Trenton, NJ – Ken Burns’ latest documentary, THE WAR, will air on NJN seven consecutive Thursday nights beginning Thursday, October 4, from 8 to 10 pm. The seven-part documentary series, directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who get caught up in the greatest cataclysm in human history. Six years in the making, this epic fifteen-hour film focuses on the stories of citizens from four American towns — Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and the tiny farming town of Luverne, Minnesota. Individuals from each community take the viewer through their own personal and quite often harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives and those of their neighbors as well as the country they helped to save for generations to come. Visit the NJN web site at njn.net for more information. http://www.njn.net/television/specials/war/kenburnsthewar.html

NJN COLLECTING WORLD WAR II STORIES
There are many untold stories about World War II. One of Ken Burns’s primary motivations for producing THE WAR was to capture the memories of the World War II generation who fought on the battlefront or felt the impact on the homefront. From July through October, NJN, with PBS, will collect individual war stories of the front lines and the home fronts from New Jersey veterans and their families. Individuals are encouraged to share their stories at http://www.njn.net/television/specials/war/sharestories.html

“The Second World War was so massive, catastrophic and complex, it is almost beyond the mind’s and the heart’s capacity to process everything that happened and, more important, what it meant on a human level,” said Burns. By focusing on the personal stories of ordinary Americans who had extraordinary experiences, the film tries to bring one of the biggest events in the history of the world down to a very intimate scale. And in the end, we all begin to see that there are no “ordinary lives.”

In addition to Keith David’s narration, THE WAR features first-person voices read by some of America’s greatest actors. Tom Hanks reads the voice of Al McIntosh, the editor of the Rock County Star-Herald in Luverne, Minnesota, whose weekly columns poignantly tried to explain the unexplainable to his neighbors. Other voices include Josh Lucas, Bobby Cannavale, Samuel L. Jackson, Eli Wallach, Robert Wahlberg, Carolyn McCormack, Adam Arkin and Kevin Conway.

COMPANION BOOK
Accompanying the THE WAR television series will be a companion book, written by Geoffrey C. Ward and introduced by Ken Burns that will be published by Alfred A. Knopf; Ward and Burns collaborated previously on the unexpected bestseller The Civil War. PBS Home Video is producing a complete DVD box set that will feature “making of” footage and an interview with Burns and others involved in the film. The soundtrack will be released in September 2007 by Sony BMG Legacy Recordings. As with all of Burns’s films, there will be an extensive educational outreach component and an interactive web page that provides more information on the film, the battles and related issues.

THE WAR is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, DC. Directors/producers: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Writer: Geoffrey C. Ward. Producer: Sarah Botstein. Co-producers: Peter Miller and David McMahon. Editors: Paul Barnes, Erik Ewers and Tricia Reidy. Cinematographer: Buddy Squires. Narrator: Keith David.

Corporate funding is provided by General Motors, Anheuser-Busch and Bank of America. Major funding is provided by Lilly Endowment, Inc.; Public Television Viewers and PBS; National Endowment for the Humanities; Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. Additional funding is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts; The Longaberger Foundation; and Park Foundation, Inc.

NJN is available on all New Jersey cable systems and satellite systems,
on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey, and on Time Warner Cable Channel 750 in NYC.
NJN – Uniquely New Jersey
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