The Civil War (miniseries)

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.

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.

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 the 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 were not covered in enough detail and responses from Ken Burns and others involved in the series' production.

It has been criticized for its historiography, which focuses more on the battles of the civil war, and provides a divided view on the causes of the war. While most historians agree that slavery was the cause of the war, Burns presented a range of commentators, including Shelby Foote. Foote's view was that the cause of the war was not slavery, but, rather, failure to compromise. Foote was a journalist and not a trained historian, and was the descendant of slaveholders, but was given more screen time than any other commentator. Burns was not a historian, and neither was most of the production team, which has led to accusations that Burns did not give a thorough enough historiographical overview. Criticism was also leveled at the fact that Burns and most of his team were white men, which may have contributed to the lack of the series' coverage of women and issues around blacks, or examining reconstruction. A group of leading Civil War historians published a highly critical review of Burns's work in a 1997 book, The Civil War: Historians Respond, to which Burns was given a chapter to reply to their concerns. The film has also been criticized for propagating the Lost Cause of the Confederacy myth. Because Burns's documentary was so influential, and serves as the main source of knowledge about the Civil War to many Americans, it is claimed to have led to a continuation of Lost Cause views.[15][16]

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

• The War, World War II documentary miniseries by Ken Burns
• The Vietnam War, Vietnam War documentary series by Ken Burns
• Still image film
• Lost Cause of the Confederacy

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Civil War (miniseries)

• PBS: The Civil War
• The Civil War at IMDb
• Alexander Klein's interview with pianist Jacqueline Schwab
• americanarchive.org