Customer Reviews

Brooklyn Bridge

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although parts of "Brooklyn Bridge" hint at the excellent work Ken Burns would demonstrate in later works, this particular film falters in its last twenty minutes.

The Brooklyn Bridge is many stories, but it's mainly the tale of how perseverance can make an almost impossible vision take form. The Bridge took many years and several million dollars to build. It faced political and social opposition. It weathered scandals and corruption. And when it was over, it stood as a monument to mechanical brilliance and soulful aspirations. Burns only spends forty minutes on the story of theBridge's construction. He spends the last twenty minutes focusing on what the Bridge means to various scholars, poets and citizens, and this is where the film lags. Admittedly, the Bridge is important as a cultural icon, not just for New York, but for America. However, if Burns was going to devote this much time to testimonials, then the film should have been at least ninety minutes, or better yet, two hours.

When the film concentrates on the Bridge's construction it shines. Burn has carefully selected photos, drawings, contemporary newspaper accounts and personal journals of key participants in the Bridge's construction to vibrantly tell this story. He just should have spent more time on his subject. The pace of this documentary is so hurried and awkward, you can tell where Burns is skipping key parts of the history to get to the testimonials. Now that Burns is an accomplished film maker, I wish he would go back to this subject and try it again. There's still more to tell.

this review is based on my recollection of the original PBS broadcast, which I remember as being in 1983; the 100th anniversary of the opening of the bridge. if this is slightly inaccurate, so be the rest of the review.

as a mid-westerner with no experience in new york, I found the Burn's interpretation of events compelling. i was studying for my engineering degree at the time and had worked in civil projects up to that point. i was stunned to learn that the plans were mostly pictures and contained little written language. i saw for the first time how the suspension structure was actually achieved. and i understood for the first time what a marvel the erection of the bridge represented in its time. i continue to marvel, today, at the functionality of the structure. I have not seen the documentary except for the one time. i do remember the section of interviews with the bridge's contemporary cohabitants. i thought that was as important and revealing as the function of the bridge today. the film has left such an impression on me that I intend to buy a copy and share it with anyone showing the fainest interest.

While Ken Burns was getting his feet wet in the documentary film industry, he created this hour-long tidbit on the BROOKLYN BRIDGE. Relying on David McCullough's wonderful book, "THE GREAT BRIDGE" (see my review), Burns deftly takes the viewer down the long arduous road the builders and engineers had to take--over fourteen years--to get the bridge off the drawing board and into the East River.

The names of the protagonists and antagonist who either supported or stole from the coffers of the Brooklyn Bridge are familiar: John Roebling, Washington and Emily Roebling, Henry Cruse Murphy, William Kingsley, Boss Tweed, etc. And it's the story of these men and women--and their respective intrigues--that keep the film moving, as do the photographs of the various stages in the bridge's rise. Burns does a great job in keeping a liveliness to this aspect of the story. Then, in typical late 70s/early 80s fashion, the director turns his camera to the people of his time to get their impressions of the bridge. A common, though somewhat effective, technique to move from the historical elements of the subject, and show its relevance to "today's" world. It is an annoying and dated technique but it didn't bother me as much as it did some other reviewers. This is still a solid documentary--as solid as the bridge itself.

Rocco Dormarunno
Author of The Five Points

I watched this a few weeks before a trip to NY and couln't wait to go after watching. It goes over all the interesting details about it being built. Nice documentary.

For anyone who read David McCullough's excellent book, The Great Bridge, this film will be a disappointment. Obviously, there is only so much one can fit into an hour segment, but Burns could have done with more history and less noodling commentary from people on "what the bridge means to me." Unlike his excellent "The Civil War," "The Brooklyn Bridge" does not let the pictures and events speak for themselves.

In August of 2007 I was in New York on a business trip but found myself with a free afternoon. I was staying in the Wall Street area but decided to take a long trip. I took the subway to 7200 Central Park West. From there I walked all the way across the park and then down 5th Avenue to St. Patrick's Cathedral. From there I walked across the street to Rockefeller Plaza, then all the way over to Broadway, down to Times Square, and then all the way down Broadway to Fifth Avenue again, and from there to Washington Square. I took a break by visiting Cafe Espanol, which I've been visiting since first being introduced to it by my good friend Johnny Wink. After eating their paella and a delicious margarita I was recharged and ready to go again. I walked down through Soho, through Little Italy and then Chinatown. I then on the spur of the moment decided to do something that I had long intended to do but had never gotten around to: walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. So even though my feel were killing me, I made the long walk all the way over to the Brooklyn side, then turned around and then walked back. The Brooklyn Bridge has always been one of my favorite bridges; in fact, my favorite along with the Forth Bridge in Scotland, which I sadly have never seen (which I first learned about watching Hitchcock's THE 39 STEPS). The sheer beauty of the bridge has always astonished me. Walking across it was a way of sealing how I felt about it. One of my closest friends drives across it daily, something I would envy her for, except for the traffic and the living in NYC. I even took some photos, though it was too dark by the time I got there and my flash too weak. My best photo interestingly bore a striking resemblance to the very last shot in this documentary, though mine was achieved not through artistry but from using what light I had.

While Ken Burns's first documentary lacks the sophistication and smoothness of his later efforts, it is amazing how many of the elements that we associate with Burns's work was already in place. The main difference between this film and later ones is pacing. Everything feels rushed and hurried, though this may be because of limitations that were placed on it. But it doesn't have as much dramatic drive as his other films and there are some oddities, such as using David McCullough both as the narrator and an interviewee. But in so many ways the rhythm just feels off. The film works, but it doesn't work as well as his subsequent efforts.

Still, everything that we associate with Ken Burns was already in place. The use of actors to do period voices, the splendid period photos, interviewing critics and experts and employing their analysis, and the use of a primary narrator (in this case David McCullough, whom Burns would use several times again, most notably in THE CIVIL WAR). The rudiments were set. I absolutely loved the photos used in this one, especially the ones with the towers completed but the bridge itself incomplete. The film left me sufficiently interested to consider reading McCullough's book. For instance, at one point we see a train going across the bridge. There is no longer a train on the bridge, so I would like to know when the tracks were removed.

A couple of minor comments. In the clip with Frank Sinatra running across the bridge I was surprised to see that he runs like a girl. I love Frank Sinatra, but he looked pretty silly when he ran. At another point there are some shots of the Statue of Liberty while it was being constructed. Four years later Burns would release a documentary on it as well.

I just finished reading David McCullough's book "The Great Bridge, the Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge" which I bought on Amazon. Then I purchased Ken Burns' DVD. The bridge was built during the most incredible hardships, and was finished in 1883, and it is still in use today. As a native New Yorker, I am so proud of this bridge, I love to just look at it and dream.

The DVD is very informative, John Roebling's vision of a bridge scanning the two cities of New York and Brooklyn. Roebling lost his life due to a stupid mistake, getting his foot caught in a dock when a boat came in. He died of lock jaw, a horrible death from tetanus. His son, Washington Roebling, took over the planning and construction of the bridge.

A must see DVD of the wonderful and spectacular Brooklyn Bridge. I am so happy to own this DVD and will treasure it forever. And so will you!

Ken Burns produces another excellent documentary. He brings life to a tale that could be otherwise uninteresting, but that is what makes Ken Burns the master storyteller that he is. Fascinating for the whole family to watch,

Pending who you ask, this documentary may seem incomplete. However, this reviewer believes it does a handsome job for an hour-long documentary, not to mention the maiden output by Ken Burns. I first saw this special (in a heavily-edited form) as a boy of eight. I was already the world's first self-proclaimed bridge freak, and my father figured I'd be fascinated with the Brooklyn Bridge. He was probably too right. It was on the heels of this presentation that I urged my parents to escort me to the center of the bridge in July 1988. (During that excursion, I distinctly remember taking my first photograph.)

Ken Burns did rely heavily on the published writings of David McCullough (The Great Bridge) for the construction synopsis which was the subject of Part One. The most significant details of the construction process were described very well in this instance. Anybody who would wish to know about The Great Blowout in the Brooklyn Caisson or the merger of Greater New York (or how the bends initially reared its head in the same place) need only turn to other publications (or the Modern Marvels documentary). Meanwhile, we still get very adept readings of the papers left by John A. Roebling, Colonel Washington Roebling, Emily Warren Roebling, Dr. Andrew H. Smith and others. The two most significant voice contributers are (arguably) the narration by aforementioned author David McCullough and the portrayals of John Roebling and Colonel Roebling by stage actor Paul Roebling (most fitting, since Paul Roebling was a direct descendent of that ingenious bridge-building family). In 1990, Ken Burns, David McCullough and Paul Roebling would be reunited in the production of Burns' mini-series, The Civil War.

Part Two incapsulates how the Brooklyn Bridge would come to affect the people of New York (and other parts of the world) in the ninety-eight years after its completion. Aside from musical & archival snippets featuring Frank Sinatra, animated footage, pictures by Joseph Stella & Georgia O'Keefe, plus loads more, we get interview footage of McCullough, Lewis Mumford, Paul Goldberger and Arthur Miller (who also provided excellent voiceovers during Part One). That section is for the people who need to be educated as to how a work of art such as the bridge does affect people in a way that isn't strictly "utilitarian" as Arthur Miller put it.

One of my favorite lines from this presentation is a quotation from Washington Roebling stated at a rough moment in the plot, in which his father, John Roebling had died and the construction of the bridge fell on Washington's shoulders: "The prop on which I hitherto leaned had fallen. Henceforth, I must rely on myself." That line, coupled with the message of faith and perseverance should serve as a psychological message to people making big changes in their lives. (Now, I need to go back and see if McCullough put that line anywhere in The Great Bridge - )

Ken Burns made this film from David McCullogh's brilliant book on the difficulties Washington Roebling had building the Brooklyn Bridge. Ken Burns mines the archives to document the construction, but then adds a Part Two that chronicles the reaction of our culture to the fact of the bridge: high art (paintings, poems), popular culture (movies and songs, including Frank Sinatra's "good ol' Brooklyn bridge")and even ads for, among others, Singer sewing machines. The theme is that man can create something wonderful which can stand as a testament to later generations and inspire them to strive toward creating wonderful things, as Burns has in this film.