Product Details

• Actors: Barbara Feldon, Josh Hamilton, David Ogden Stiers, Eli Wallach
• Directors: Ric Burns
• Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: PBS
• DVD Release Date: September 28, 2004
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000BITUFM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,154 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 09/23/2005

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ansel Adams, July 18, 2007

By 

John Farr - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Experience: Ansel Adams (DVD)

A captivating entry in the "American Experience" PBS series, "Adams" vividly brings to life the biographical details and working methods of this groundbreaking 20th-century photographer. An accomplished concert pianist, Adams gave up this path to pursue his vision of nature's beauty by illuminating Yosemite's Kings Canyon as it had never been seen before. With great sensitivity to Adams's process, specifically how he achieved the distinctive look of his photos, Burns handles his subject with understated reverence, profiling the artist-as-environmentalist. Adams changed forever the way we view wilderness, and this beautiful film tells us why--and why he and his legacy still matter.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, October 1, 2007

By 

K. Swanson (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Experience: Ansel Adams (DVD)

A stunningly beautiful biography.
I challenge any one to watch this and not shed tears for the beauty of this continent, and for what we have done and continue to do to it.
So many intensely fine photos of deep wilderness and sublime natural perfection matched by sensitive narration.
This film is a great work of art, and one of the most moving and gorgeous documentaries I have ever seen.
Ansel would approve...and his standards were the very highest.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Looks 10, Dance 2, July 2, 2011

By 

watchit (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Experience: Ansel Adams (DVD)

Boy am I out of step when I compare my reaction to most of the others in this thread. You see, I am reviewing the movie, not Ansel Adams, and I find Ric Burns' film cold and unmoving once one removes oneself from the power of Adams' work. Burns benefits from the Kuleshov experiment in which the intercutting of still images produces an effect unrelated to the individual shots themselves. In this case, Burns' marvelous writing, interviewing, and interview subjects go on and on about Adams and his work but there is precious little specific discussion of the works that we're seeing at the time. A few -- the moon over graveyard, moon over Half Dome -- are addressed, and that's a strength, but minimal explanation is given to Adams' technique of burning/dodging prints, his filters, his camera, and even the tonal range of B&W film. If this had been about Rembrandt we would have had a thorough explanation of his brush strokes, pigments, and process. But somehow Adams' work takes place in the realm of magic. I don't have that much of a problem with panning and scanning the photos, except that the movement seldom ties in with the narration, it's just to keep the screen alive. David Ogden Stiers' narration is delivered with boring regularity, dropping the ends of sentences as if being merely perfunctory, until he becomes annoying. Worse, the breathtaking (and undoubtedly expensive) color helicopter shots over Adams' beloved Yosemite have nothing, of course, to do with Adams (color, moving, aerial) and serve to undercut the master's work at every bank. In the end, this documentary says everything about the man but explains little of how he achieved his results.