Geoffrey C. Ward Movies

This documentary explores Robert Kennedy's life and his search for a purpose to devote it to both before and after his legendary brother's death. Sympathetic and tragic, the perspective of this program is that Robert Kennedy's true voice was suppressed over and over again until it was silenced forever with an assassin's bullet. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

The newest project from the master of documentaries deals with the life of author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), one of America's most beloved writers and historical characters from the 19th century. Ken Burns worked for nearly three years and drew from 100 hours of filmed material and hundreds of photos to complete the two-part, four-hour PBS series. Part two deals with Twain's twilight years, which were mired with dwindling success, impending bankruptcy and the deaths of his youngest daughter and his wife. Burns' documentary takes a look at Twain's darkest novel The Mysterious Stranger, and delves into his riff with President Theodore Roosevelt over America's politics of imperialism. ~ All Movie Guide

This is the first part of a three-video, six-hour program that originally aired February 19-21, 2001, as part of the acclaimed PBS series The American Experience. The program focuses on the marriage of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, and is one of the first documentaries to do so. This documentary postulates that Mary was indeed a key to Lincoln's success. The first part deals with Abraham's and Mary's early years and with their vastly different backgrounds. Lincoln was born to poverty and had less than a year of formal schooling, while Mary Todd grew up in luxury and got more schooling than most girls in that time. Narrated by David McCullough, the program also features interviews with scholars and readings by actors David Morse and Holly Hunter. Highlights include period photographs. ~ Steve Blackburn, All Movie Guide

This is the second part of a three-video, six-hour program that originally aired February 19-21, 2001, as part of the acclaimed PBS series The American Experience. The program focuses on the marriage of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, and is one of the first documentaries to do so. This documentary postulates that Mary was indeed a key to Lincoln's success. The second part covers the early years in the White House, as the nation was fragmenting and war was breaking out. Featured are recreated battle scenes, White House dinners, cabinet meetings, and shopping sprees Mary went on to upgrade the shabby presidential mansion. Narrated by David McCullough, the program also features interviews with scholars and readings by actors David Morse and Holly Hunter. Highlights include period photographs. ~ Steve Blackburn, All Movie Guide

Episode five of Ken Burns' series deals with jazz during the increasingly bleak Great Depression from 1935 to 1937. Swing music is now the most popular music of the time. Young fans flock to dance halls to swing their troubles away. Bandleaders such as Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmie Lunceford, and Artie Shaw are worshipped by their fans like matinee idols. Then Goodman, risking his career, forms the first racially integrated jazz group with the brilliant pianist Teddy Wilson. Meanwhile, Billie Holiday emerges from a rough childhood and is soon heralded as one of the greatest jazz vocalists ever. As 1937 comes to an end, Goodman heads to the Savoy Ballroom for what is billed as "The Music Battle of the Century" -- a musical face-off with Chick Webb's big band. Despite the tough competition, it's obvious to the many dancers on the floor who is the true "King of Swing." ~ All Movie Guide

The seventh part of Ken Burns' series covers the years 1940 to 1945 and finds jazz at the center of battles at home and abroad during World War II. Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw enlist in the armed forces and take their bands overseas to entertain the troops. Hitler bans jazz in Germany despite -- or rather, because of -- its underground popularity with "swing kids." Yet, as jazz serves as a symbol of American democracy in Europe, many black Americans still aren't allowed to hear freedom swing. The Savoy Ballroom is closed down to keep white servicemen from its integrated swing dances, and riots ensue. Despite the hypocrisy of the era, Duke Ellington sells war bonds and pairs with a brilliant young composer named Billy Strayhorn to write some of the most compelling work of his career. Meanwhile, a cadre of young musicians gathering nightly at a Harlem club discover a new way to play jazz: As the war comes to an end and the recording ban is lifted, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker record the song "Ko Ko" based on the chords to "Cherokee." Thus, "bebop" takes Americans by surprise and propels jazz in a whole new direction. ~ All Movie Guide

Episode eight -- 1945 to 1955 -- of Ken Burns' series finds jazz musicians reflecting the prosperity and tension of the postwar years in their music. Charlie "Bird" Parker garners legions of devoted followers who imitate not only his brilliant soloing, but also his heroin addiction -- a problem that will plague jazz through the 1950s. As the big bands fade, small-group jazz becomes de rigeur: dancing is out and experimentation is in. Dizzy Gillespie infuses bebop with Latin rhythms, employing congero Chano Pozo. And pianist Thelonious Monk creates angular and percussive jazz all his own. Despite this surge in creativity, most people prefer the new, simpler, dance-oriented rhythm & blues of artists like Louis Jordan. Meanwhile, in California, jazz musicians influence a mellow album featuring the arrangements of Gil Evans and the trumpet of Miles Davis, creating what is soon called "cool" jazz. Dave Brubeck helps lead the charge by recording his million-selling album "Time Out". But as the '50s wear on, Davis moves away from cool jazz and begins his own creative journey as the "pied piper" of jazz. ~ All Movie Guide

The final installment of Ken Burns' acclaimed series -- canvassing 1960 to the present -- finds jazz searching for relevance. Despite Louis Armstrong outselling the Beatles with Hello Dolly, most jazz musicians are scuffling to find work, let alone be heard. Most young people listen to rock music. The "free jazz" of artists such as John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman takes the music in increasingly avant-garde -- and non-commercial -- directions. Musicians and critics alike begin to debate the future and tradition of jazz. In typical fashion, Miles Davis at once illuminates and compounds the issue with Bitches Brew, his landmark fusion album. Toward the end of the 1970s, the deaths of both Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington seemed to mark the end of the development of jazz. But, the prodigal return of saxophonist Dexter Gordon from Europe incited a new generation to revisit the jazz of the past and rejuvenate the music. Soon a virtuosic young trumpeter, proficient in both classical and jazz music, is leading the movement to bring the tradition of jazz full circle. Wynton Marsalis, a native of New Orleans -- the birthplace of jazz music -- takes it into the next century. ~ All Movie Guide

In a similar fashion to his other documentaries, The Civil War and Baseball, Ken Burns uses historical fact and personal accounts to illuminate the story of jazz and how it coincided with the maturation of America. Jazz roots itself in New Orleans for its first installment, Gumbo. One of the 19th century's most progressive cities, the "wide open" town was filled with gambling, prostitution, crime -- and music. Burns shows how African-American musicians combined Caribbean rhythms, opera, minstrel shows, and (most importantly) marching bands with ragtime and the blues to produce a music that would soon be called "jass," and later "jazz." The viewer is introduced to such legendary innovators of the music as Buddy Bolden -- the trumpet player who, although never recorded, is mythically touted as the first true jazz musician -- and pianist Jelly Roll Morton, who flamboyantly claimed to have invented jazz (he was the first to notate the music on paper). It is also made apparent how race played a large factor in the development of the music. In 1917, a group of white musicians calling themselves the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded the first jazz record and quickly became a huge success -- at once polarizing black musicians and ringing in the "Jazz Age." ~ All Movie Guide

Episode three of Ken Burns' comprehensive series -- which covers 1924 to 1929 -- shows how jazz reflected the atmosphere of the country just before the Depression. We meet Bessie Smith, the first influential female vocalist who helped forge new roads for black record labels by performing the blues. There is also the tragic story of the first great white jazz musician, cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who would create some of the most poignant and melodic solos of his day and then die at age 28, from complications arising from his alcoholism. Burns touches on the Harlem Renaissance's connection with the development of jazz, relating the career of Duke Ellington at Harlem's white-patrons-only Cotton Club and his influence on Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. The episode culminates with a meditation on Louis Armstrong's brilliant recording "West End Blues" and how it captured the tumultuous atmosphere of America right before the stock market crash. ~ All Movie Guide

Edward Herrmann narrates this portrait of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, as directed by renowned documentary filmmaker Ken Burns (Lewis & Clark.) The film is an assemblage of photos, film clips, TV appearances (including a 1957 The Mike Wallace Interview), home movies, and more recent footage. Interviews include Wright biographer Brendan Gill. Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Ken Burns, America's most popular and successful documentarian of history, has called Thomas Jefferson "the most important human being born in the last 500 years." It is with this passionate admiration, tempered as always by a blunt acknowledgement of Jefferson's flaws, that Burns approaches his subject. Following the brilliant, fiery young revolutionary from his writing of the Declaration of Independence to his love affair with France and his extraordinary political career, this compelling film delves into the classic Burns-ian themes: unquenchable hope, agonizing loss, and how men and women throughout history have negotiated the two in creating the quintessential American experience. ~ Sarah Welsh, All Movie Guide