
stories of ordinary Americans who had extraordinary experiences, the
film tries to bring one of the biggest events in the history of the
world down to a very intimate scale. And in the end, we all begin to
see, I think, that there are no 'ordinary' lives."
"PBS has a deep and abiding respect for the
history, drama and tragedy of war," said John F. Wilson, Senior Vice
President, PBS Programming. "It's critical that we capture the stories
of the generation that fought and lived through World War II before they
are lost to us forever. Serving our mission to educate and inform, PBS's
goal for THE WAR is to reach into every home and classroom -- so
together we can better understand what we as a nation experienced in
those difficult years and what we as a nation accomplished."
Accompanying the series will be a companion book,
written by Geoffrey C. Ward and introduced by Ken Burns, that will be
published by Alfred A. Knopf; Ward and Burns collaborated previously on
the unexpected bestseller The Civil War.
PBS Home Video is producing a complete DVD box set
that will feature "making of" footage and an interview with Burns and
others involved in the film. The soundtrack will be released in
September 2007 by Sony BMG Legacy Recordings. As with all of Burns's
films, there will be an extensive educational outreach component and an
interactive Web page that provides more information on the film, the
battles and related issues.
"THE WAR is a stunning achievement in filmmaking,"
said Sonny Mehta, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Knopf Publishing
Group, "and possibly the most complete rendering of war ever captured by
a documentarian. It is an honor to be working with Ken and Geoffrey once
again on this very special book, which promises to be a landmark
publishing event." Knopf is announcing a first printing of 750,000
copies for the book, which will go on sale nationwide August 21, 2007.
In addition to Keith David's narration, THE WAR
features first-person voices read by some of America's greatest actors.
Tom Hanks reads the voice of Al McIntosh, the editor of the Rock County
Star-Herald in Luverne, Minnesota, whose weekly columns poignantly tried
to explain the unexplainable to his neighbors. Other voices include Josh
Lucas, Bobby Canavale, Samuel L. Jackson, Eli Wallach, Robert Wahlberg,
Carolyn McCormack, Adam Arkin and Kevin Conway.
THE WAR is a production of Florentine Films
and WETA Washington, D.C., directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn
Novick, written by Geoffrey C. Ward, produced by Sarah Botstein,
co-producers Peter Miller and David McMahon, episode editors, Paul
Barnes, Erik Ewers and Tricia Reidy, cinematography Buddy Squires and
narrated by Keith David.
Corporate funding is provided by General Motors and
Anheuser-Busch. Major funding is provided by Lilly Endowment, Inc.;
Public Broadcasting Service; National Endowment for the Humanities; the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and The Arthur Vining Davis
Foundations. Additional funding is provided by The Pew Charitable
Trusts; The Longaberger Foundation; and Park Foundation, Inc.
For more information and photos go to
pbs.org/pressroom.
About PBS
PBS is a private, non-profit media enterprise
that serves the nation's 354 public non-commercial television stations,
reaching nearly 90 million people each week through on-air and online
content. Bringing diverse viewpoints to television and the Internet, PBS
provides high-quality documentary and dramatic entertainment, and
consistently dominates the most prestigious award competitions. PBS is
the leading provider of educational materials for K-12 teachers, and
offers a broad array of other educational services. PBS's premier kids'
TV programming and Web site, PBS KIDS Online (pbskids.org), continue to
be parents' and teachers' most trusted learning environments for
children. More information about PBS is available at pbs.org, one of the
leading dot-org Web sites on the Internet.
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