Rosh Hashanah, beginning tonight

Good wishes for the New Year...

Ken Burns, and the film "The U.S. and the Holocaust"

Modern life moves increasingly fast.  The work of the outstanding documentarian Ken Burns offers a counterpoint to such acceleration.

His films--his America-centered histories--move slowly, in the best sense of the word. Their unhurried pace allows for depth, nuance, and rounded portraits--from 1990's The Civil War, to the recent films Benjamin Franklin (2022), Hemingway (2021, co-directed by Lynn Novick), and Muhammad Ali (also from 2021, co-directed by Sarah Burns and David McMahon).

I find that Mr. Burns's films routinely stay with me--images from them, words, stories, emotions. One continues to admire the (signature) sense of orchestration:  the use of still pictures; the rare, often startling, archival films his production company manages to locate; the superb interviews, commentaries, narrations.  

Tonight, from 8 until 10:15 (Eastern time), the first installment of Mr. Burns's new documentary (co-directed by Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein) appears on PBS. The film is The U.S. and the Holocaust.  Its subsequent two episodes air later in the week. (Broadcast times may vary, depending upon location; one should check one's local PBS listings.)  I'm very much looking forward to watching the program.

Please see these links, from PBS:

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/about-the-film

September 11th

One continues to think, often, of September 11th.

One of the (many) ways to remember the catastrophe--to focus upon, reflect upon, the magnitude of the terror, the loss, and the heroism--is to read. 

As such, a few days ago, I began reading the 2019 oral history of September 11th, and its aftermath, The Only Plane in the Sky, by Garrett M. Graff (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster).

Historian Jon Meacham said, of the book, in 2019:  “This is history at its most immediate and moving. In The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff has crafted an enduring portrait of a deadly and consequential day, a day that has shaped all other subsequent days in America..."

https://www.amazon.com/Only-Plane-Sky-Oral-History/dp/1501182218/ref