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Thomas Jefferson - A Film by Ken Burns
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0841887051392
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: PBS Paramount
Languages: English (Original Language),
Manufacturer: PBS Paramount
MPN: D705139D
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: PBS Paramount
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 28, 2004
Running Time: 180 minutes
Studio: PBS Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: 1996
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Editorial Review:
The complicated life of Thomas Jefferson is the subject of this excellent documentary by noted filmmaker Ken Burns. Using techniques that will seem comfortably familiar to viewers of other films by Burns, historians and writers (including Joseph Ellis, Daniel Boorstin, Garry Wills, and Gore Vidal) appear on camera to speak about Jefferson, a cast of actors read the words of Jefferson and others. The visuals include beautifully photographed shots of Jefferson's famed estate, Monticello, other locations where Jefferson lived and worked, and a vast number of period drawings and paintings. Jefferson, who was born into a prosperous Virginia family but lost his father when he was young, became a skilled lawyer despite his natural shyness. And the story of how he became a public figure and rose to prominence during the American Revolution is told intelligently. Commentators, including the noted African American historian John Hope Franklin, grapple with the peculiar inconsistencies of Jefferson's life. The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, and some of what he wrote about race is both troubling and puzzling. This film (which covers Jefferson's entire life, including his two terms as the young country's president and his later years in Virginia) doesn't sidestep controversy but provides a balanced account of one of the most fascinating of all Americans. --Robert J. McNamara
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Ken Burns Does History Well
The DVD was informative and engaging. Burns utilizes the most compelling narrators and resources to substatiate his effort. His history becomes dramatic, multi-faceted, and memorable.
Rating: - Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. As president, he made the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon and sent Lewis and Clark to open the west. They left St. Louis and headed up the Missouri River. They took on an interpreter named Charbonneau and his Indian wife, Sacagawea. They reached the Columbia River and sailed to the Pacific Ocean in a three year journey. Thomas Jefferson was a scientist and a product of the Enlightenment.
Rating: - an inspiring film
As with most of Ken Burns' projects, I really enjoyed this film. I've noticed some reviewers faulting it as incomplete in some respects, and although I'm no expert on the subject, I don't doubt that this is not the whole story. I do think the film does a good job of providing insight into the life and thinking of a truly amazing man, and I doubt whether it would be possible to capture on film all that we know about Jefferson from existing literature, even if we were talking about a multi-volume ... Read More
Rating:  - "Thomas Jefferson still lives."
"The principle of society with us is the equal rights of all. Nobody shall be above you nor you above anybody." Such words of Jefferson's are the reason why John Adams last words (on July 4, 1826), "Jefferson still lives," were still correct notwithstanding that Jefferson had passed away unbeknownst to the Adams household but hours before. Jefferson biographer Joseph Ellis is quoted herein: "Part of Jefferson's genius was to articulate at a sufficiently abstract level these principles, these truths ... Read More
Rating:  - Overreaching psychoanalysis with very little hisorical substance
I recently checked out this DVD from the library as I am currently reading the six volume biography of Jefferson by Dumas Malone (I am currently well into the fifth volume) and thought this would provide some additional visual references. This film certainly seems to be in line with the recent trend in biography towards psychoanalysis, of which this film, in my opinion, vastly overreaches itself, and is barebones on real facts and history. While Jefferson is certainly not a straightforward individual to ... Read More
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