1. New Civil War Series
2. The Civil War Season 1 Episode 6
3. Burns Civil War Episode 1

The Civil War is a 1990 American television documentaryminiseries created by Ken Burns about the American Civil War. It was first broadcast on PBS on five consecutive nights from September 23 to 28, 1990. More than 39 million viewers tuned in to at least one episode, and viewership averaged more than 14 million viewers each evening, 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 Civil War Episode 1: The Cause. This episode describes the decades leading up to the war and the causes of the war itself. The film also takes the viewer through the first year of the war, concluding with the 2nd Battle of Manasses, commonly known as the Battle of Bull Run. Project Credit: To get credit for watching this film. Sep 23, 1990  Watch Ken Burns' The Civil War Season 1 Episode 1: The Cause (1861) online. SideReel features links to all your favorite TV shows. The opening strains of The Civil War, Ashokan Farewell, are haunting, even over twenty-five years later. The Civil War was the most destructive war in American history. Burns does a yeoman's job of presenting the causes leading up to the war, the war itself, and its lasting aftermath. It's long, but it needs to be. There is no fat, no excess, really. 1:1:48 Ken Burns The Civil War Episode 4 - Simply Murder 1863. Downloaded from YouTube. The 4th episode in the award winning PBS documentary by Ken Burns. This one covers Emancipation, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. The file name is misleading. There appears to be no viable Episode 3 on YouTube.VS 7. Uploaded 3 years ago to 5th Grade. The Civil War (miniseries) It was first broadcast on PBS on five consecutive nights from September 23 to 28, 1990. Over 39 million viewers tuned in to at least one episode, and viewership averaged more than 14 million viewers each evening, making it the most-watched program ever to air on PBS. The Civil War Episode 1 The Cause. In Tennessee, a confederate soldier who wrote a book after he survived the war, gave a southern viewpoint of soldier. The Curse of Civil War Gold Season 3 is yet to be announced by History Channel. Latest Episode Aired Tue 7/2/2019 It Ain't Over 'Til It's Overboard Season 2.

The series was rebroadcast in June 1994^[2] as a lead-up to Baseball, then remastered for its 12th anniversary in 2002, although it remained in standard definition 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.

• 1Production
• 4Remastering

Production[edit]

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 the 'Ken Burns effect'.Burns combined these images with modern cinematography, music, narration by David McCullough, anecdotes and insights from authors such as Shelby Foote,^[3] 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 and commentary from James W. Symington. 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. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Music[edit]

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.'^[4] It is the only modern piece of music heard in the film, and subsequently became the first ever single release for the Elektra Nonesuch label, which released the series' soundtrack album.^[5] 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.^[6][7] 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'.^[8]

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[edit]

• Narrated by David McCullough
• Sam Waterston as Abraham Lincoln
• Julie Harris as Mary Chesnut
• Jason Robards as Ulysses S. Grant
• Morgan Freeman as Frederick Douglass and others
• Paul Roebling as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
• Garrison Keillor as Walt Whitman and others
• George Black as Robert E. Lee
• Arthur Miller as William Tecumseh Sherman and others
• Christopher Murney as Elisha Hunt Rhodes
• Charley McDowell as Sam Watkins
• Horton Foote as Jefferson Davis
• George Plimpton as George Templeton Strong
• Philip Bosco as Horace Greeley
• Terry Courier as George B. McClellan
• Jody Powell as Stonewall Jackson and others
• Studs Terkel as Benjamin Butler and others
• Hoyt Axton as various
• John Hartford as various
• Colleen Dewhurst as various
• Shelby Foote as various
• Ronnie Gilbert as various
• Jeremy Irons as various
• Gene Jones as various
• Derek Jacobi as various
• Kurt Vonnegut as various
• Laurence Fishburne (credited as Larry Fishburne) as various
• Pamela Reed as various
• M. Emmet Walsh as various

Episode list[edit]

Each episode was divided into numerous chapters or vignettes,^[7] 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[edit]

The series received more than forty 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 skillful depiction and retelling of the Civil War events, and also for drawing huge numbers of viewers into a new awareness of the historical importance of the conflict. Prior to this series, the Civil War had receded in popular historical consciousness since its 1960s centennial. Following the series, there was a sharp upturn in popular books and other works about the Civil War.^[14]

Robert Brent Toplin in 1996 wrote Ken Burns's The Civil War: Historians Respond, which included essays from critical academic historians who felt their topics of interest weren't covered in enough detail and responses from Ken Burns and others involved in the series' production.

Remastering[edit]

12th Anniversary[edit]

The entire series was digitally remastered for re-release on September 17, 2002 in VHS and DVD by PBS Home Video and Warner Home Video. The DVD release included a short documentary on how a Spirit DataCine was used to transfer and remaster the film.^[15] The remastering was limited to producing an improved fullscreen standard definition digital video of the film's interpositive negatives, for broadcast and DVD. The soundtrack was also re-mastered and remixed in 5.1 Dolby Digital AC3 surround sound.

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[edit]

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.^[16] Blu-ray and DVD editions were released on October 13, 2015.

Soundtrack[edit]

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

See also[edit]

• The War, World War II documentary by Ken Burns

References[edit]

1. ^Ward, Geoffrey C.; Burns, Ric; Burns, Ken (1992) [First published 1991]. The Civil War: An Illustrated History. New York: Knopf. ISBN978-0679742777.
2. ^''The Civil War', 'Gettysburg' capture history'. Southern Illonoisan. June 25, 1994. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
3. ^''Civil War' audience 'discovers' storyteller-writer Shelby Foote'. TV Today. The Milwaukee Sentinel. September 25, 1990. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
4. ^'The Civil War . The Film . Music of the Civil War'. pbs.org.
5. ^DiMartino, Dave. 'Instrumental Soundtracks Chime In.' Billboard magazine, 16 February 1991, p. 55.
6. ^Ashokan FAQArchived February 12, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
7. ^ ^ab'The Civil War . The Film . Episode Descriptions'. pbs.org.
8. ^Alexander Klein, 'Scoring Ken Burns' Civil War: An Interview with Pianist Jacqueline Schwab'Film Score Monthly, April 2013.
9. ^'Sunday Prime Time Television Listings'. The Milwaukee Sentinel. September 22, 1990. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
10. ^ ^ab'Monday Prime Time Television Listings'. The Milwaukee Sentinel. September 24, 1990. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
11. ^ ^ab'Tuesday Prime Time Television Listings'. The Milwaukee Sentinel. September 25, 1990. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
12. ^ ^ab'Wednesday Prime Time Television Listings'. The Milwaukee Sentinel. September 26, 1990. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
13. ^ ^ab'Thursday Prime Time Television Listings'. The Milwaukee Sentinel. September 27, 1990. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
14. ^Thanks a Lot, Ken Burns, by James M. Lundberg, Salon. com, June 7, 2011.
15. ^'Why we decided to Re-master The Civil War'.
16. ^Patrick Kevin Day (April 9, 2015). 'PBS to air remastered version of Ken Burns' 'The Civil War''. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 2, 2015.

External links[edit]

• The Civil War on IMDb

New Civil War Series

The Civil War Episode 1

The Civil War Season 1 Episode 6

Burns Civil War Episode 1