Documentary-Review.com - Review: New York: A Documentary Film

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New York: A Documentary Film (1999)
WGBH

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Director
Ric Burns
Lisa Ades

Narrator/Host
David Ogden Stiers
Paul Giamatti

People
John Steele Gordon
Kenneth Jackson
Robert A.M. Stern
Mike Wallace
Philip Bosco
David McCullough
Eli Wallach
Keith David
Allen Ginsberg
Robert Sean Leonard
Fran Lebowitz
Rudolph W. Giuliani
Daniel Czitrom

Producer
Lisa Ades
Steve Rivo
Donald Rosenfeld

Movie data: IMDB

Description

Ric Burns (brother of the famed documentarian Ken Burns) presents an exhaustive history of New York City from the settling of the area by the Dutch to the attack by terrorists nearly 400 years later. Told in a sentimental tone, Burns weaves a lyrical tale of the great metropolis that encompasses not only the city's streets, but also that of the history of America. Though around fourteen hours in length, this epic documentary presents a thoughtful, entertaining look at our relatively young country.

Collected reviews and ratings

10 Epinions.com

It’s an excellent piece of work, especially heart-rendering for those of us who have lived here through various cycles of the city. I don’t think a portrait of any other city in this country would be as colorful and entertaining as that of New York City.
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10 Entertainment Weekly | Daniel Fierman

Documentarian Ric Burns' sprawling history of New York City is goggle-eyed with love - sweet, instructive, and wildly entertaining.
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10 Amazon user reviews

For those who love NY, this series will make you fall in love with NY all over again. Its an easy, entertaining way to get a rich history of NY.
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9.0 Variety | David Mermelstein

Burns has delivered a monumental documentary series that raises the bar for this kind of work and in the process elevates our knowledge and understanding of a metropolis that is still evolving, or, as one observer rightly puts it, "always becoming."
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9.0 DVD Talk | Gil Jawetz

The history of New York City is so complicated and so layered that it would be completely impossible to sum it up in a regular-sized documentary. Filmmaker Ric Burns spent nearly a decade trying to assemble a comprehensive history of the city and came out with New York: A Documentary Film, a monumental 14 hour work that covers a tremendous amount of the nearly four hundred year history of the great city.
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