American Experience - The Donner Party: A Film by Ric Burns [VHS]

American Experience - The Donner Party: A Film by Ric Burns [VHS]
by Ric Burns

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Actor: Amy Madigan, David McCullough, Gene Jones, J.D. Cannon, Timothy Hutton
Director: Ric Burns
Writer: Ric Burns
Producer: Bob M. McCausland
Producer: Chas Norton
Producer: Joseph Tovares
Producer: Judy Crichton
Producer: Larry LeCain
Producer: Lisa Ades
Producer: Margaret Drain
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 90 minutes
Release Date: 2001-03-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: PBS Home Video
Studio: PBS Home Video

VHS Movie Reviews of American Experience - The Donner Party: A Film by Ric Burns [VHS]

Movie Review: A Testament to Human Strength
Summary: 4 Stars

After putting this title in my Amazon Wish List I rented it from Netflix and viewed it on November 5. I remember watching it on PBS when it aired and this DVD brought to mind also the book I had just recently read called Desperate Passage. While these are actors reading excerpts from various diaries and recollections of some of the survivors of the Donner Party it still seemed so real. You can't expect a 90-minute spexcial to go into the depth a long book can as to all that the early pioneers endured just reaching the passage leading over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1846, let alone what one terrible winter did to those holed up in cabins, lean-tos, or holes dug into the snow itself. Add to that the fearful conditions the four different rescue parties had to cope with just to reach the survivors, and you get an idea of what these humans perished from, and triumphed against. The weak, tired voices you listen to, and the somber music, make this a chilling retelling of this tragedy in our history. Just as an afterthought on the timeline, I read A Terrible Glory right after finisheing Desperate Passage and was interested to learn the Battle of Little Bighorn took place only 30 years later, in 1876.

Movie Review: good movie
Summary: 5 Stars

this movie is a really good documentary. It's very detailed and tells you everything about the Donner Party and the horrible things that they went through. It might be a little boring for high school students because it's not a real life movie; meaning that it has old pictures and some scenery. However, once all of the horrible ordeals start to happen these students become very interested in it. I personally love this movie as a history teacher.

Movie Review: Horrifying and Informative
Summary: 5 Stars

The American Experience: The Donner Party Maybe you think you know the essentials about what befell the Donner Party as it tried to fight its way across the Sierra Nevada range in 1846, but chances are this masterful documentary will surprise you with little-known facts even as it freezes the blood in your veins. A superb job all around.

Movie Review: "Remember, never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can."
Summary: 5 Stars

I first saw this American Experience documentary on PBS on the night it premiered in 1992. I was riveted to my TV set from start to finish, the hour went by so quickly. I later bought the VHS tape and recently got the DVD from Amazon. The Burns brothers are excellent story tellers through their films and Ric Burns is just as much a master documentarian as his famous brother Ken. The story of the Donner Party is haunting, their tragic ordeal seemed almost as if it was predestined. This is one of the best documentaries ever made. The movie has a 'you are there' feeling to it, the actors' voices sound believable and are well matched. Even the music carries a sense of hopelessness and doom hanging like a dark shadow over the whole tale. If you like watching history on film, you definiately want to see this one. It lingers in your mind long afterwards and it might make you wonder what you would do if faced with similar awful circumstances. Some life lessons learned the hard way indeed.

Movie Review: Profound, astonishing story
Summary: 5 Stars

The fate of Donner Party is one of the most human stories I know. Everyone should have a deeper understanding of what happened at truckee lake in those horrible months to these unfortunate families. Ric Burns' documentary is one I have revisited many times.

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Summary of American Experience - The Donner Party: A Film by Ric Burns [VHS]

The Donner Party tells the story of the ill-fated party of pioneers and their doomed attempt to get to California in 1846. More than just a riveting tale of death, endurance and survival, the Donner Party's nightmarish journey penetrated to the very heart of the American dream at a crucial phase of the nation's "manifest destiny." Touching some of the most powerful social, economic and political currents of the time, this extraordinary narrative remains one of the most compelling and enduring episodes to come out of the West.

While brother Ken Burns was redefining mammoth entertainment with his public television events, brother Ric was creating tighter, more definitive documentaries such as The Donner Party, whose tragic subject has seemed more a punch line than a historical event. Yes, members of the Donner party ate human flesh when they were caught snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas just 150 miles away from the end of their 2,500-mile trip across the United States in 1846. But there's more to the story, and Burns uses the customary array of old pictures, current landscapes, and readings of historic dispatches and letters by actors (including Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, and Eli Wallach) to create a vivid portrayal of the pioneers' tough life. The heartbreaking circumstances of and miscues by the Donner party turned a common migration into one that is remembered as a landlocked Titanic tragedy. What if the snow had come one day later? What if the winter was not the worst on record? And most importantly, what if Lansford Hastings had not advertised a "shorter" West Coast route that he had never seen? Other details bring to light the human achievement of the survivors, including the intriguing fact that the women and children survived in greater number than the men. Anchored by the eerie music of Angelo Badalamenti's "Dark Spanish Symphony," the film constructs the fate of the Donner party as the gloomy side of the American dream. --Doug Thomas

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American Experience - The Donner Party: A Film by Ric Burns [VHS]

American Experience - The Donner Party: A Film by Ric Burns [VHS]by Ric Burns

Product details

VHS Movie Reviews of American Experience - The Donner Party: A Film by Ric Burns [VHS]

Movie Review: A Testament to Human StrengthSummary: 4 Stars

Movie Review: good movieSummary: 5 Stars

Movie Review: Horrifying and InformativeSummary: 5 Stars

Movie Review: "Remember, never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can."Summary: 5 Stars

Movie Review: Profound, astonishing storySummary: 5 Stars