The West a film by Stephen Ives
July 10th 2010 02:09
Original Creative Writing:
The West
Link: shop.abc.net.au/
The West
A film by Stephen Ives
ABC DVD
This twelve hour journey on film spans the history of indigenous North America and traces the triumphs and tragedies of a much maligned people. Each of the eight episodes use a combination of historic photography and contemporaneous footage of amazing places; some of the grandest scenery in the United States.
The narration is splendid, the musings and philosophical findings of wise folk are drawn upon and recited with dignity and deep spirit. There is more than one voice, others include Adam Arkin, Matthew Broderick, Keith Carradine, John Lithgow, Gary Sinise and Jimmy Smits, although Peter Coyote is the principal, and his is a most easy to listen to voice.
Dear Peter Coyote fondly remembered for recent appearance in Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave from the Grave (2005)
At Stephen Ives: Intersecting History
Stephen Ives, director and co-producer of THE WEST is quoted as saying
The myth of the West still plays a potent role in our consciousness today in how we define ourselves, and in the image we project to the world.
Broken down over four discs there are eight episodes covering a time frame starting in 1806 and shifting gradually to 1914. How America was born.
Episode 1: The People (To 1806)
Episode 2: Empire Upon the Trails (1806 to 1848)
Episode 3: Speck of the Future (1848 to 1856)
Episode 4: Death Runs Riot (1856 to 1868)
Episode 5: The Grandest Enterprise Under God (1868 to 1874)
Episode 6: Fight No More Forever (1874 to 1877)
Episode 7: The Geography of Hope (1877 to 1887)
Episode 8: One Sky Above Us (1887 to 1914)
The imagery certainly makes profound use of mythic icons.
American Buffalo charging across seemingly endless fields of grass combine with images of mists rising from valleys too beautiful to describe.
As the United States of America started to take shape, a new shape was being created for those who had lived on this land for so long already.
By the time a railroad is being forged over the new world massive change has come.
White man hunted the Buffalo to the brink of extinction and altered the way people would live in this country in a millennium.
1175 miles of railway track would cross America despite resistance from man and nature. To combine the two seaboards via rail was the dream; there was no other way to settle the country except this major industrial enterprise.
A herd of Buffalo three miles wide and ten miles long famously held up some settlers heading out west, looking for the future.
The stories told in this wonderful documentary film are those of the historians and the elders of the tribes. It is not one sided. The resentment of the indigenous tribes often led to rampages where the objective was to derail the trains at all costs.
The wounds left on a body would indicate which tribe had done the killing.
No one is apologetic, simply emphatic. Ken Burns presents many excellent documentaries on American History. The extraordinary structures such as the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Bridge through to the stories of explorers and pioneers such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Lewis and Clark, Thomas Jefferson and here the great tract of land they call The West.
Surpasses many documentaries; these lush images and thoughtful narrations call to our spirit and tug on our hearts as much as our minds.
There are countless images wielding great depth and sensibility.
I think it would be very easy to watch the episodes again and again without feeling you were covering the same ground continually. Really, there seems to be plenty to take in on each viewing. The shorter stories of incidents and individuals are easy to follow, the greater grander story of the forming country is a constant wash, not difficult to follow so much as difficult to fathom at times.
Educators will be very pleased to go through the study lesson plans available at the official website here.
A film by Stephen Ives
ABC DVD
This twelve hour journey on film spans the history of indigenous North America and traces the triumphs and tragedies of a much maligned people. Each of the eight episodes use a combination of historic photography and contemporaneous footage of amazing places; some of the grandest scenery in the United States.
At Stephen Ives: Intersecting History
Stephen Ives, director and co-producer of THE WEST is quoted as saying
The myth of the West still plays a potent role in our consciousness today in how we define ourselves, and in the image we project to the world.
Broken down over four discs there are eight episodes covering a time frame starting in 1806 and shifting gradually to 1914. How America was born.
Episode 1: The People (To 1806)
Episode 2: Empire Upon the Trails (1806 to 1848)
Episode 3: Speck of the Future (1848 to 1856)
Episode 4: Death Runs Riot (1856 to 1868)
Episode 5: The Grandest Enterprise Under God (1868 to 1874)
Episode 6: Fight No More Forever (1874 to 1877)
Episode 7: The Geography of Hope (1877 to 1887)
Episode 8: One Sky Above Us (1887 to 1914)
The imagery certainly makes profound use of mythic icons.
American Buffalo charging across seemingly endless fields of grass combine with images of mists rising from valleys too beautiful to describe.
As the United States of America started to take shape, a new shape was being created for those who had lived on this land for so long already.
By the time a railroad is being forged over the new world massive change has come.
White man hunted the Buffalo to the brink of extinction and altered the way people would live in this country in a millennium.
1175 miles of railway track would cross America despite resistance from man and nature. To combine the two seaboards via rail was the dream; there was no other way to settle the country except this major industrial enterprise.
A herd of Buffalo three miles wide and ten miles long famously held up some settlers heading out west, looking for the future.
The stories told in this wonderful documentary film are those of the historians and the elders of the tribes. It is not one sided. The resentment of the indigenous tribes often led to rampages where the objective was to derail the trains at all costs.
The wounds left on a body would indicate which tribe had done the killing.
No one is apologetic, simply emphatic. Ken Burns presents many excellent documentaries on American History. The extraordinary structures such as the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Bridge through to the stories of explorers and pioneers such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Lewis and Clark, Thomas Jefferson and here the great tract of land they call The West.
Surpasses many documentaries; these lush images and thoughtful narrations call to our spirit and tug on our hearts as much as our minds.
There are countless images wielding great depth and sensibility.
I think it would be very easy to watch the episodes again and again without feeling you were covering the same ground continually. Really, there seems to be plenty to take in on each viewing. The shorter stories of incidents and individuals are easy to follow, the greater grander story of the forming country is a constant wash, not difficult to follow so much as difficult to fathom at times.
Educators will be very pleased to go through the study lesson plans available at the official website here.
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David Jobling
