List Price: $129.99You Pay Only: $114.99 You Save: $15.00 (12%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 2 days
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Paramount
EAN: 0841887051279
Format: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: PBS Paramount
Manufacturer: PBS Paramount
Number Of Items: 5
Publisher: PBS Paramount
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 28, 2004
Sales Rank: 7976
Studio: PBS Paramount
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 09/30/2005 Director: Ken Burns
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The West
Excellent video!! Very informative as well as entertaining.I hope you produce more of similiar quality,
Thanks again for this very informative video.
John M. Blair
15540 Blair View Circle
Anchorage,Alaska 99516
Rating:  - Not actually by Ken Burns... and it shows
I am surprised people can't get their facts straight surrounding this particular series: Ken Burns didn't write it, Ken Burns didn't direct it, it is "Presented By" meaning some cash was exchanged and the venerable Mr. Burns was able to tack his name onto the proceedings. This series was directed by Stephen Ives, and written by Dayton Duncan & Geoffrey C. Ward. This fact becomes eminently clear after about 30 minutes worth of footage & realizing, "Wow, these guys really wanted to emulate the Ken Burns style and failed miserably." The story is brutally long & brutally boring, whilst simultaneously evoking not empathy for its Native American subjects but an unfortunate casual contempt at the constant PC-run-amok tone that permeates the entire program.
The narrative is carelessly chopped up & regurgitated between heaping helpings of "oh, don't you feel bad for the poor Native Americans" and "don't you see how horribly our government treated the Native Americans?" and "oh goodness, don't you just want to give back Oklahoma to the Native Americans?" I find it amazingly ironic that a series meant to evoke pride along with sympathy for a people ends up alternating between brutally boring and brutally grating. Peter Coyote doesn't have the most pleasant voice for narration, so the proceedings are hobbled by that fact. And that's before you get to the "historical experts" and various presenters: the strangest cast of outsiders, cast-offs, and weirdos ever assembled in a historical ... Read More
Rating: - THE WEST (KEN BURNS PRESENTS)
I LOVE IT! I HAD WANTED TO PURCHASE THIS ITEM FOR A LONG TIME AND I AM NOT ONE TO NORMALLY DENY MYSELF MUCH; IF I WANT IT, I BUY IT! HOWEVER, THIS WAS ONE THAT I HAD ADMITTEDLY HELD OFF ON JUST BECAUSE I WAS UNCOMFORTABLE WITH SPENDING THE AMOUNT THAT IT ALWAYS SOLD FOR. FINDING IT ON AMAZON WAS A GREAT DEAL AS I FIND NEARLY ALL AMAZON DEALS TO BE. YOU ARE TREMENDOUS TO DEAL WITH. I BELIEVE THAT THIS WAS ONE OF THE ITEMS I ORDERED FROM "CAIMAN". THEY HAVE BEEN MY FAVORITES TO DEAL WITH FOR EVERY REASON, SO IF I AM ORDERING THINGS LIKE DVDS, I ACTUALLY SEEK THEM OUT DUE TO THE FACT THAT THERE ARE NEVER ANY PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER AND MOST OF THE TIME THEIR PRICE IS EITHER THE BEST OFFERED OR SO CLOSE THAT I CHOOSE TO ORDER FROM THEM. THEY'RE TERRIFIC!
Rating: - A ten star effort.
The West
DVD ~ Peter Coyote
When some people use the word "documentary" they seem to imbue it with an expectation of total objectivity--as if one could eliminate all traces of cultural experience from one's makeup and discover a shining path of ultimate "truth" simply by the act of becoming a filmmaker. Nonsense. We are all a product of our times and of the culture in which we were raised and educated. Documentaries are always, always, always selective. There is no such thing as total objectivity, either in writing or in filmmaking.
That said, this is an enormously valuable effort to sift through an extraordinary cross-section of materials and condense them into 12 and 1/2 hours of very viewable, enlightening and often extremely moving stories. Yes, that's right, I said "condense". The documents available on the history of the West literally fill many museums, and unless you plan to spend every waking moment of your life from the time you learn to read until the day you die as a serious scholar of western lore, you will never gain a complete knowledge of the subject. This is an outstanding effort to provide a distillation of the sense and feel of the west from the earliest days of indian tribal inhabitation to the passing of the frontier. To have even attempted that feat in a 12 and 1/2 hour presentation took courage and imagination. Although I have often grumbled to myself about Ken Burn's relentless imposition of an over-stylized montage technique on the presentation of his ... Read More
Rating: - Go West!
This is an incredible piece of filmmaking. This is Ken Burns' long-overlooked documentary masterpiece about the birth and transformation of the West of America. Every "chapter" is more engaging than the last. This doc is also very well-balanced as far as the white Native American points of view. "The West" spans the devastation and ingenuity unique to American History. This doc is completely overshadowed by "Baseball" and "The Civil War," (IMDB.com has thousands of votes for those two and only about 100 for "The West") but this is as good as it gets. Go West!
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