As much as it utterly galls me to admit this, the Chicago series on PBS is head and shoulders better than the one about NYC.
It moves. It’s interesting. It’s nicely shot. And David Ogden Stiers sounds like he’s actually awake.
Good job, Windy City guys!
I agree totally! I’m hugely enjoying it. The one about New York–which should have really been entitled “Manhattan Below 96th Street, Sometimes Harlem, and a Few Shots of Brooklyn”-- really dragged.
And of course, da Bronx was ignored again. We’re used to it. Go ahead, keep dissing us and we’ll go back to Westchester.
Wait, whaddya mean? The Zoo! The Van Cortlandt Mansion! The Hall of Fame! Yankee Stadium! Come back here!!
This born-and-raised Chicagoan wanted to watch it, but was daunted by the consecutive night marathon scheduling.
Had conflicts each of the 3 evenings, and considered daunting the prospect of compiling several hours of tape I would then have to wade through.
Personally, I far prefer a schedule of shorter programs on perhaps a weekly basis.
(Hoping to Heaven this thread doesn’t degrade from PBS’s “New York” vs PBS’s “Chicago” to New Yorkers vs Chicagoans)
Did anyone hear the piece on NPR this morning about how documentary-makers feel they have to conform to a restrictive “PBS-style” of filmmaking if they hope to have their films shown?
They didn’t specify this style, but I can’t help suspecting it to be the Ken Burns time-burning method of an extended shot of a turnbuckle on the Brooklyn Bridge, or the nostril of a horse’s statue at a battlefield monument, until everyone in the audience is screaming “OK I get it!” I enjoy the information I can get from documentaries, but would prefer handle my own mood management.
Since, IIRC, Ken Burns’ brother made it, “New York” was the more egregious example of this. Did we really need to hear every line from “East Side, West Side” sung slowly as possible, instead of simply being told that the Irish makeup of working-class New York would soon be replaced by Italian and Jewish immigration?
I believe WTTW is reshowing it in it’s entirety this weekend (Sat or Sun) so you may want to rethink the hours of tapes thing. It was worth it. Lots of good stuff in it.