About this item
"At the tiny Greenwood School in the small New England town of Putney, Vermont, its roughly 50 students, boys from the ages 11 to 17 are asked each year to memorize the Gettysburg Address. This would be a daunting assignment for any student, but the boys at Greenwood all suffer from learning differences that have made their personal, academic and social progress extremely challenging. As the students come to terms with the address's simple message of freedom, equality and democracy, they are seen to grow in self-confidence as they confront past failures and humiliations, ultimately opening the door to what Lincoln himself described as 'a new birth of freedom'. Interweaving the history of this most famous of American speeches with the contemporary journey of the boys at Greenwood, the film reveals the timeless resonance of Lincoln's words, while culminating in the triumph of the human spirit."--Container
About the Author
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost forty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz, Statue of Liberty; Huey Long; Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery; Frank Lloyd Wright; Mark Twain; Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson; The War; The National Parks: America's Best Idea; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; and, most recently, Jackie Robinson.
Future projects include films on the Vietnam War, the history of country music, Ernest Hemingway, and the history of stand-up comedy.
Ken's films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including fourteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations; and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
