Brooklyn Bridge (film)

Last updated
Brooklyn Bridge
Directed by Ken Burns
Written byAmy Stechler
Produced byKen Burns [1]
Roger Sherman
Buddy Squires
Amy Stechler
Narrated by David McCullough
CinematographyKen Burns
Buddy Squires
Edited byAmy Stechler
Music byJohn Colby [2]
Production
companies
Florentine Films
WETA-TV
WNET
Distributed by PBS
Release date
  • November 8, 1981 (1981-11-08)
Running time
58 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Brooklyn Bridge is a documentary film on the history of the Brooklyn Bridge [3] and the directorial debut of Ken Burns. [4] It was produced by Burns, Roger Sherman, Buddy Squires, and Amy Stechler in 1981.

Contents

Synopsis

The film included interviews with personalities such as The New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger and writer Arthur Miller plus film clips featuring Bugs Bunny ( Bowery Bugs ) and Frank Sinatra. It was narrated by historian David McCullough, who wrote the 1972 book the film was based on. [5] [6]

Accolades

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. [7]

Broadcast history

The film was rebroadcast nationally twice: on January 29, 1992, preceding the then-new documentary from Burns, Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, [8] and on October 21, 2002, as part of Ken Burns: America's Stories. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Burns</span> American documentarian and filmmaker (born 1953)

Kenneth Lauren Burns is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV and/or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Coyote</span> American actor, voice actor, and director

Peter Coyote is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Cross Creek (1983), Jagged Edge (1985), Bitter Moon (1992), Kika (1993), Patch Adams (1998), Erin Brockovich (2000), A Walk to Remember (2002), and Femme Fatale (2002).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoffrey C. Ward</span> American writer and historian

Geoffrey Champion Ward is an American editor, author, historian and writer of scripts for American history documentaries for public television. He is the author or co-author of 19 books, including 10 companion books to the documentaries he has written. He is the winner of seven Emmy Awards.

Albert Horton Foote Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received Academy Awards for his screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, which was adapted from the 1960 novel of the same name by Harper Lee, and his original screenplay for the film Tender Mercies (1983). He was also known for his notable live television dramas produced during the Golden Age of Television.

Jazz is a 2001 television documentary miniseries directed by Ken Burns. It was broadcast on PBS in 2001 and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Its chronological and thematic episodes provided a history of jazz, emphasizing innovative composers and musicians and American history.

William Couturié is a film director and producer, best known for his work in the field of documentary film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Gibney</span> American film director and producer

Philip Alexander Gibney is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time."

Todd Boyd, aka "Notorious Ph.D.", is the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race & Popular Culture and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Boyd is a media commentator, author, producer, consultant and scholar. He is considered an expert on American popular culture and is known for his pioneering work on cinema, media, hip hop culture, fashion, art and sports. Boyd received his PhD in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa in 1991 and began his professorial career at USC in the fall of 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. J. Cutler</span> American film director

R. J. Cutler is an American filmmaker, documentarian, television producer and theater director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ric Burns</span> American filmmaker

Ric Burns is an American documentary filmmaker and writer. He has written, directed and produced historical documentaries since the 1990s, beginning with his collaboration on the celebrated PBS series The Civil War (1990), which he produced with his older brother Ken Burns and wrote with Geoffrey Ward.

<i>The Statue of Liberty</i> (film) 1985 American film

The Statue of Liberty is a 1985 American documentary film on the history of the Statue of Liberty. It was produced and directed by Ken Burns. The film, which first aired in October 1985, was narrated by historian David McCullough.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marshall Curry</span> American film director (born 1970)

Marshall Curry is an Oscar-winning American documentary director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His films include Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Point and Shoot, and A Night at the Garden. His first fiction film was the Academy Award-winning short film The Neighbors' Window (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Ross Williams</span> American film director

Roger Ross Williams is an American director, producer and writer and the first African American director to win an Academy Award (Oscar), with his short film Music by Prudence; this film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Keane</span> Musical artist

Brian Keane is an American composer, music producer, and guitarist. Keane has been described as "a musician's musician, a composer's composer, and one of the most talented producers of a generation" by Billboard magazine.

Jonathan Sanger is an American film, television, and theater producer and director.

Marion "Muffie" Meyer is an American director, whose productions include documentaries, theatrical features, television series and children’s films. Films that she directed are the recipients of two Emmy Awards, CINE Golden Eagles, the Japan Prize, Christopher Awards, the Freddie Award, the Columbia-DuPont, and the Peabody Awards. Her work has been selected for festivals in Japan, Greece, London, Edinburgh, Cannes, Toronto, Chicago and New York, and she has been twice nominated by the Directors Guild of America.

Nina Rosenblum is an American documentary film and television producer and director and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of America. Italian Fotoleggendo magazine said Rosenblum “is known in the United States as one of the most important directors of the investigative documentary”.

Roger M. Sherman is an American filmmaker – a cinematographer, director, producer, still photographer, and author best known for his work in documentary cinema. He is a founder of Florentine Films. His most widely recognized documentaries are Alexander Calder (1998), Richard Rogers: The Sweetest Sounds (2001), Don't Divorce the Children (1989), Medal of Honor (2008), The Restaurateur (2010), Zapruder and Stolley: Witness to an Assassination (2011), his upcoming two-hour PBS special, The Search for Israeli Cuisine, The Rhythm of My Soul (2006), and The American Brew (2007). His films have won an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and two Academy Award nominations, among other honors.

Connie Field is a director of documentary features.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Hott</span> American filmmaker

Lawrence "Larry" Hott is an American academic and documentary filmmaker.

References

  1. Documentary Winners: 1982 Oscars
  2. KEN BURNS’ “THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE” - John Colby Music
  3. Brooklyn Bridge-WTTW
  4. DVD Review: Ken Burns’ Brooklyn Bridge – I Got Something To Sell You… - Thoughts From the Mountain Top
  5. "Burns, Ken; U.S. Documentary Film Maker". Museum of Broadcast Communications . Retrieved February 20, 2010.
  6. Burns, Ken. "Why I Decided to Make Brooklyn Bridge". Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved February 20, 2010.
  7. "The 54th Academy Awards | 1982". Oscars.org . Archived from the original on 2014-11-11. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  8. Goodman, Walter (January 29, 1992). "Review/Television: The Box Spouting Those Voices". The New York Times. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
  9. "PBS Launches "Ken Burns American Stories," New Weekly Series Featuring Burns's Documentaries with Commentary by the Director, Premiering September 30". June 24, 2002. Retrieved May 2, 2018.