Florentine Films
Language
English
Description
For 17 million Americans, severe, long-term mental illness is a fact of life-a fact little understood by the majority of their fellow citizens. In an effort to raise public awareness of the day-to-day impact mental illness has on families, this intimate documentary profiles Robert Neugeboren and his brother, Jay, as decade after decade they cope with Robert's schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Drawing on Jay's heart-rending yet uplifting family memoir...
Language
English
Description
It has altered our sense of space, fueled our mega-economy, knifed into the hearts of thriving city neighborhoods, and changed the lives of millions of people in the 40 years it's taken to build. This program about the Interstate Highway System combines archival material, newsreels, and interviews to describe the impact of what has been called the world's largest public works project. The Interstate's effect on community, culture, regionalism, and...
Language
English
Description
Explore the history of a uniquely American art form: country music. From its deep and tangled roots in ballads, blues and hymns performed in small settings, to its worldwide popularity, learn how country music evolved over the course of the 20th century, as it eventually emerged to become America’s music. COUNTRY MUSIC features never-before-seen footage and photographs, plus interviews with more than 80 country music artists. The eight-part series...
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, The Vietnam War, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides -- Americans who fought...
Author
Language
English
Description
By April of 1944, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt have occupied the White House for more than eleven years. The President is secretly convalescing in South Carolina from a recently diagnosed bout of congestive heart failure while the war rages overseas and his family is under press scrutiny at home. Despite his failing health, FDR has ambitious postwar plans for his country: to see the horrific struggle through to victory, and then to bring the United...
Language
English
Description
The 1920s begin with baseball trying to recover from the scandal of the 1919 World Series. America finds relief in George Herman "Babe" Ruth who is one of the best pitchers in baseball. In 1919 he hits 29 homers for the Red Sox, more than any player has ever hit in a single season.
Language
English
Formats
Description
1862 saw the birth of modern warfare and the transformation of Lincoln’s war to preserve the Union into a war to emancipate the slaves. Episode Two begins with the political infighting that threatened to swamp Lincoln’s administration and then follows Union General George McClellan’s ill-fated campaign on the Virginia Peninsula, where his huge army meets a smaller but infinitely more resourceful Confederate force. During this episode we witness...
Language
English
Description
When World War II ends, baseball becomes the national pastime. Joe DiMaggio sets a consecutive game-hitting streak that still stands. Ted Williams becomes the last man to hit .400. The Brooklyn Dodgers win their first pennant. And World War II takes so much talent from the majors that the St. Louis Browns win a pennant.
10) Huey Long
Language
English
Description
Uses archival film footage to portray events in the life of the charismatic Louisiana politician Huey Long who built roads, bridges, and schools, but whose brutal, corrupt reign suddenly ended in a hail of bullets. Incorporates interviews with scholars and the recollections of Louisianans who knew Long.
11) Mark Twain
Language
English
Description
Recounts Mark Twain's life told primarily through his own words. Includes interviews with Hal Holbrook, Arthur Miller, William Styron and many others.
Language
English
Description
"At the tiny Greenwood School in the small New England town of Putney, Vermont, its roughly 50 students, boys from the ages 11 to 17 are asked each year to memorize the Gettysburg Address. This would be a daunting assignment for any student, but the boys at Greenwood all suffer from learning differences that have made their personal, academic and social progress extremely challenging. As the students come to terms with the address's simple message...
Language
English
Description
The dramatic story of America’s national mammal, which sustained the lives of Native people for untold generations, being driven to the brink of extinction, before an unlikely collection of people rescues it from disappearing forever. Ken Burns recounts the tragic collision of two opposing views of the natural world––and the unforgettable characters who pointed the nation in a different direction.
Language
English
Description
Presents the history of women's suffrage in the United States through the dramatic, often turbulent friendship of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony. Part 1 covers the years from their youth up to the establishment of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1868. Part 2 spans the period from 1868 to the passage in 1919 of the 19th amendment to the Constitution which gave women the vote.
Language
English
Description
Jazz is born in New Orleans at the turn of the century emerging from several forms of music including ragtime, marching bands, work songs, spirituals, creole music, funeral parade music and above all, the blues. Musicians profiled here who advanced early jazz are Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Freddie Keppard, and musicians of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
17) Thomas Jefferson
Language
English
Description
Examines the life of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence.
Language
English
Formats
Description
Tells the story of the most important expedition in American history, led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Includes the stories of the young army men, French-Canadian boatmen, Clark's African-American slave, and the Shoshone woman named Sacagawea who went with them.
19) Jazz
Language
English
Description
Documentary exploring the history of jazz from its beginnings through the 1990's, including the stories of many of its creators and performers. Includes archival video, still photographs, historical performances, and newly recorded interviews and musical performances.
Language
English
Description
"Explores nearly 200 years of Deaf life in America and presents a broad range of perspectives on what it means to be deaf. The film is propelled by the stories of people, both eminent and ordinary, and sheds light on events that have shaped Deaf lives: the creation of schools for deaf students; the debate about American Sign Language; the campaign for deaf-friendly telephone, the TTY; the fight for a deaf president at Gallaudet University; and some...