| | | "In Extraordinary Times, There Are No Ordinary Lives."
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Dolby, Digital Audio, English, Dolby Digital (5.1)
The War will be a seven - episode series, produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, that will examine the myriad ways in which the Second World War touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America. By telling the stories of ordinary people in four quintessentially American towns - Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and the tiny farming town of Luverne, Minnesota - the series will portray this enormous worldwide catastrophe on an intimate, human scale. The War will intertwine vivid eyewitness accounts of the harrowing realities of life on the front lines with reminiscences of Americans who never left their home towns, and who tried their best to carry on with the business of daily life while their fathers and brothers and sons were overseas. The film will honor and celebrate the bravery, endurance, and sacrifice, of the generation of Americans who lived through what will always be known simply as The War.
"...a brilliant piece of work from Burns...The War should be a hit." Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle
"A new masterpiece...an unforgettable experience and could well rival Burns's breakthrough landmark The Civil War..." TV Guide
Editor's Note
After tackling the truly American subjects of jazz and baseball, award-winning documentarian Ken Burns returns to our country's military history with THE WAR. His acclaimed 1991 series, THE CIVIL WAR, was devoted to the War Between the States, while this 2007 production pays the same amount of care and attention to World War II. Rather than keeping THE WAR on the frontlines, Burns and his fellow director Lynn Novick also explore life on the homefront in four towns: Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and Luverne, Minnesota. Keith David, who also lent his baritone to KEN BURNS' JAZZ, narrates this documentary series, while actors such as Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Lucas, and Adam Arkin give readings of historical accounts of those who fought on the other side of the world, as well as those who were fighting in their own way back home.
| Features | Audio Commentary | | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, Dolby Digital Stereo | | Deleted Scenes | | Featurette: The Making Of The War | | Interactive Menus | | Interview Outtakes | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Paramount |
| Release Date: 9/15/2009 |
| Running Time: 940 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2007 | | Catalog ID: 70521 | | UPC: 00841887052122 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Buddy Squires - Cinematographer | | Eli Wallach - Featuring | | Geoffrey C. Ward - Writer | | Keith David - Narrated By | | Ken Burns - Director | | Ken Burns, et. al. - Producer | | Lynn Novick - Director | | Paul Barnes - Editor | | Samuel L. Jackson - Featuring | | Tom Hanks - Featuring | | Wynton Marsalis - Original Music By |
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| | Professional Reviews | Variety 7 of 10
Ken Burns continues his long march through key passages in U.S. history with "The War," a characteristically serious, patriotic yet flawed account of Americans and their memories of World War II. Utterly of a piece with the work of PBS' favorite documaker, this 14-hour epic contains a fresh wrinkle only in that there's no parade of history experts to offer a distanced perspective. Rather, Burns has made a deliberately populist American version of the so-called "good war," with all the assets and deficits that entails...In the wake of Clint Eastwood's two-part Iwo Jima epic, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima," which distinguished itself by dramatizing American and Japanese perspectives, Burns' approach looks exceedingly parochial. It also opens up speculation that a war account portraying four towns in four different countries would have captured more of the conflict's global reality, while retaining the intended populist view. - Robert Koehler
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