The “Great East River Bridge” was the largest bridge of its era, a technical achievement of unparalleled scope, marked by enormous construction problems, equally ingenious solutions and heroic human achievement. In unexpected and wonderful ways, the Brooklyn Bridge captured the imagination of all Americans, and in the process became a symbol in American culture of strength, vitality, ingenuity and promise. Brooklyn Bridge tells the dramatic story of the larger-than-life men who imagined and built it, and the immense charm this granite and steel structure has exerted on generations of city dwellers.
Jazz begins in New Orleans, 19th century America's most cosmopolitan city, where the sound of marching bands, Italian opera, Caribbean rhythms, and minstrel shows fills the streets with a richly diverse musical culture. In the 1890s, African-American musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden and Sydney Bichet create a new music out of these ingredients. Soon after the start of the new century, people are calling it jazz.
Speakeasies, flappers, and easy money - it's the Jazz Age, when the story of jazz becomes a tale of two great cities, Chicago and New York, and of two extraordinary artists whose lives and music will span almost three-quarters of a century - Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Armstrong grew up on the mean streets of New Orleans and moved to Chicago in 1922, inspiring a new generation of musicians. Meanwhile, Ellington outgrows the society music he learned to play in Washington D.C., and heads to Harlem.
They called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, but because of their ecstatic dancing, the world called them “Shakers.” Though they were celibate, they constitute the most enduring religious experiment in American history. They believed in pacifism as well as natural health and hygiene; for more than 200 years, they insisted that their followers strive for simplicity and perfection in everything they did. The Shakers put their “hands to work and their hearts to God,” creating an exquisite legacy of fine furniture, glorious architecture and beautiful music that will remain and inspire long after the last Shaker is gone. The Shakers is a portrait of this particularly American movement.
For more than 100 years the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and refuge for generations of immigrants. In interviews with Americans from all walks of life, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, the late congresswoman Barbara Jordan and the late writers James Baldwin and Jerzy Kosinski, Statue of Liberty examines the nature of liberty and the significance of the statue to American life.
In the 1920s, jazz is everywhere, and for the first time soloists and singers take center stage. We meet Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues; Bix Beiderbecke, the first great white jazz star; and Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, for whom jazz offers a chance to escape the ghetto and achieve their dreams. Duke Ellington appears at the Cotton Club and Louis Armstrong performs his masterpiece, "West End Blues."
In 1929 as the Great Depression begins, New York is now America's jazz capital. On Broadway, Louis Armstrong revolutionizes the art of American popular song. In Harlem, Chick Webb pioneers his own big-band sound and in the city's clubs, pianists Fats Waller and Art Tatum dazzle audiences. But it is Duke Ellington who takes jazz "beyond category," composing hit tunes that has critics comparing him to Stravinsky.
He was a populist hero and a corrupt demagogue, hailed as a champion of the poor and reviled as a dictator. Louisiana’s Huey Long built his remarkable career as Governor and U.S. Senator on a platform of social reform and justice, all the while employing graft and corruption to get what he wanted. Long’s spellbinding personality and political machine might have taken him to the White House had he not been assassinated in 1935. Huey Long is a complex and comprehensive portrait of the man and the era, his politics and the power he so obsessively sought.
As the Great Depression drags on, jazz comes as close as it has ever come to being America's popular music. It has a new name, Swing, and for millions of young fans, it will be the defining music of their generation. Benny Goodman is hailed as the "King of Swing" and Billie Holiday begins her career as the greatest of all female jazz singers.
This portrait of the United States Congress explores the history and promise of one of the country’s most important and least understood institutions. It tells the story of the Capitol building itself—including its burning by the British in the War of 1812 and its completion in the midst of the Civil War—and chronicles the extraordinary personalities, events and issues that have animated the first 200 years of Congress and, in turn, the country.
As the 1930's come to a close, Swing-mania is still going strong, but some fans are saying success has made the music too predictable. Count Basie and the Kansas City sound reignite the spirit of swing. By the decade's end, Duke Ellington has been hailed as a hero in Europe, amid anxious preparations for war. And weeks after that war begins, Coleman Hawkins startles the world with a glimpse of what jazz will become, improvising a new music on the old standard, "Body and Soul."
His paintings were burly. Energetic. And as uncompromising as the Midwestern landscapes and laborers they celebrated. Thomas Hart Benton was a self-reliant American who emerged from the Great Depression. Today his works hang in museums; during Benton's life, the artist preferred to hang them in saloons, where ordinary people could appreciate them in congenial settings. A fierce defender of the aesthetics of realism, Benton took on the art establishment and railed against abstraction. His reputation suffered as his star rose, fell and rose once again. Thomas Hart Benton tells the bittersweet story of a great American artist who became emblematic of the price all artists must pay to remain true to their talents and to themselves.
Against the backdrop of radio’s “Golden Age,” Empire of the Air relates the history of radio through archival photographs, newsreels of the period and interviews with such well-known radio personalities as Garrison Keillor, the late sports commentator Red Barber, radio dramatist Norman Corwin and the late broadcast historian Erik Barnouw.
Thomas Jefferson is a two-part portrait of one of the most fascinating and complicated figures ever to walk across America’s public stage – our enigmatic and brilliant third president. Thomas Jefferson embodies within his own life the most profound contradictions of American history: as the author of our most sacred document, the Declaration of Independence, he gave voice to our fervent desire for freedom, but he also owned more than 150 human beings and never saw fit to free them. Jefferson also made himself into a true renaissance man – a scholar, a philosopher, a diplomat, an aesthete, and an architect. As a young man, he was transformed by the fire of the Enlightenment into America’s most articulate voice for human liberty. Torn between his desire for a serene family life at Monticello and his passion for politics, Jefferson endured ceaseless, heartrending personal loss. As President, he helped create the first American political party, and with the Louisiana Purchase, more than doubled the size of the new nation. Jefferson’s last years were spent founding the University of Virginia and reestablishing his friendship, after decades of estrangement, from his onetime rival John Adams. His influence on and vision for our country reverberates to this day.
When America enters World War II, jazz is part of the arsenal. Bandleaders like Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw enlist, taking their swing to the troops overseas. Many black Americans, segregated at home and in uniform, find themselves fighting for liberties their own country denies them. In a Harlem club called Minton's Playhouse, a small band of young musicians, led by Dizzy Gillespie and the saxophonist Charlie Parker, has discovered a new way of playing - fast, intricate, exhilarating, and sometimes chaotic. The sound will soon be called "bebop" and once Americans hear it, jazz will never be the same.
Thomas Jefferson is a two-part portrait of one of the most fascinating and complicated figures ever to walk across America’s public stage – our enigmatic and brilliant third president. Thomas Jefferson embodies within his own life the most profound contradictions of American history: as the author of our most sacred document, the Declaration of Independence, he gave voice to our fervent desire for freedom, but he also owned more than 150 human beings and never saw fit to free them.
The postwar years bring prosperity, but the Cold War threat makes these anxious years as well. In jazz, this underlying tension will be reflected in bebop, and in the troubled life of it's biggest star, Charlie Parker. Dizzy Gillespie, tries to popularize the new sound by adding showmanship and Latin rhythms, while pianist Thelonius Monk infuses it with his eccentric personality to create a music all his own. Dave Brubeck mixes jazz with classical music to produce a million-seller LP. But one man remains determined to give jazz popular appeal on his own terms, the trumpet player Miles Davis.
Sent by President Thomas Jefferson in 1804 to find the fabled Northwest Passage, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the most important expedition in American history – a voyage of danger and discovery from St. Louis to the headwaters of the Missouri River, over the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean. It was the United States’ first exploration of the West and one of the nation’s most enduring adventures. Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery tells the remarkable story of the entire Corps of Discovery – not just of the two Captains, but the young army men, French-Canadian boatmen, Clark’s African-American slave, and the Shoshone woman named Sacagawea, who brought along her infant son. As important to the story as these many characters, however, was the spectacular land itself, and the promises it held.
For jazz, the late 1950s is a period of transition when old stars like Billie Holiday and Lester Young will burn out while young talents arise to take the music in new directions. New virtuosos push the limits of bebop: saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins; jazz diva Sarah Vaughan; and the drummer Art Blakey. But the leading light of the era is Miles Davis whose lush recordings expand the jazz audience; and a cultural icon whose tough-guy charisma comes to define what's hip. As the turbulent Sixties arrive, two saxophonists take jazz into uncharted terrain. John Coltrane explodes the pop tune My Favorite Things, while Ornette Coleman challenges all conventions with a sound he calls "free jazz."
During the Sixties, jazz is in trouble. Though Louis Armstrong briefly outsells the Beatles with "Hello Dolly," most jazz musicians are desperate for work and many head for Europe. In the 1970s, jazz loses the exuberant genius of Louis Armstrong and the transcendent artistry of Duke Ellington, Their passing seems to mark the end of the music itself. But in 1976, when Dexter Gordon returns from Europe for a triumphant comeback, jazz has a homecoming, too. A new generation emerges, led by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis - schooled in the music's traditions, skilled in the art of improvisation, and aflame with ideas. The musical journey that began in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century continues. As it enters its second century, jazz is still brand new every night, still vibrant, still evolving, and still swinging.
Live cinematography, interviews, and archival footage tell the life story of Frank Lloyd Wright, an authentic American genius who believed he was destined to "redesign the world." This biographical film follows the turbulent career of one of the most important architects to grace the twentieth century.
The story of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and their life long fight to bring equal rights to women.
Samuel Clemens rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become, as Mark Twain, America’s best-known and best-loved author. Considered in his time the funniest man on earth, Twain was also an unflinching critic of human nature who used his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism. He created some of the world’s most memorable characters as well as its most quoted sayings. And, in his often-misunderstood novel Huckleberry Finn, he shared with the world the masterpiece that Ernest Hemingway would call the true beginning of American literature. Mark Twain tells the story of the writer’s extraordinary life – full of rollicking adventure, stupendous success and crushing defeat, hilarious comedy and almost unbearable tragedy. By the end, the film helps us to see how Twain could claim with some justification, “I am not an American, I am the American.”
Samuel Clemens rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become, as Mark Twain, America’s best-known and best-loved author. Considered in his time the funniest man on earth, Twain was also an unflinching critic of human nature who used his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism. He created some of the world’s most memorable characters as well as its most quoted sayings. And, in his often-misunderstood novel Huckleberry Finn, he shared with the world the masterpiece that Ernest Hemingway would call the true beginning of American literature. Mark Twain tells the story of the writer’s extraordinary life – full of rollicking adventure, stupendous success and crushing defeat, hilarious comedy and almost unbearable tragedy. By the end, the film helps us to see how Twain could claim with some justification, “I am not anAmerican, I am the American.”
In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new-fangled “horseless carriage.” At the time there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire country, all of them within city limits. There were no gas stations and virtually no road maps as we know them today. Most people doubted that the automobile had much of a future. Jackson’s trip would dramatically change that perception. Horatio’s Drive tells the story of America’s first transcontinental road trip, which, like all road trips that would follow, included the usual mix of breakdowns and flat tires, inedible meals and uncomfortable beds, getting lost and enduring bad weather – and having a truly unforgettable experience crossing the nation’s vast landscape. Throughout it all, Jackson’s indomitable spirit and sheer enthusiasm would prove to be as indispensable as the fuel for his car.
In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new-fangled “horseless carriage.” At the time there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire country, all of them within city limits. There were no gas stations and virtually no road maps as we know them today. Most people doubted that the automobile had much of a future. Jackson’s trip would dramatically change that perception. Horatio’s Drive tells the story of America’s first transcontinental road trip, which, like all road trips that would follow, included the usual mix of breakdowns and flat tires, inedible meals and uncomfortable beds, getting lost and enduring bad weather – and having a truly unforgettable experience crossing the nation’s vast landscape. Throughout it all, Jackson’s indomitable spirit and sheer enthusiasm would prove to be as indispensable as the fuel for his car.
Unforgivable Blackness tells the story of the first African-American boxer to win the most coveted title in all of sports and his struggle, in and out of the ring, to live his life as a free man. The film follows Jack Johnson’s remarkable journey from his humble beginnings in Galveston, Texas, as the son of former slaves, to his entry into the brutal world of professional boxing, where, in turn-of-the-century Jim Crow America, the heavyweight champion was an exclusively “white title.” Despite the odds, Johnson was able to batter his way up through the professional ranks, and in 1908 he became the first African-American to earn the title Heavyweight Champion of the World.
The Tenth Inning updates the landmark 1994 series, Baseball. Beginning where the original series left off, The Tenth Inning is based on the premise that this seemingly simple stick and ball game continues to be a window through which it is possible to see the best, as well as the worst, of America. Beginning in the early 1990s, the film tells the tumultuous story of our national pastime up to the present day, introducing an unforgettable array of players, teams and fans, celebrating the game’s resilience and enduring appeal, and showcasing a succession of extraordinary accomplishments and heroics – and devastating losses and disappointments.
The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, when a frenzied wheat boom on the southern Plains, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s, nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation. Menacing black blizzards killed farmers’ crops and livestock, threatened the lives of their children, and forced thousands of desperate families to pick up and move somewhere else. Vivid interviews with more than two dozen survivors of those hard times, combined with dramatic photographs and seldom seen movie footage, bring to life stories of incredible human suffering and equally incredible human perseverance. The Dust Bowl, a four-hour, two-episode documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, is also a morality tale about our relationship to the land that sustains us—a lesson we ignore at our peril.
The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, when a frenzied wheat boom on the southern Plains, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s, nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation. Menacing black blizzards killed farmers’ crops and livestock, threatened the lives of their children, and forced thousands of desperate families to pick up and move somewhere else. Vivid interviews with more than two dozen survivors of those hard times, combined with dramatic photographs and seldom seen movie footage, bring to life stories of incredible human suffering and equally incredible human perseverance. The Dust Bowl, a four-hour, two-episode documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, is also a morality tale about our relationship to the land that sustains us—a lesson we ignore at our peril.
