A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 2007 Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Florentine Films On September 11, 2007, Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s Legacy label published a soundtrack album titled Songs Without Words: Classical Music from The War: A Ken Burns Film.   This 10-track recording was one of four Legacy records that were made as musical tie-ins to Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s seven-part documentary about the American experience during the Second World War. The other three recordings from The War’s soundtrack produced and released by Legacy are: The War: A Ken Burns Film – The Soundtrack Sentimental Journey: Hits from the Second World War – The War: A Ken Burns Film I’m Beginning to See the Light: Dance Hits from the Second World War – The War: A Ken Burns Film Legacy offered all four discs in a deluxe box set and as separate offerings; each album had a specific focus, both thematically and musically speaking, though in general terms Sentimental Journey and I’m Beginning to See the Light...

On September 23, 2007, the 300-plus member stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) aired A Necessary War, the first of seven episodes of The War: A Ken Burns Film. Produced and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, this 15-hours-long documentary series tells the story of how four American towns – Waterbury, CT, Mobile, AL, Luverne, MN, and Sacramento, CA – and their citizens experienced World War II. Written by Burns’ long-time collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward ( The Civil War, Baseball, Prohibition, and The Vietnam War ), The War is a bottom-to-top look at the Second World War as told by now-elderly members of what former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw calls “The Greatest Generation.” They are a cross-section of American society who experienced “the War” either in far-flung theaters of operation around the world or on the home front back in the States. Their stories – some of which are wryly humorous, and some of which are simply horrifying – reflect The War’s tagline: In ex...

(C) 2007 Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Florentine Films On August 21, 2007, Sony’s Legacy Recordings released The War: A Ken Burns Film – The Soundtrack, a 17-track compilation album of music from the eponymous seven-part documentary directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. The one-CD album was co-produced by Burns, Novick, Sarah Botstein, and Delfeayo Marsalis (the younger brother of jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, who served as music supervisor for The War and composed several original pieces for its score). With an eclectic mix of World War II-era performances, classical music composed many years after V-E and V-J Days, and original music written for the series, The War: A Ken Burns Film – The Soundtrack was one of four recordings dropped by Legacy Recordings and Sony Classical to coincide with the television series’ premiere on September 26, 2007. The other three records – sold separately and in a 4-CD Deluxe box set along with this album – are: ...

(C) 2007 Sony BMG Music Entertainment/Sony Legacy Records and Florentine Films On September 26, 2007, 300 or so Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member stations in the United States aired A Necessary War, the first episode of Ken Burns’ seven-part   documentary series about the American experience in World War II. A bottom-up story told mainly by the residents – civilians and military veterans – of four quintessentially American towns (Waterbury, CT, Mobile, AL, Luverne, MN, and Sacramento, CA), The War: A Ken Burns Film – unlike British ITV’s The World at War – focuses primarily on personal experiences, with more intimate reminisces about the human experience of war instead of discussions about tactics, grand strategy, and Big Power politics. The War was originally scheduled to air on September 15, 2007, but protests by Latino and Native American advocates about Burns’ emphasis on stories told by white and African American interviewees at the expense of their narrative c...

(C) 2007 Sony BMG Music Entertainment I'm Beginning to See the Light (Original 1945 Recording) On September 11, 2007, Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s Legacy label released The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War. “Dropped” to precede the premiere broadcast of Ken Burns’ The War: A Ken Burns Film, this 20-track album was one of four Sony soundtrack recordings tied in to Burns’ 14-hour-long World War II documentary. (The other discs were The War: A Film by Ken Burns – Original Soundtrack; Songs Without Words – The War; and The War: Sentimental Journey: Hits from The Second World War ) Culled from several recordings made in the 1930s and 1940s, The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War showcases some of the best jazz and swing music ever composed. Some of the greats from the Big Band era – Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Coleman Hawkins, and Benny Goodman – are hea...