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VHS : Empire of the Air - The Men Who Made Radio
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786304048689
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
ISBN: 6304048688
Label: PBS Home Video
Manufacturer: PBS Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: PBS Home Video
Release Date: February 18, 1997
Running Time: 100 minutes
Studio: PBS Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1992
Sales Rank: 17058
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Like a juicy page-turner, Ken Burns's two-hour documentary on the history of radio is packed with tantalizing ingredients: power, greed, broken friendships, narcissistic heroes, and tragic players. Adapted from Tom Lewis's absorbing book, Empire follows three Americans who crafted Guglielmo Marconi's discovery of radio waves into a powerful component of the 20th century: foppish inventor Lee de Forest; Edwin Howard Armstrong, the engineer's engineer; and Russian immigrant David Sarnoff, who became head of RCA. This project came between Burns's mammoth Civil War and Baseball documentaries, and he departs from him usual structure. Instead of having actors read the letters of the participants, Burns relies on narrator Jason Robards. Because the subject matter is relatively new, there's abundant information on the three men, including on-air interviews with those who knew them. Burns's ability to marry image and sound (often old broadcasts) is a wonder, making this film as poetic as it is deft. --Doug Thomas
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I was deeply saddened by the total ommission of Nikola
Tesla from this show about the radio. It is inconceivable that not once is the guy who actually invented wireless mentioned. Very shoddy research.
Tesla was awarded all of the patents that Marconi
had tried to steal from Tesla, and as everyone knows,
Lee Deforest was a hack and who basically
stole most of his ideas from Armstrong.
Thank God Burns didn't do a show about Edison being a genius or I would have ... Read More
Rating:  -
Before Ken Burns, we had books.
In our continuing devolution, our history is being digitized. And history can be distorted, too. Career historians often sense that they are fighting a continuing battle against those who would put faith into the old saying that history belongs to the victors.
But, there's another issue today: history belongs to Ken Burns. At least American history does.
And if he decides to ignore Nikola Tesla, then Tesla will be ignored. ... Read More
Rating:  -
A précis: De Forrest - Bad; Armstrong - Good; Sarnoff - Wicked.
This documentary tells the story of radio through the interlinked biographies of Lee de Forrest, inventor and self-promoter; Howard Armstrong, the engineer's engineer; and David Sarnoff, the immigrant boy who made good. It culminates in the story of Armstrong's suicide, and the ascendancy of television.
The film takes a parochial view of its subject: the lives and times of three Americans. Its agenda, beyond ... Read More
Rating:  -
I've had mixed feelings about what I've seen from Ken Burns before; in both "Baseball" and "Jazz" he spends too much time cutting from the story to a shot of a person staring off into the distance with a glint in their eye and talking in the most maddeningly vague and meaningless terms about "Gee, how wonderful and thoroughly *American* baseball is," and "Man, jazz is just something you have to *feel.*" I have no problem with reflection and emotion in a documentary, but Burns has a fatal weakness ... Read More
Rating: -
This documentary skillfully tells the story of the three men most responsible for what radio has become today. It is also the story of radio.
Burns portrays brilliant yet egocentric FM radio inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong as the centerpiece of his film. Armstrong's friendship with RCA Chairman David Sarnoff and his personal and legal troubles with Lee DeForest and later Sarnoff are really the center of the documentary.
While Armstrong's story is somewhat heartbreaking, ... Read More
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