Complete video at: fora.tv Celebrated documentary filmmaker Ken Burns gives his take on the use of music in movies. —– Ken Burns’ most recent documentary film project, The War, tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of more than 40 men and women from four quintessentially American towns – Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and Luverne, Minnesota – who experienced and helped to win the most extraordinary war in history. Woven largely from their memories, the narrative unfolds as the war unfolded – month by bloody month, with the outcome always in doubt. The film series explores the most intimate human dimensions of a worldwide catastrophe that touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America demonstrating that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives. From Pearl Harbor to the liberation of the concentration camps, the companion book to this fall 2007 PBS series, The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, includes all the iconic events as well as those of prisoners of war and Japanese American internees, defense workers and schoolchildren, and those who struggled simply to keep families together while their men were shipped off – NYPL Ken Burns has been making films for more than thirty years. In 1981, Burns produced and directed his first film for PBS, the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge. His other films include Huey Long; Thomas Hart …
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Complete video at: fora.tv Two-time Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Bill Guttentag examines the ongoing popularity of reality TV shows. —– The Real and The Reality of Documentary Film with filmmaker Bill Guttentag. The popularity of documentary films has exploded in recent years, resulting in a constant flow of narratives based on true events and real people. In a world where many would rather watch than read, the veracity of these films is often unquestioned. Should it be? Do these films manipulate reality? What are the responsibilities of the filmmaker? Guttentag tackles these and many other questions – The Commonwealth Club of California Bill Guttentag, a two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker, wrote and directed Live!, a dramatic feature starring Eva Mendes, Andre Braugher, and David Krumholtz. The film was produced by Chuck Roven/Mosaic Media Group and distributed by The Weinstein Company. He also wrote and directed Nanking, a documentary which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film includes a stage reading he wrote that features Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, and Jurgen Prochnow. Nanking was released theatrically this winter by THINKFilm and will air later in the year on HBO. In 2003 Bill Guttentag won an Oscar for the documentary Twin Towers (Universal). It was his second Academy Award; the first was for You Don’t Have to Die, a film he made for HBO. He has also received three additional Oscar nominations, as well as two Emmy Awards …
Video Rating: 4 / 5