September 2007 Broadcast for Ken Burns’ WWII Doc

ARLINGTON, November 6: PBS will air The War, Ken Burns’ highly anticipated seven-part
documentary series about the Second World War that he has spent the last six
years working on, in September 2007, it was announced today.

The series, directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn
Novick, explores World War II from an American perspective by following the
fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women. The War will air over two weeks, beginning Sunday, September
16—four nights the first week and then three nights the second
week—from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. In addition to the national broadcast
on PBS, The War will also air
simultaneously on the PBS High Definition Channel. PBS will repeat each episode
the night it airs, stage marathon viewings on the weekends, and launch the film
as a weekly series after its first two-week run. The series will also be
rebroadcast on PBS's World Channel following the original broadcast. A web page
will also be launched this week at pbs.org/thewar. In addition, accompanying
the series will be a companion book, written by Geoffrey C. Ward and introduced
by Ken Burns, that will be published by Alfred A. Knopf. PBS Home Video is producing
a complete DVD box set that will feature "making of" footage and an
interview with Burns and others involved in the film. The soundtrack will be
released in September 2007 by Sony BMG Legacy Recordings.

"The Second World War was so massive, catastrophic and
complex, it is almost beyond the mind's and the heart's capacity to process
everything that happened and, more important, what it meant on a human
level," said Burns. "Every person in the country was deeply affected
by this war, whether in battle, at home, at work, or in the case of
Japanese-Americans, in internment camps. By focusing on the personal stories of
ordinary Americans who had extraordinary experiences, the film tries to bring
one of the biggest events in the history of the world down to a very intimate
scale. And in the end, we all begin to see, I think, that there are no
'ordinary' lives."

"PBS has a deep and abiding respect for the history,
drama and tragedy of war," said John F. Wilson, the SVP of PBS
Programming. "It's critical that we capture the stories of the generation
that fought and lived through World War II before they are lost to us
forever. Serving our mission to
educate and inform, PBS's goal for The War
is to reach into every home and classroom—so together we can better
understand what we as a nation experienced in those difficult years and what we
as a nation accomplished."