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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
EAN: 0841887051392
Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: PBS Paramount
Languages: EnglishOriginal Language
Manufacturer: PBS Paramount
MPN: PARD705139D
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: PBS Paramount
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 28, 2004
Running Time: 180 minutes
Studio: PBS Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: 1996
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
PATRIOT & DRAFTER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, PRESIDENT, INVENTOR & DIPLOMAT - ALL THIS & MORE WAS THOMAS JEFFERSON, AMERICA'S FOREMOST DOCUMENTARY HISTORIAN OFFERS A RIVETING PORTRAIT OF THIS REMARKABLE & CONTROVERSIAL MAN.
Amazon.com:
The complicated life of Thomas Jefferson is the subject of this excellent documentary by noted filmmaker Ken Burns. Using techniques that will seem comfortably familiar to viewers of other films by Burns, historians and writers (including Joseph Ellis, Daniel Boorstin, Garry Wills, and Gore Vidal) appear on camera to speak about Jefferson, a cast of actors read the words of Jefferson and others. The visuals include beautifully photographed shots of Jefferson's famed estate, Monticello, other locations where Jefferson lived and worked, and a vast number of period drawings and paintings. Jefferson, who was born into a prosperous Virginia family but lost his father when he was young, became a skilled lawyer despite his natural shyness. And the story of how he became a public figure and rose to prominence during the American Revolution is told intelligently. Commentators, including the noted African American historian John Hope Franklin, grapple with the peculiar inconsistencies of Jefferson's life. The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, and some of what he wrote about race is both troubling and puzzling. This film (which covers Jefferson's entire life, including his two terms as the young country's president and his later years in Virginia) doesn't sidestep controversy but provides a balanced account of one of the most fascinating of all Americans. --Robert J. McNamara
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Children would become more interested in history if
more schools taught like this series(with the exception
of a few facts.)
Very well done and interesting DvD.
I always percieved Thomas Jefferson as a larger than Life
personality when actually he was very shy...
At an early age he liked books more than people..taught
himself 2 languages by the time he was 6 years old...
1. he encourged the Lousiana purchase that doubled
the size of America..
2. His father died when he was very young, personal
tragedy followed him all of his life.
3. His wife died young...and 5 of his 6 children died.
4. He was an enigma that wrote "all men are created equal" but
was one of the largest slave owners in Virginia..
5. He helped establish schools that anyone could attend
for free...and didn't want government interferance.
6. Jefferson and John Adams were friends
became adversaries when Jefferson wanted the people
freedom to dissent when needed and John Adam believed
in larger government later in life when both were
more aged they started writing to each other and settled their
differences.
7. Jefferson and Adams passed away on the same day..
July 4th 1826...the 50th anniversary of our
independance they helped achieve.
this DVD explores much more about the man himself and
I became interested when I saw the John Adams HBO series
i will watch this dvd over and over...
Rating:  -
Extremely well done documentary on Thomas Jefferson. Every citizen should be required to watch, and learn.
Rating: -
Excellent, it has gone into my T.J. Library! Like him, My robot IS his Monicello...it will be finished, someday.
Rating: -
Parts of this review have been used previously in reviewing John Dos Passos' "The Shackles of Power". Many of the points addressed in that review on Jefferson and the nature of the Jeffersonian period in American history apply here as well.
I have spent gallons of ink around this July 4th celebratory time every year, and I believe justifiably so given the objectives of this site, drawing some strong distinction between various periods of the common American historical experience. I have extolled the early days of the American Republic when it held out, to paraphrase what Lincoln noted later in the crucible of the Civil War, another high point in the American experience, the promise that the "America democratic experiment represented the last, best hope of mankind". And Lincoln was right then. In contrast I have heaped scorn, and that is an appropriate word here, on later periods lambasting the turn to the American imperium that we still suffer under. Of course, none of this periodization is all cut and dried but today; at least, I want to go back to that earlier, more hopeful period of the birth of the American Republic.
Normally, when one thinks of the early period of the American Republic one's thoughts turn to the struggle for independence from impetuous British imperialism, the subsequent fights to create some workable form of government and the consolidation of the American state, against all comers, as a factor in world history. The names Washington, Adams, Morris, Franklin and the like come easily to mind in that narrative. Moreover, lately, the period had been worked over almost to exhaustion as if resurrecting that heroic period will shed some reflected light on today's ugly political scene.
Today, though, in reviewing master documentary filmmaker Ken Burn's "Thomas Jefferson" I want to look at, as I did in reviewing John Dos Passos' older historical narrative (1966), "The Shackles Of Power", the period just after that consolidation when the contours of the disputes that would form the two major political philosophies that govern American politics got pushed center stage. This is the time of Jefferson and his acolytes, Madison and Monroe, and their partisans in the various state Democratic Republican organizations centered on the plebeian-supported local newspapers. And it is also the time when the original Hamiltonian federalist impulse that governed the firs period of American life petered out in that form with the passing away of its old leadership, its cranky secessionist politics and its elitist conceits. That is a good enough time span for our work, basically the period from Jefferson's hotly contested election in 2000 (oops, 1800) through the period formerly known as "the era of good feelings" (quaint, right?) to the period, today, now, tentatively, in the academy known as the period of the rise of "Jacksonian democracy". This is the heart of the Burns documentary and the part that makes for the most interesting aspect of the film.
Those last points in the paragraph above are germane to Burns view of the Jeffersonian story. This is, after, all the age where the Alexander Hamilton-led Federalist pro-mercantile strong central government policies and the Jefferson-led Democratic Republican weak central government, strong state governments pro-"yeoman farmer" policy fights came front and center. Those trends, in various guises, have continued to this day in the hurly-burly of every day democratic politics. Needless to say, this little capsule comment of mine concerning the outlines of the disputes is merely that, an outline. As with any documentary, Burns is confronted with that same problem of merely outlining the various political struggles. Take this documentary as a primer on the period. Not as the final word
One of Burns virtues as a literary-oriented film man is that he, unlike many professional historians some of whom like Gary Wills populate this production, brings a snappy literary style to his narrative. Thus, he spends less time on the arcania of the internal politics of the Federalist and Democratic Republicans and more on outcomes. Thus, although Thomas Jefferson is the central character of this work, plenty of space is given to other secondary characters central to this narrative like the on/off relationship between Jefferson and his predecessor John Adams, the rise of James Madison and James Monroe in the early 1800's as adherents of the Jeffersonian tradition. And so on.
Of course no history of this period is complete without a nod to Jefferson's inspired acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase as an important, if not defining, aspect of creating what would be come the American nation-state, the development of an internal transportation system, the rise of public education fostered by the post-presidential Jefferson and the increasing politicization of the governing process through ... Read More
Rating:  -
I teach high school history, American and World to advanced placement students. For some reason that I have never fathomed, it is extremely easy to find engaging and interesting videos on World History that students love and look forward to seeing (CNN's Millennium Series comes to mind along with the History Channel's Engineering Empire series). But for American History-----good gosh! Did they sit down and decide to make the narrators sound like they're going to sleep? Do they want the students to keel over in their desks as their eyes roll up in the back of their heads? I don't know, but it's amazing how out and out DULL most American History videos are. There is one great exception----Ken Burn's Civil War. That was probably the best documentary ever done for many reasons. Exciting, interesting, etc. Outside of the marginally-engaging History Channel's Ten Days That Changed America, I haven't found many documentaries to interest teenagers. And when I saw that Ken Burns did a Thomas Jefferson program, I jumped at it. Well, something happened to the master after the Civil War production. The Jefferson documentary is like every other documentary you'll ever see----talking heads that will put you to sleep within seconds, and narration voice-over speakers who sound drugged into some kind of stupor. It seems to me that most documentaries today follow this same formula. I don't know why. So for those of you seeking exciting documentaries on American History that will foster interest (and keep you awake), good luck. There's a lot of good products on recent history, on Civil Rights, for instance, where you can actually see and hear the virulent racists speak for themselves and you can see archival footage of historical events. But what's happened to the great story tellers like Shelby Foote? You won't find many left. And you sure won't find them in this well-research program on Jefferson. But it's as dead as he is. And I repeat that I love Ken Burns and still recommend his other products. But not this one.
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