New York: A Documentary Film

After watching this documentary on New York I felt numb & amazed at the same time. The captivating stills, the archival footage & precise narration go together to make a perfect blend.

A must see film for any person who has a passion for modern history.

It's huge It's exhausting. It's exciting and educational. No, not New York City, but the 20 something hour documentary about it. The labarotory for capitalism, food, art and just about everything else you could imagine, NYC's history from its beginnings as New Amsterdam to 9/11 is done up well by Ric Burns (the not as famous brother of Ken). You may have to grease the palm of your significant other to pull off the time and effort required, but New York wouldn't have it any other way.

Since my parents took me to a NYC automat when I was seven, I have always been fascinated by New York City. Ric Burns' documentary, "New York: A Documentary Film" made me love the city even more. I recently purchased the new 7 DVD set, which includes the recently completed episodes that brought the series up to 1999, before the tragedy of Sept. 11th. I was glued to the production immediately, from the majestic aerial footage to the great variety of historians, architects, writers and politicians who guide you through this historical tour. If you want to learn more about NYC, this documentary is your primer!

This documentary (7 DVD's) takes you from the beginning of New York City as a Dutch colony to somewhere around 1990. Unfortunately, much of the wonderful photography of the modern skyline is tragically dated, since the project was completed well before September 11th, 2001.

Regardless, what this documentary does best is to give you an insight into the most important personalities that shaped this city, e.g., Robert Moses, Al Smith, LaGuardia, Stuyvesent, etc. As a viewer, you get a feel for what it was like to live during all of the periods that were covered. The real detail of the series ends around 1970, so its better for covering earlier New York History.

An extraordinary 8 part, almost 18 hour history of New York City; it's politics, economics, architecture, and above all humanity, from the first arrival of white settlers. (I would have been curious to know more about the Native Americans who had been living there, but the focus is on New York as a city, which arguably started with the arrival of the Dutch).

I was born and lived the first half of my life in the city, was always passionate about it, and yet the program had so much fascinating information I didn't know – not only about the distant past, but the complex back-room city politics (some disastrously wrong headed, even aggressively racist) that were going on in my early years.

It's always lively, often touching and asks important questions about what makes a city and why they're so important -- as well as "how can a city keep 'modernizing', but not lose it's soul?" It also forced me to abandon some supposed "facts" I'd been brought up with as a New Yorker, like the idea that names of immigrants were commonly changed at Ellis Island.

The last episode, made after the rest of the documentary, is devoted entirely to the Word Trade Center; it's inception, it's building (and the complex, sometimes dark politics behind it), it's successes and failures as architecture and urban planning, and of course it's horrifying demise. While it's the most emotional of the episodes, it does feel a bit apart from the others, spending it's entire length on one very focused subject. Not a problem, other than a bit of change in style.

If one had to nit-pick it would probably be the use of hyperbole in some of the narration. I lost count of how many crises were 'the worst the city ever faced'. But that is a tiny fly in a ton of ointment.

The images, still and moving, are beautifully chosen (great seeing moving images from the turn of the century New York), the various expert talking heads are passionate and articulate, and I learned so much more than I expected.

It's interesting that film-maker Ric Burns' brother Ken has received so much more attention. I find Ric's many documentaries often the equal of Ken Burns' work, and indeed sometimes find them more emotional.