For Release: Sept. 3 , 2007
T he new Ken Burns documentary series, The War , premieres Sunday, Sept. 23 at 8/7 p.m. on KET1 and KET HD and at 10:30/9:30 p.m. CT on KET2 . The seven-part documentary series, directed and produced by Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who get caught up in the greatest cataclysm in human history.
Six years in the making, this 15-hour film, reminiscent of Burns's landmark series The Civil War , focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically distributed American towns -- Waterbury, Conn.; Mobile, Ala.; Sacramento, Calif.; and the tiny farming town of Luverne, Minn. These four communities stand in for -- and could represent -- any town in the U . S . that went through the war's four devastating years. Individuals from each community take the viewer through their own personal and quite often harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives and those of their neighbors, as well as the country they helped to save for generations to come.
"The Second World War was so massive, catastrophic and complex, it is almost beyond the mind's and the heart's capacity to process everything that happened and, more important, what it meant on a human level," said Burns.
By focusing on the personal stories of ordinary Americans who had extraordinary experiences, the film tries to bring one of the biggest events in the history of the world down to a very intimate scale. And in the end, the series argues that there are no "ordinary lives."
In addition to Keith David's narration, The War features first-person voices read by some of America's best-known actors. Tom Hanks reads the voice of Al McIntosh, the editor of the Rock County Star-Herald in Luverne, Minn., whose weekly columns poignantly tried to explain the unexplainable to his neighbors. Other voices include Josh Lucas, Bobby Cannavale, Samuel L. Jackson, Eli Wallach, Robert Wahlberg, Carolyn McCormack, Adam Arkin and Kevin Conway.
The War is a production of Florentine Films and WETA/Washington, DC. Viewer discretion is advised. M ore information about KET programming and education services, as well as how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.