Ken Burns set the standard for historical documentaries, starting with 1990’s The Civil War, which “forever changed the medium,” according to the Peabody Board of Jurors, which has honored the auteur four times. His latest project on the Vietnam War airs Sunday on PBS.
Distinctly different in style and tone from Ken Burns’ stately historical documentaries, The Central Park Five has outrage simmering below its surface, and rightly so. It’s a needed continuation of the exoneration of five black and Latino teenagers who spent more than a dozen years in prison for a notorious 1989 rape before the real assailant confessed. Using archival video, photographs and fresh, first-person interviews, Burns, his daughter, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon demonstrate how the accused five, the youngest only 13, were relentlessly pressured into confession by some of New York’s finest interrogators even as the city’s TV stations, tabloid press and public officials one-upped each other with wild accusations.
Read full winner’s citation here: http://www.peabodyawards.com/award-profile/the-central-park-five-pbs
Peabody Winner 1999 | Florentine Films, in association with WETA, TV, Washington, DC
Filmmaker Ken Burns is no stranger to the Peabody Awards, having won previously for documentaries ranging from The Civil War to Frank Lloyd Wright. His exceptional work continues with Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The four-hour PBS production, written by long-time collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward and narrated by Sally Kellerman, brings heart, soul and considerable poignancy to the stories of these two leaders of the women’s suffrage movement. Neither lived to see their crowning triumph-women going to the polls for the first time on Nov. 2, 1920. Mr. Burns and co-producer Paul Barnes have done a remarkable job of fleshing out this historic collaboration between two otherwise disparate women. Ms. Stanton, voiced by Ronnie Gilbert, was a plump, poetic mother of seven children. Ms. Anthony (Julie Harris) was a grim-faced, grind-it-out activist who never married. “I forged the thunderbolts, she fired them,” Stanton once wrote of their partnership. Not for Ourselves Alone insightfully depicts their perseverance in the face of repeated setbacks, many from within the burgeoning women’s movement. It is an inspiring story of hopes, dashed dreams and dogged determination. For an enlightening look at two women whom history books have shortchanged, a Peabody goes to Not for Ourselves Alone.
Ken Burns’ “four-hour PBS production … brings heart, soul and considerable poignancy to the stories of these two leaders of the women’s suffrage movement.” - Peabody Judges
Almost 40 million people saw at least part of The Civil War when the multipart Ken Burns documentary premiered in September 1990, making it the most-watched PBS broadcast ever. It’s still the record holder, and it’s coming back this Monday, September 7, for a special anniversary encore on PBS.
Two things will be different.
First, what viewers will see over the course of five consecutive nights is a newly restored, high-definition version of the series. “The Civil War has never been seen in such visual clarity,” said Daniel J. White, who oversaw frame-by-frame rescanning of 50,000 feet of the original 16mm film negative. “The colors are brighter and you will see more details in the images.”
Second, the political climate in our country is dramatically more polarized. In 1990, The Civil War was embraced almost universally by viewers, regardless of region, its horrifying images, vintage letters read aloud and wistful theme music touching off a long-delayed period of mourning and reflection. Its grand encore is coming at a time when some Southern legislators have made secession threats and the belated removal of a Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house – this in reaction to a white supremacist’s shooting rampage at a black church – ignited a bitter debate about the meaning of that flag and even the causes of the war.
With this climate in mind, we interviewed Ken Burns about his Peabody-winning series.
