Day #38 - The Civil War

For the past week and a half or so, Chris and I have been watching Ken Burns' Civil War documentary - it is 11 hours long so I've put that in place of a few movies along the way. I have to admit, I don't know that I had heard of Ken Burns before Chris told me about him, but apparently I'm the only one. He has done many critically acclaimed documentaries including ones on D-Day, baseball, jazz and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Being a huge history buff, I am really loving the documentary. I was excited when it first started because the narrator, David McCollough, also narrated Seabiscuit, one of my favorite movies. I love the level of detail that you get in a documentary, and with Ken Burns I know everything I am getting is accurate and backed by first hand accounts. It took 6 years to make so you know that a ridiculous ton of research went into it.

The Civil war aired over 5 nights on PBS and 40 MILLION people tuned in, can you believe that?! It was the highest number of viewers for any show on PBS up to that point. According to Wiki, this documentary was considered Ken Burns' magnum opus. 16,000 archival photographs, paintings and newspaper images were used for the show.