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His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

When it comes to multi part documentaries, there are two categories:

1. Ken Burns’ “Civil War”; and
2. Everything else.

In the Civil War, the truly wonderful in every way Shelby Foote said something like “Abraham Lincoln has been so identified with compassion through the years, that people completely overlook how intelligent Lincoln was.”

I think the same applies to Robinson, he is so identified with his courage in breaking the color barrier, that people overlook how spectacular he was as a baseball player. He lead the league in stolen bases 2x, led the league in batting average once, led the league in OPB once. He won the MVP one time, and over his 10 year MLB career received MVP votes in eight of them. The Dodgers won the pennant 6 times over his ten seasons with one World Series title. He finished in the top five in various seasons in: doubles, triples, runs, RBI, and hits.

He had a 61+ WAR for his career if you are into that. As a rookie he led the league in stolen bases, had a slash line of .297/.383/.427 and scored 125 runs. The strange thing is that his rookie season was when he was 28 years old so he essentially didn’t play during some of his peak years from age 24-27. It’s really perplexing that such an obvious good player would not have been playing in the majors. Maybe someone has some theories they can share. Had he played those 3-4 additional years in the majors he probably has a whole lot higher totals for his counting stats and probably looks like a career 75-80 WAR guy.

Don’t mistake it, Jackie Robinson was a phenomenal baseball player, offensively, defensively, as a base runner.

The Civil War is a fine documentary, but all of Ken Burns' documentaries are good. You and I have kind of traded thoughts on this before, but I think The Vietnam War is his best. You give him actual video footage and a rock soundtrack and you really add more dimensions to the story telling.

Why do you think The Civil War is head and shoulders the best?

I may have mentioned this before but it is the opposite of the above. When I watch the Civil War I feel like I am watching battle scenes and live footage. But obviously that is not happening, it is Burns working his magic with paintings and still photos to make us believe we are watching live action. That is why I feel a Civil War is the best because of how the viewer believes that they are watching live footage.

Vietnam War was superb without a doubt. That opening scene with A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall by Bob Dynal as the song playing behind it is incredibly haunting.

On a similar note, I think my point on Civil War would also be that with a bunch of popular rock music as the soundtrack to Vietnam it is easy to draw the viewers in with familiar popular songs.

In Civil War he had to use Grand Old Flag and other “hits” like that.

If I were to rank all of the Ken Burns documentaries, I would probably rank The Civil War third behind The Vietnam War and Baseball. It's one of the all time greatest documentaries. It's just when I watch it now, it seems kind of dated. It was one of the first epic documentaries we saw in the Ken Burns style, but we've seen many since then. Also, the Civil War, like WW2, has just been done to death.

I thought about this a bit more this morning. I also believe that Burns had such fertile ground to till with Civil War. What I mean is that (and I'm not sure where I heard this - maybe in the Civil War) but that was a war where all of the participants, from general down to private, were fighting in a war with a lot of literacy by the participants. So you had all types of people involved in the war that were articulate and corresponded frequently. The language, style, and phrases that soldiers, officers, politicians, and others used was almost poetic.

All of the first hand accounts written in this wonderful language, read by world class actors, just gives the movie such a great poetic cadence the whole way through.

It comes off that way, but I'm not sure that's the truth. Over 2.5 million fought.

ALL was a bit much on my part. But you did have a lot of people from ordinary soldiers, to ordinary citizens, to the president who were very eloquent.

As I watch Vietnam again, I think on some level I rate it lower than you might is that I find it all depressing. The whole movie explores what makes American both great and flawed. It is a depressing movie.

So the material of Vietnam War is such that perhaps I rate it lower based on emotion.

In the Civil War, the good guys win, in the Vietnam War, the good guys not only lose the war, but at the end the question is, are there any good guys?

The Hawk was the good guy ICYMI.

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"Change has come to Amerika."- TFG

I kind of feel the same way about The Civil War.I've just never been that drawn to the Civil War as a topic. If I thought it was the most interesting event in American history, I would probably think the Ken Burns documentary was one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

Vietnam War was his best.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

I just finished The US and the Holocaust. Incredibly difficult to watch and obviously paints the US in a critical light, and not unfairly. Should be required viewing by high school students. Thoroughly embarrassing as some points to reflect on the prevailing US opinions at that time.

When I worked for PBS as a cameraman in the early 1990s, they played The Civil War nonstop during Pledge Drives. 12 hours at a time, that and Barney and Anne of Green Gables (worth a watch).

For the breaks we'd create similar prepackaged things where I'd focus in on a picture and just move the camera slowly. I was pretty good at it.

Prior to that it didn't occur to me it was a picture that the camera was being moved around. I'd never really thought about it.

Also Taco Bell would provide a mountain of tacos and free soda for the people like me working there.

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https://twitter.com/DrKenCast

I've probably caught about a quarter of it here and there, but have been resisting watching the full presentation for the reasons you mentioned. I suppose I'm shallow, but I'm just never in the mood to be embarrassed and disgusted.

Just want to state this for the record, but # 3 was firmly against the Nazis. Politically, he was on the right side of history, and at least two HoF insiders have revealed to me that this being on the right side of history was "the hand that pushed Harold over the fence and towards the Hall."

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I'm not in favor of Murphy getting in either. I do think that Tommy John deserves to get in as well as Curt Schilling.

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An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

It's been awhile since I watched his Vietnam doc. but I recall that i thought a lot of it was too politically slanted. Maybe I am wrong about my memory of how it portrayed the soldiers who fought in the war.

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An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

I am re watching the Civil War currently. I think Burns has received some criticism in the last 5-10 years as being sympathetic to the lost cause and/or downplaying slavery. In episode one the portion called “the Cause” is all about slavery. Also in the early episodes he highlights Douglass prescient themes about the war being the cause for freedom.

I just don’t see the criticism being valid.