Baseball - A Film By Ken Burns
by Ken Burns
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DVD details
Actor: Arthur Ashe, Bud Abbott, Hank Aaron, Mamie Ruth Moberly, Roger AngellDirector: Ken Burns
Brand: Team Marketing
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1140 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-28
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Color: Multi
Studio: PBS Paramount
Product features:
- Officially Licensed
- Highest Quality Recording
DVD Reviews of Baseball - A Film By Ken Burns
DVD Review: Could Have Been Much More
Summary: 3 Stars
Charlie Rose interview with Ken Burns is included in the final disc of this series and Rose asks Burns:
"Why in this film have you focused so much on the centrality of race in the evolution of baseball?"
Burns answers :
"This is our central story, as a country".
I watched this series when it aired in 1994 and again when I bought it on VHS. I am watching it anew in 2009 after buying the DVD set.
I'm afraid baseball fans in decades to come will be repeating Charlie Rose's question to themselves. Given the resources available to Burns and crew, one is left to ponder why he spent so much valuable time of the documentary addressing the 'race' question, to the exclusion of a lot of wonderful baseball history which is just not here or is barely touched on.
For instance,the Miracle Braves of 1914 get just a passing remark. Not even a photo of Rabbit Maranville.
The exclusions are numerous...too numerous to catalog here.
What is sad is that now, in 2009, so many of the players who were ready willing and able to appear in interviews in 1994 are no longer on this mortal coil. Future baseball documentarians will mourn the loss of their voices to the exclusion of Burns' airing out his liberal white guilt at the rampant racism of past generations. I certainly share his views but I feel he could have done the sport of baseball and we fans a much greater service by devoting less time to assuaging white liberal guilt and more time to the lovely history available to him at that time. No other professional sport in America has such a vast well of history and lore to draw on. He largely bypassed this to give us his view of what was wrong with society in the years gone by.
Certainly the story of Jackie Robinson needed to be told and is done so magnificently, as is the tales of black players who followed him.
As a baseball fan I would expect a huge series like this to concentrate on the major leagues. Burns' film veers off to cover the Negro leagues exhaustively, which is a valuable niche history subject, but no more so than the minor leagues or Cuban baseball or other niche areas of baseball history...areas just barely mentioned herein, and rightly so.
I'm left with a sense of disappointment over what 'could have been' and I think future historians will view this series and wonder "Why the heck did he make a documentary about racism and call it 'Baseball'?"
With that said, it is a great series..better than just about any other thus far made. I hope someone will go back and fill in the gaps that Burns left out.
On the interview disc there is a truly wonderful interview of Bob Costas by Charlie Rose conducted Oct 22, 1998 at first base in Busch Stadium, St. Louis. This is right after Mark McGwire had hit 70 home runs.
Costas gushes on & on about how great McGwire is--in vast contrast to how he is now held in contempt. Rose asks Costas if McGwire's use of performance enhancing drugs makes any difference and Costas poo-poos it.
Costas tells Rose the 70 HR mark will last for years and years. It actually lasted 3.
In contrast, they then discuss the 1998 Yankees who had just swept the Padres and are now considered by many the best team ever to play the game. Costas feels the Yankees will have trouble getting near the World Series again. In fact they made it back in '99, 2000, 2001 and 2003. This interview alone is almost worth the price of the set.
Other interviews are with Yogi Berra, Bob Gibson, Rachel Robinson (widow of Jackie) and another with Costas the day after he eulogized Mickey Mantle. Great stuff!
I'm from the South, and down here we have a personality type: kindly, gentile, courtly, gentle old men who are called 'storytellers' by those who enjoy their stories and 'windbags' by those who tire of the endless tales packaged with an effort to charm the listener.
In his Civil War series Shelby Foote of Memphis serves this role, and is give more air time than any other talking head. In this Baseball series it's kindly old Buck O'Neil, who spent most of his life in the Negro leagues and then later as a major league scout.
I suppose Burns, being from the North, had not run across these types of 'storytellers' and was charmed by them--to the exclusion of other voices.
Personally, I would have preferred less O'Neil and more from former MLB players.
Years ago I had season tickets to a MLB team. These were behind the backstop and a frequent seatmate was Rube Walker who was a MLB scout. As a Brookyn Dodger, he was behind the plate when Bobby Thomson hit the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in 1951.
Guys like that are no longer with us. I wish he had been interviewed--and more like him-----with less Buck O'Neil.
Description of Baseball - A Film By Ken Burns
Inning One, Our Game, looks at the origins of baseball in the 1840s and takes the story up to 1900. Burns refutes the myth that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown and traces its roots instead to the earliest days of the nation there are reBestsellers in DVD
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