Hi this is Steve. As Cinephiles we all have our list of great filmmakers. Maybe yours

has Coraisawa, Wells, and Stanley Kubrick. Or maybe your taste tend more towards

Quintan Tarantino, Spike Lee, or the Cone brothers.

And of course there's always Alfred Hitchcock, David Leen,

John Ford, and don't forget Stephen Spielberg.

My guess is we could all have long intense discussions about that list, but there's one

filmmaker who almost never even comes up, despite the fact that in my opinion he has

made some of the most difficult, ambitious, complicated, and beautiful films in the history of the

art form.

That man is Ken Burns and his films like Jazz, Baseball, The Unforgivable Blackness, and the incredibly profound, moving, and multi-layered

exploration of the Vietnam War, are more than just television events.

They are enduring documents of the American experience.

For me, this is the art and craft of filmmaking at its highest level,

and just because these projects are documentaries made for the small screen,

does not in any way detract from the achievement of the director.

Of course, the project that really began at all was Ken Burns' nine-part 11-hour exploration into what is arguably the most important, consequential, and

shattering event in American history, the Civil War. This is without question a

magnificent piece of filmmaking, engrossing, challenging, thought-provoking, and deeply moving.

The Civil War is a master class of documentary film and a must-see for any cinephile. So if you haven't seen the Civil War,

the easiest place to find it is on our website cinephiles.net, where I highly recommend the beautifully

remastered Blu-ray.

John and I are both huge fans of this film,

...